Beyond Self‐Evident: Recognising the Problematic Political Context of Accrual Accounting Adoption in South Korea

This paper responds to a recent call by researchers that we need to move beyond both advocacy of and technical arguments about the value of accrual accounting to more fully recognise the institutional forces, key change agents and the local political fields. We draw on elements of institutional theory and the practice theory of Pierre Bourdieu to explore the ‘problematic’ aspects of institutional forces, key organisational change agents and the local political field associated with the adoption of accrual accounting in the South Korean public sector. We found that accrual accounting was driven by many factors including a local financial scandal, the advocacy of a civil society group and the ambitions and the ideology of key actors. The contribution of this paper is that it shows how the practices of accounting cannot be separated from their political and personal context.     

Americanism and financial accounting theory – Part 1: Was America born capitalist?

This paper (Part 1), and two related papers (Part 2: The ‘modern business enterprise’, America's transition to capitalism, and the genesis of management accounting; and Part 3: Adam Smith, the rise and fall of socialism, and Irving Fisher's theory of accounting), explore historical links between American ideology and Irving Fisher's theory of accounting. They explain Fisher's theory as the product of America's exceptional transition to capitalism and the ideological consequences. Part 1 uses Marx's theories of the transition in England, of colonisation, and of ideology, to construct an accounting history model of America's transition to capitalism that identifies the dominant social relations of production and calculative mentalities, and uses them to predict the accounting signatures and political ideologies we should observe if the theories are correct. Parts 1 and 2 test the model. Part 3 explores the ideological consequences of America's transition, for America and financial accounting. Scholars generally assume that America was ‘born capitalist’; historians argue it became capitalist sometime from the late 18th to early 19th centuries. The model, however, identifies early farmers as ‘simple commodity producers’ who, it predicts, kept only single entry accounts of debt, and had a ‘producer’ ideology of ‘equality’ and ‘freedom’. It identifies planters and manufacturers as ‘semi-capitalists’ – part merchant capitalist and part simple commodity producer – who it predicts calculated ‘profit’ as consumable surplus, pursued the ‘simple rate of profit’, controlled only prime costs, and had an ideology of ‘individualism’ that combined the producers’ ideology with the merchants’ ‘laissez-faire’. Part 1 re-examines evidence from accounts to around the mid-19th century, which confirms that farmers were not capitalists and that even the most advanced merchants, manufacturers and planters were semi-capitalists. Part 2 searches for capitalists in the second half of the 19th century. It re-examines evidence from the accounts of the Boston Associates who historians have seen as ‘proto-industrial capitalists’; from the railroads heralded by Chandler as the beginning of ‘managerial capitalism’; and from ‘entrepreneurial capitalists’ like Andrew Carnegie who created the large corporations that conquered America from the 1880s. Their financial accounts and cost management systems reveal the same semi-capitalist mentality found in the early 19th century. Re-examination of the ‘costing renaissance’ in the 1890s and evidence from the DuPont Powder Company and General Motors from 1900 to 1920, suggests that only from around 1900, after escalating conflict between ‘capital and labour’, did the capitalist mentality appear in new management accounting systems focused on ‘return on investment’. Part 3 shows that the accounting evidence closely correlates with the history of American political ideology. It argues that Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations dominated American politics until the late 19th century because it theorised a nation of simple commodity producers and semi-capitalists. It explains the delay in America's transition compared to Britain's, and the decline in the popularity of laissez-faire from the 1880s, as consequences of this exceptional starting point. ‘Big business’ capitalism created an ideological problem for America's ruling elite, particularly the threat of socialism from around 1900 to 1920. Part 3 argues that Fisher's neoclassical theory of ‘capital’ and ‘income’, designed as a critique of Marx, responded to this problem and played an important role in undermining middle class support for socialism. Fisher said he based his theory on accounting practice, particularly double entry bookkeeping, but Part 3 shows he did not use or understand it, which divorced his accounting from reality. American history's legacy to the world, the papers therefore conclude, is a pathological theory of financial accounting.     

