The challenges of tomorrow's accounting
What do our everyday purchases, whether online or in a store, the turnover or profits of our local baker and those of Aventis or Google, and the budgets of France and China have in common?
Philippe Chapellier, University of Montpellier; Agnès Mazars-Chapelon, University of Montpellier; Claire Gillet-Monjarret, University of Montpellier; Emmanuelle Nègre, University of Toulouse 1 Capitole; Gérald Naro, University of Montpellier and Yves Dupuy, University of Montpellier
This contribution is based on work coordinated by Philippe Chapellier (Professor of Management Sciences at the University of Montpellier), Yves Dupuy (Emeritus Professor of Management Sciences at the University of Montpellier), Claire Gillet-Monjarret (senior lecturer at the University of Montpellier), Agnès Mazars-Chapelon (senior lecturer at the University of Montpellier), Gérald Naro (professor of management sciences at the University of Montpellier), and Emmanuelle Nègre (associate professor at the Toulouse School of Management), as part of the writing of the book "Accounting and Society: Between Representation and World Construction" published by EMS.
This book received the 2019 FNEGE Award for best management book in the collective research category, of which The Conversation France is a partner.
What do our everyday purchases, whether online or in a store, have in common with the turnover or profits of our local baker and those of Aventis or Google, or the budgets of France and China? Nothing, we might be tempted to say at first glance. However, all these categories share a fundamental identity: they correspond to a numerical and monetary representation, i.e., they can be "counted," at least in appearance, using a single, consistent numerical language.
In this respect, the few examples initially mentioned highlight how prevalent accounting language has become in our economic, social, and even societal daily lives: prices, costs, budgetary constraints, economic interpretations of performance, of all performance, are constantly invoked and publicized to explain or justify the world as it is. However, it would take a clever person to clearly define, except perhaps from a strictly technical point of view, what a price or a cost is, and even less so a profit, a budget, or an environmental "impact." The scope of this strange paradox, which consists of implicitly considering complex and elusive categories as common sense, or even obvious, is the anchor point of the book.
Essential standards
Firstly, accounting is very often understood and accepted as a perfectly standardized, comprehensive, and reliable technique for representing the real world and its institutional and organizational components. It claims to represent, for example, the total assets held by a given company at a given moment. But we still need to agree on the spatial and temporal contours and components of these assets, and on the possibility of producing a numerical image comparable to that of the assets of other companies, institutions, etc. To this end, conventions and standards must necessarily be adopted.
Therefore, representing reality in accounting terms inevitably simplifies it and thus favors certain aspects over others. In this sense, "traditional" accounting tends to favor financial aspects over societal aspects, and the interests of companies or investors over those of society. A typical illustration of this trend can be found in the use, by Internet giants, of accounting devices aimed at relocating their profits by creating a formal disconnect between their places of activity and the location of their declared profits.
No neutral role
This very topical example suggests that, while accounting's primary purpose is to represent the world, it also profoundly influences it in return. The representations it provides constantly condition the behavior of its direct and indirect users. It is on the basis of accounting management tools that managers make and justify their decisions. In this way, they determine the functioning of their organizations and, beyond that, of a wide variety of institutions and communities.
In this respect, accounting does not play the passive or neutral role to which it is sometimes confined. On the contrary, it acts as a principle for action—after all, aren't assets created in order to be used?—and contributes to the construction of the world. A key challenge is therefore to collectively lay the foundations for the accounting of tomorrow. Such accounting would seek to free itself from its current dead ends and grey areas. Beyond purely monetary and financial figures, it would make it possible to highlight essential categories that are still largely invisible, such as common goods, the environment, people, society, and so on.
Philippe Chapellier, University Professor of Management Sciences, University of Montpellier; Agnès Mazars-Chapelon, Professor Management Sciences, University of Montpellier; Claire Gillet-Monjarret, Senior Lecturer in Management Sciences, University of Montpellier; Emmanuelle Nègre, Associate Professor in Management Sciences, Toulouse School of Management Research, Toulouse 1 Capitole University; Gérald Naro, University Professor in Management Sciences, University of Montpellier and Yves Dupuy, Professor Emeritus of Management, University of Montpellier
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