Social Responsibility of Accounting

Abstract

Historical and theoretical inquiries into the function of accounting have provided fruitful insights into social responsibility of accounting, which is, and should be, based on accounts kept through everyday accounting activities. However, at the current stage of capitalist accounting, keeping accounts is often regarded as merely a preparatory process for creating financial statements at the end of an accounting period. Thus, discussions on the social responsibility of accounting tend to concentrate on the accounting information provided solely by these financial statements. As a criticism of this tendency, this study addresses the responsibility of accounting by properly identifying and locating the original and essential function of accounting: the function of controlling and recapitulating economic processes by keeping accounts. The concepts of accountability and multi-measurement accounting models are also discussed with a view to expand the responsibility of accounting.