Institutional theory and accounting rule choice: an analysis of four US state governments' decisions to adopt generally accepted accounting principles

In this study, we use institutional theory to explore how institutional pressures exerted on four state governments (New York, Michigan, Ohio, Delaware) influenced the decision of these governments to adopt or resist the use of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for external financial reporting. We identify resource dependence as a potent form of coercive institutional pressure that was associated with early GAAP adoption. We identify three factors that may lead to initial resistance to institutional pressures for change. First, if accounting bureaucrats are not active in professional associations that promote GAAP adoption, they may miss the educational process that we believe is important to early adoption of GAAP. Second, organizational printing may impede GAAP adoption. Third, powerful interests may impede GAAP if the proposed GAAP legislation is expected to alter the existing power relationships. We found that key accounting bureaucrats in New York and Michigan used “compromise” as an initial strategic response to institutional pressures to adopt GAAP, Ohio's key accounting bureaucrat adopted a “defy” strategy, although the political leadership endorsed an “acquiesce” strategy. While Delaware initially employed a “manipulate”strategy with some success. Delaware did not adopt GAAP for external reporting until a political entrepreneur for GAAP emerged in the early 1990s. Our study suggests that all strategic responses to resist institutional pressures for GAAP adoption will ultimately fail because of the potency of the institutional pressures that result from the well organized professional accounting and governmental institutional fields.     

会计准则国际发展的利益关系分析

本文从会计准则的经济后果出发 ,讨论了会计准则制定的政治化问题 ,并以此为基础对会计准则国际发展的利益关系进行了探讨。文章探讨了国际会计准则委员会改组后的准则立项所涉及的利益关系 ,分析了欧盟、美国和澳大利亚等国采纳国际会计准则的利益所在 ,论证了会计准则的国际发展过程的政治化程序的必然性 ,指出了建设中的国际会计准则体系将主要是发达国家利益争斗的结果。本文对我国的会计准则发展战略、分析和利用国际层面的会计信息将有所裨益。     

Americanism and financial accounting theory – Part 3: Adam Smith,the rise and fall of socialism,and Irving Fisher's theory of accounting

A previous paper (Part 1) rejected the conventional wisdom that America was ‘born capitalist’ and the historians’ consensus that it had become capitalist by the early-19th century; another (Part 2) rejected Chandler's thesis that the ‘modern business enterprise’ brought a ‘new form of capitalism’ to America from the 1840s. The accounting evidence suggests that America began to make the transition to capitalism around 1900 in a period of intense conflict between ‘capital and labour’ generated by ‘big business’ from the 1880s, a process not completed until the 1920s. This paper (Part 3) examines the consequences for America's political ideology and financial accounting theory. America's exceptional transition, it argues, explains the history of its political ideology, and this history explains Irving Fisher's theory of accounting. Section A argues that America lagged behind Britain because it started from a society of simple commodity producers and semi-capitalists, which created an exceptional ideological problem for its ruling elite. Big business generated hostility from workers, farmers and small employers – expressed in labour movements, ‘populism’, socialism, and ‘progressivism’ – and created an ideological problem by contradicting the ‘independent producer’ ideology of workers and farmers, and the ‘individual liberalism’ of small manufacturers and merchants, both underwritten by Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. The paper argues that Smith's theory of price articulates as semi-capitalist accounting, which explains his popularity in America until the appearance of big business in the 1880s. Socialism and progressivism became political forces in America from 1900 to around 1920. Progressivism produced ‘corporate liberalism’, the ideological counter to socialism that corporations could be made ‘socially responsible’ by government regulation and ‘publicity’ to ensure they earned only ‘fair’ returns, but this left two problems. First, socialists argued that no profit was ‘fair’, and second, fear of the ‘labour danger’ made American financial reports secretive and conservative. Section B argues that Irving Fisher responded to these problems with a theory of accounting, which he developed as a refutation of Marx and the American brand of socialism advocated by Eugene Debs, the threateningly successful presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America. An important but neglected reason for socialism's abrupt collapse around 1920, it argues, was that the socialists lost the intellectual argument with the middle classes, and that Fisher's theory played an important role in this defeat. Fisher was a vigorous self-publicist, strongly influenced the teaching of economics and accounting in the universities and, the paper argues, changed the language of American accounting. Fisher claimed that accounting practice supported his theory of ‘capital’ and ‘income’, but the paper shows he did not understand double-entry bookkeeping or the accountants’ ‘cost theory of value’, and therefore divorced accounting from the reality of business transactions. As his theory underlies the FASB's framework, the paper concludes that Fisher's legacy to the world is a pathological theory of financial accounting.     

