公共利益在会计工作中的作用
发布时间：2016-05-03 16:16
Chapter I Introduction介绍
由于当英国工业革命发生在18世纪，会计业发展迅速，在现代社会中的会计专业的地位和重要性正在增加（帝舵，，2013年）。经过200多年的发展，取得了会计的会计准则，会计职能，外部监管系统增加和改善更大程度，会计核算方法和工具，以及其他许多方面（Zeghal和Mhedhbi，2006）。在会计行业的发展过程中，有很多因素对发展和会计成熟的影响，包括公共利益，企业管理的需求，科学技术，政治，法律和文化因素等，其中公共利益是影响会计行业发展的最重要因素之一。冈本（2014）认为，维护公共利益是会计行业生存的基础。都铎王朝（2013年）还提到，会计行业需要有责任在公众利益“行事。由此可以看出，为会计行业公共利益的重要性，社会公共利益发挥会计行业的发展具有十分重要的作用。研究本文的目的是分析公共利益的会计自18世纪起的作用，分析公共利益的影响发展和会计行业的成熟度如何。Since the 18th century when the British Industrial Revolution happened, the accounting industry developed rapidly, the status and importance of the accounting profession in modern society was increasing (Tudor, 2013). After more than 200 years of development, accounting gained a greater degree of increase and improvement in accounting standards, accounting functions, external supervision system, accounting calculation methods and tools, as well as many other aspects (Zeghal and Mhedhbi, 2006). In the development process of the accounting profession, there are many factors which have an impact on the development and maturation of accounting, including public interests, business management needs, science and technology, political, legal and cultural factors, and so on, of which public interests is one of the most important factors affecting the development of the accounting profession. Okamoto (2014) believed that safeguarding public interests is the basis of the survival of accounting profession. Tudor (2013) further mentioned that accountancy profession takes the responsibility to act in the public interests". Thus it can be seen the importance of public interests for accounting profession, public interests plays a very important role in the development of accounting profession. The research purpose of this dissertation was to analyze the role that public interests play in accountancy since 18th century, analyzing how public interests impact development and maturity of accounting industry.
Accountancy is an economic management activity, it takes currency as the main unit of measurement and uses vouchers, such as invoice acquired when economic business happens as the basis, it uses a series of specialized methods to conduct continuous, systematic, comprehensive, integrated accounting and supervision towards economic activities of enterprises or organizations (Oulasvirta, 2014). In the 18th century, with the start of the industrial revolution, accountancy gained rapid development and modern accounting system began to form (Crawford, et al., 2014). After World War II, affected by the socio-political, economic and technological environment, the traditional external accountancy was enriched and improved constantly, financial accounting work became more standardized, generic and standardized (Nobes and Stadler, 2013). Today, accountancy has become an important industry relates with modern society and economy (Cortese and Irvine, 2010), followed are relevant facts. First of all, accountancy helps to improve enterprise management and economic efficiency, it also helps to assess the fulfillment of economic responsibility of corporate management (Nobes and Stadler, 2013). Then, accountancy helps to provide information about the financial position, operating results and cash flow of an enterprise to improve corporate transparency, standardize enterprise behavior and protect public interests (Hu, Li and Zhang, 2014). Finally, accountancy helps to assess the situation of corporate management’s fulfilling their economic responsibility. When listed companies receive investments from the public, including all investors and creditors, they have the responsibility to make rational use of resources, strengthen management, improve economic efficiency, accept the assessment in accordance with their intended development objectives and requirements (Nobes and Stadler, 2013). Accounting information is useful in assessing the performance of an enterprise, as well as assessing the fulfillment of economic responsibility of the corporate management. For example, for corporate investors, in order to understand the annual results of operations of an enterprise, they need to compare the net profit in income statement with the previous year, so as to reflect the profitability trends of the enterprise; it is also needed to be compared with other companies in the same industry to reflect the company’s status in competing with other companies in the industry, thereby assessing the corporate management’s fulfilling their economic responsibility. Through the assessment for corporate management, it can reflect whether a corporate management is qualified, which helps to maintain interests of stakeholders and public interests.