论大学生社会主义核心价值体系教育的实践层面

社会主义核心价值体系是社会主义意识形态的本质体现,大学生应努力使自己成为社会主义事业的合格建设者和可靠接班人。在高校对大学生进行社会主义核心价值体系教育,应成为高校思想政治教育的核心内容。对大学生社会主义核心价值体系教育的实施,要在基本原则规范下,从大学生的学习、生活、成长和成才四个方面的实践教育入手,切实予以落实保障。     

The limits of postmodernism in accounting history: The Decatur experience

This paper presents a response to Miller and O'Leary's (1994) study of the factory modernization at Caterpillar's Decatur plant and the role of accounting and other expertises in constituting subjectivities. The research draws extensively from interviews with workers in Caterpillar's Decatur plant to develop a defense of historical materialism against postmodern interpretations of managerial accounting practices that abandon the concepts of class, ideology, and social structure.     

网络环境下思想政治理论课研讨式教学模式的思考

网络环境下,高校思想政治理论课教学面临全新的机遇和挑战.为了充分利用机遇和应对挑战,高校思想政治理论课教师要不断创新教学方法.探索以学生为中心,在将科学发展观融人马克思主义基本原理教学体系的过程中,创新实践研讨式教学模式.该教学模式具有传统单一教学模式不可比拟的系统性优势,应积极探索和实践.     

The Effect of the Mandatory Adoption of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on Executive Compensation

This study investigates empirically the effect of corporate governance principles on executive compensation and firm performance prior to and after the adoption of the first Greek Law on corporate governance. Prior to the adoption of the law, managers were not compensated in line with their performance. Since its introduction, a significant link has been observed between executive compensation and company performance as measured by accounting measures of performance. Following the adoption of corporate governance principles by law, the main mechanism that controls executive compensation is the election of independent non-executive board members. The results are robust to alternative accounting measures of performance.     

The Impact of Western Europe on Accounting Development in Tsarist Russia Prior to 1800

Ubiquitous economic, social and political factors shaped the development of commerce in Tsarist Russia prior to 1800. Trade with the Hanseatic League might have been expected to have brought a concomitant modernization of accounting techniques in the State of Muscovy. However, the economic backwardness in which merchants operated, their virtual illiteracy, deep conservatism and traditional ways significantly delayed the adoption of superior European accounting concepts and practices, including double entry, in spite of Tsarist edicts to the contrary. Accounting literature, an important channel for dissemination of accounting ideas, first appeared in the Russian language in the eighteenth century, consisting in the main of translations of French and German works.     

Western management accounting and the economic reforms of China

As China has experimented with economic reforms during the last decade, new management systems designed to facilitate these reforms have been implemented. This papershow how the recent adoption of Western management accounting methods by many state-owned Chinese enterprises has played an integral and demonstrable role in the new management systems and in the economic, social and political reforms of the country.     

A socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics: The accounting annual report of China Mobile

Since the economic opening reform in the 1970s, China has undergone significant ideological change that has shifted the country’s focus from a planned economy to a market economy. The co-existence of a market economy with a socialist political regime offers a unique opportunity to explore the role of accounting in contemporary China. Using critical discourse analysis, we have analysed the production, distribution, and consumption of a leading Chinese SOE’s annual report that has a dual readership (i.e. Chinese and Western). We demonstrate that accounting reflects and helps naturalise the competing ideologies of a global market economy with strong government control.     

Review and extension of Bhattacharyya's Modern Accounting Concepts in Kautilya's Arthasastra

This is a discussion of the theoretical aspects of accounting as they emerged in India during the Maurya period (c.321 BC to c.184 BC) in Kautilya's Arthasastra (c.300 BC) - the very first known treatise to deal with accounting aspects in the history of our discipline. Pertinent evidence can be found in an article by Choudhury (1982) and in Bhattacharyya's (1988) book, Modern Accounting Concepts in Kautilya's Arthasastra. This book, hardly known in Western accounting circles, claims that Kautilya's ancient treatise anticipated a series of 'modern' accounting concepts. These claims are here examined on the basis of the two standard translations of the Arthasastra, the original one by Shamasastry ([1915] 1967) and an extended one by Kangle (1963). Apart from some background material, the focus of this paper is on three aspects: (1) Kautilya's various types of income (including aspects of accounting for price changes, the distinction between real and fictitious holding gains, etc.) and their possible relation to modern concepts; (2) his classification of expenditures or costs (including possibly fixed vs variable costs); and (3) his notions of capital. These aspects indicate a surprisingly long-standing need for and possible use of relatively sophisticated accounting concepts. Thus Choudhury and, particularly, Battacharyya must be praised for drawing the attention of Western accountants to different aspects of an important ancient treatise. Yet Bhattacharyya (1988) deserves to be critically investigated and interpreted, not only from a Western point of view but also from the perspective of modern price-level accounting.     

论高校思想政治教育教学实践的三类价值话语

高校思想政治教育教学实践中,有三类价值话语尤为值得重视,那就是马克思主义价值话语、西方"普世"价值话语以及中国传统文化价值话语。在教学过程中,一定要坚守社会主义意识形态的价值取向,凸显马克思主义价值话语在高校思想政治教育教学实践的核心地位,还要将解构和批判西方"普世"价值话语与鉴别和梳理中国传统文化的价值话语作为思想政治教学的重要任务。     

少数民族大学生思想道德状况分析及教育对策——以呼伦贝尔学院为例

在新形势下,由于市场经济体制的负面影响、高等教育改革的浪潮、互联网的冲击以及学生自身道德心理的不成熟等原因,我院少数民族大学生政治思想上存在功利倾向,在道德评价和实践上存在偏差。因此,要深入了解少数民族学生思想实际,正确把握他们的个性特点,改进德育方法和途径,引导少数民族学生树立正确的世界观、人生观和价值观,形成良好道德品质。     

Constructing meaning in the service of power: An analysis of the typical modes of ideology in accounting textbooks

This paper provides an analysis of the typical modes of ideology in introductory financial accounting textbooks and training materials. Drawing on Thompson's [Thompson JB. Ideology and modern culture: critical social theory in the era of mass communication. Cambridge: Polity Press; 1990] schema concerning the typical linguistic modes through which ideology operates, this research suggests that the operation of ideology is apparent within educational accounting texts, with particular strategies being more evident than others: in particular, the strategies of universalization, narrativization, rationalization and naturalization. Given the predominantly technical nature of introductory financial accounting textbooks and training manuals, the modes of ideology identified in the texts were often quite subtle; more specifically, the ideological characteristics displayed in each of the six texts analyzed were often expressions of implicit or taken for granted assumptions.     

Financial reporting for sustainable development: Critical insights into IFRS implementation in the European Union

By adopting a political economy perspective to accounting, this paper provides an overall post-implementation assessment of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption relative to the European Union’s (EU’s) fundamental goal of sustainable development. The paper questions the consistency of the International Accounting Standards Board’s business view with the EU’s and provides some critical insights into the potential long-run effects of IFRS on the European economy and society. Therefore, it raises several doubts about unquestioned accounting standardization at a global level and makes some suggestions for future policymaking and research.     

Some Implications of IFRS Adoption for Accounting Education

This paper addresses challenges accounting educators face in their teaching following the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We use Australia as an example of a developed nation and 2005 adopter of IFRS, the United States as a potential adopter, and Romania as an emerging economy with a history of harmonisation and adoption initiatives. Accounting educators globally need to strengthen their engagement with the principles‐based approach to teaching IFRS. Teaching resources, educational research and Continuing Professional Development activities related to a principles‐based approach to teaching IFRS are necessary for educators to enrich the learning experience of students given the move from a rules‐based to a principles‐based set of accounting standards.     

Why Do Politicians Intervene in Accounting Regulation? The Role of Ideology and Special Interests

Politicians frequently intervene in the regulation of financial accounting. Evidence from the accounting literature shows that regulatory capture by special interests helps explain these interventions. However, many accounting rules have broad economic or social consequences, such as their effects on income distribution or private sector subsidies. The perception of these consequences varies with a politician's ideology. Therefore, if accounting rules produce those consequences, ideology plausibly spills over and explains a politician's stance on the technical accounting issue, beyond special interest pressure. We use two prominent U.S. political debates about fair value accounting and the expensing of employee stock options to disentangle the role of ideology from special interest pressure. In both debates, ideology explains politicians’ involvement at exactly those points when the debate focuses on the economic consequences of accounting regulation (i.e., bank bailouts and top management compensation). Once the debates focus on more technical issues, connections to special interests remain the dominant force.     

对科学发展观指导下的高校思想政治教育工作的探讨

科学发展观是推进我国经济社会全面发展的指导思想,也是加强和改进大学生思想政治教育的指导方针。本文通过分析高校思想政治教育存在的普遍问题,提出了在科学发展观指导下的思想政治教育工作的新思路,新途径。