Before the industrial revolution, accountancy was mainly used to record operating conditions of enterprises or organizations, and after the industrial revolution, especially entering the 20th century, with the popularity of the organizational form of joint-stock enterprises worldwide, as well as the high development of financial markets, corporate stakeholders became more diversified (Cortese and Irvine, 2010), organizational structure became more complex, the significance of accountancy is not only confined to corporate management, it is more reflected in improving corporate transparency, standardize enterprise behavior and protect the public interest (Wehrfritz and Haller, 2014), Hu, Li and Zhang (2014) have even pointed out that the protection of public interests is a cornerstone of modern accountancy. From the time when accounting information generated, it makes generation process and results of accounting information scientific, rational, real, credible (Weetman, 2006). However, in real economic life, there are many political factors, economic factors and human factors which influence or even decisively impact quality of accounting information, resulting in that accountancy fail to perform their duties of protecting public interests (Forst, 2014). Corporate management's malpractices interfere with normal financial order and undermine the public's confidence in joint-stock companies, which is a violation of public interests. For example, the false accounting information cases happened continuously in the U.S. since the second half of 2001 were the results of the impact of economic factors and human factors on the quality of accounting information in real life (Gómez-Biscarri and López-Espinosa, 2008). In 2002, in addition to the accounting fraud cases of WorldCom, Xerox, Merck in American stock market, the global communications company, Kmart department store chain, Tyco International, Adelphia Company were engaged in financial fraud and tax evasion cases (Patro and Gupta, 2012). Operators of these companies manufactured false accounting information, so that the quality did not meet the objective requirements, many accounting treatment and operation were not in compliance with accounting rules, and they failed to disclose to investors according to regulations, making accounting intermediary organizations such as Arthur Andersen, KPMG involved in financial fraud of the above-mentioned companies. These cases of distortion of accounting information not only greatly damage the enthusiasm of investors, but also make the public have ever stronger requirements for the authenticity of quality of accounting information than ever. Both the government and the public are aware of the need to strengthen corporate governance through accountancy, so as to effectively safeguard public interests (Henders and Ostwald, 2014).
1.2 Research significance
Accounting profession is closely related to economic activities, and therefore to understand the development of accountancy since the 18th century, it must understand the history and characteristics of the world economy during this period. From the perspective of industrial development and economic development, there were three times of large revolutions occurred since the 18th century. The first industrial revolution in Britain in the 18th century created the era of replaced manual labor with machines (Carnegie and O’Connell, 2014). The second industrial revolution happened in the U.S. in the second half of the 19th century allowed new technologies and new inventions to appear continuously, and they were quickly applied to industrial production and greatly promoted the economic development (Murphy, 1999). The third revolution happened in the U.S., it took invention and application of atomic energy, computer, space technology and bio-engineering in the 20th century as the main indicators of the technology revolution. The three periods of the revolution were not just technological development, they also greatly improved the productivity of human society and brought changes to other aspects of human society (Aljifri and Khasharmeh, 2006). Firstly, the industrial revolution prompted the realization of social production, resulting in the generation of joint-stock enterprises, the enterprise system has become the most important form of business organization in today's society (Schultz and Lopez, 2001). Secondly, the industrial revolution improved the social productive forces and accumulated large amounts of social wealth to promote the development of modern financial industry. Finally, the industrial revolution deepened economic ties among all countries of the world, leading to the arrival of the era of globalization. Every time of the industrial revolution brought enormous social impact, challenges and opportunities, in each period, content and characteristics of public interests were also constantly changing, governments and professional organizations improved the methods, guidelines and legal aspects of accounting in order to protect public interests (Locke and Perera, 2001). Public interests has a significant impact on the development of accountancy since the 18th century (Carnegie and O’Connell, 2014), the research purpose of this dissertation was to analyze the role that public interests play in accountancy since 18th century, analyzing how public interests affect development and maturity of the accounting profession to bring forward opinions on the role that public interests play in accountancy in future.
Since the industrial revolution happened in Britain in the 18th century, accounting industry has achieved a rapid development, accountancy has gained a greater degree of increase and improvement in accounting standards, accounting functions, external supervision system, accounting calculation methods and tools, as well as many other aspects (Carnegie and O’Connell, 2014). In the development process of accounting profession, there are many factors which have an impact on the development and maturation of accountancy, including public interests, business management needs, science and technology, political, legal and cultural factors, and so on, of which public interests is one of the most important factors affecting the development of accounting profession (Locke and Perera, 2001). The research question of this dissertation was: what role that public interests have played in the process of the development of accountancy since the 18th century?
1.4 Framework of the dissertation
This dissertation includes four parts. The first chapter introduces the research background, significance, research questions and framework of the dissertation. The second chapter first of all discusses the content and characteristics of public interests, as well as criteria in accounting field for judging whether a behavior is in line with public interests. Then, it recalls the process of the development and improvement of accounting for protecting public interests during the period of industrial revolution. Chapter Three is discussion. the author was based on the above-mentioned literatures to summarize the role that public interests play in the development of accounting, analyzing and commenting it to point out how the future accounting systems develop to better respond to potential challenges in order to better safeguard public interests in future. The last chapter IV summarizes the full text, pointing out the limitations and directions of further researches.
Chapter II Literature Review
2.1 Public interests
2.2 Development of accountancy during the first industrial revolution
2.2.1 Compromise public interests in 18th century
2.2.2 Protection of development of accountancy for public interests
2.2.2.1 Financial disclosure system
2.2.2.2 Independence of accounting profession
2.2.2.3 Corporate external financial audit system
2.3 Development of accountancy during the second industrial revolution
2.3.1 Imperfect accounting system
2.3.2 Improve competitiveness
2.3.3 Information disclosure
2.3.4 Accounting control
2.3.5 Unify accounting Standards
2.3.6 Comparison of accounting standards of different countries
2.3.7 Strengthen the supervision towards accountants
2.4 Technological revolution
2.4.1 Impact of public interests on accountancy during the technological revolution
2.4.2 The birth of modern management accounting
2.4.3 Management and supervision of Certified Public Accountants
2.4.3.1 Improve skills and ethics of accountants
2.4.3.2 Enhance the independence of accountants
2.4.3.3 Strengthen supervision towards accountants
2.4.4 Information disclosure
2.4.4.1 Improve the quality of information
2.4.4.2 Convergence of accounting standards
Chapter III Discussion
3.1 Increasing accounting functions
3.2 Management and supervision of accountants
3.3 Management of information disclosure
3.4 Roles of public interests in development of accounting
3.5 Challenges in the future
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Chapter ⅣConclusion总结
Safeguarding public interest is the foundation of the existence of accounting profession, since the 18th century 9 Jones, human society has undergone two industrial revolutions and a technological revolution (Jones, 2010), the three revolutions brought great human society changes, so in each period, content and features of public interests were also constantly changing, governments and professional organizations have made a lot of development for accounting methods, guidelines and legal aspects, in order to protect public interests, accounting profession has made great progresses in accounting functions, supervision and management of accounting personnel, accounting information disclosure. In 2008, the International Federation of Accountants developed the public interests framework of accounting profession, the framework proposes three criteria to judge whether an accounting policy or activity is in line with public interests, including: whether it takes the overall social cost-benefit into considerations; whether it follows democratic principles and procedures; whether it respects cultural and ethical differences (Jermakowicz, Reinstein, and Churyk, 2014). It can be found through analysis that since the 18th century, the progress of accounting functions, supervision and management of accounting personnel, accounting information disclosure were in line with the above three criteria, it also shows that the development of accounting since the 18th century is for the protection of public interests, while these advances are indeed meet the standards of protecting public interests. Finally, it is worth noting that despite accounting system has been developed and it is relatively complete, the financial crisis breaking out in 2008 could still reflect the deficiencies of current international accounting system in protecting public interests. In order to better safeguard public interests, accounting in future needs to be further improved in accounting functions, supervision and management of accounting personnel, accounting information disclosure.
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