Damned if you do, damned if you don’t: Conflicting perspectives on the virtues of accounting for people

It is no surprise to learn that to date accounting for people has attracted very little attention from critical accounting researchers. From their standpoint there is little in the history of accounting theory and practice that has served the interests of labour well. A worrying consequence of this lack of engagement with accounting for people is that potentially valuable insights may be disregarded by fiat. The recent emergence of human capital accounting as an element of the broader intellectual capital field is identified here as meriting closer scrutiny and debate. Informed by a wide ranging literature review, together with some of the findings of a study of the issues associated with accounting for employee health and wellbeing, viewed as a further key constituent of human capital, the paper argues that a virtuous accounting intervention, in the form of a critical accounting for people, might now be pursued to the benefit of both people and the broader society.

[1]  A. Hopwood,et al.  On trying to study accounting in the contexts in which it operates , 1983 .

[2]  John Dumay,et al.  Intellectual capital measurement: a critical approach , 2009 .

[3]  J. Mouritsen,et al.  Critical intellectual capital , 2009 .

[4]  R. Roslender,et al.  Towards recognising workforce health as a constituent of intellectual capital: Insights from a survey of UK accounting and finance directors , 2012 .

[5]  M. Malone,et al.  Intellectual Capital: Realizing Your Company's True Value by Finding Its Hidden Brainpower , 1997 .

[6]  Sven C. Voelpel,et al.  Guest editorial: becoming critical on intellectual capital , 2006 .

[7]  Nick Bontis,et al.  On the 'Essential Condition' of Intellectual Capital: Labour! , 2005 .

[8]  R. Gray.  The social accounting project and Accounting Organizations and Society. Privileging engagement, imaginings, new accountings and pragmatism over critique? , 2002 .

[9]  J. Dillard,et al.  Reflections on the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Project , 2003 .

[10]  V. Beattie,et al.  Intellectual Capital Reporting: Academic Utopia or Corporate Reality in a Brave New World? , 2010 .

[11]  Robin Fincham,et al.  The management of intellectual capital and its implications for business reporting , 2003 .

[12]  Robert S. Kaplan,et al.  Management accounting (1984-1994): development of new practice and theory , 1994 .

[13]  Lee J. Cronbach,et al.  Psychological tests and personnel decisions , 1958 .

[14]  J. Roos,et al.  Intellectual Capital: Navigating in the New Business Landscape , 1997 .

[15]  Christine Cooper,et al.  A discussion of the political potential of Social Accounting , 2005 .

[16]  Eric G. Flamholtz.  HUMAN RESOURCE ACCOUNTING: A REVIEW OF THEORY AND RESEARCH1 , 1974 .

[17]  R. Kaplan,et al.  The balanced scorecard--measures that drive performance. , 2015, Harvard business review.

[18]  W. Chua.  Radical Developments in Accounting Thought , 1986 .

[19]  S. Gallhofer,et al.  BEYOND ACCOUNTING: THE POSSIBILITIES OF ACCOUNTING AND “CRITICAL” ACCOUNTING RESEARCH , 1997 .

[20]  R. Roslender,et al.  Intellectual Capital: Who Counts, Controls? , 2003 .

[21]  P. Böckerman,et al.  What makes you work while you are sick? Evidence from a survey of workers. , 2010, European journal of public health.

[22]  Karl-Erik Sveiby.  The Intangible Assets Monitor , 1997 .

[23]  R. Roslender,et al.  Employee wellness as intellectual capital: an accounting perspective , 2006 .

[24]  Radu Mareş,et al.  The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights , 2012, International Union Rights.

[25]  R. D. Hines,et al.  Financial accounting: In communicating reality, we construct reality , 1988 .

[26]  L. H. Nielsen,et al.  A Guide for Intellectual Capital Statements - A Key to Knowledge Management , 2000 .

[27]  Jan Mouritsen,et al.  Reading an intellectual capital statement: Describing and prescribing knowledge management strategies , 2001 .

[28]  T. Chandola.  Stress at work , 2010 .

[29]  D. O'Donnell.  Theory and Method on Intellectual Capital Creation: Addressing Communicative Action through Relative Methodics , 2005 .

[30]  R. Roslender,et al.  Accounting for People: A real step forward or more a case of wishing and hoping? , 2009 .

[31]  R. Roslender,et al.  The interrelations between health and Intellectual Capital , 2007 .

[32]  Christine Cooper,et al.  Accounting for human rights: doxic health and safety practices - the accounting lesson from ICL , 2010 .

[33]  J. Mouritsen,et al.  Valuing the future: intellectual capital supplements at Skandia , 2001 .

[34]  Frédéric Dalsace,et al.  Brand Magic: Harry Potter marketing”, Harvard Business Review, février 2007, vol. 85, n° 2 , 2007 .

[35]  David Carter,et al.  Accounting for the general intellect : immaterial labour and the social factory , 2011 .

[36]  L. Edvinsson.  Developing intellectual capital at Skandia , 1997 .

[37]  R. Kaplan,et al.  Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes , 2003 .

[38]  S. Gallhofer,et al.  Enabling accounting: the way forward? , 1997 .

[39]  S. Gallhofer,et al.  Accounting and Emancipation: Some Critical Interventions , 2002 .

[40]  R. Roslender,et al.  Theoretical perspectives on intellectual capital: A backward look and a proposal for going forward , 2011 .

[41]  J. Mouritsen,et al.  Constructing intellectual capital statements , 2001 .

[42]  Brian E. Becker,et al.  The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance , 2001 .

[43]  R. Kaplan,et al.  PUTTING THE BALANCED SCORECARD TO WORK , 1993 .

[44]  J. C. Naylor,et al.  A table for determining the increase in mean criterion score obtained by using a selection device. , 1965 .

[45]  Robin Fincham,et al.  Thinking critically about intellectual capital accounting , 2001 .

[46]  L. Parker,et al.  Corporate Social Reporting: A Rebuttal of Legitimacy Theory , 1989 .

[47]  R. Gray,et al.  It was 20 years ago today: Sgt Pepper,Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, green accounting and the Blue Meanies , 2012 .

[48]  R. Roslender,et al.  Accounting for the worth of employees: A new look at an old problem , 1992 .

[49]  Ulf Johanson,et al.  Current development in human resource costing and accounting: Reality present, researchers absent? , 1998 .

[50]  Eric Flamholtz,et al.  Towards using organizational measurements to assess corporate performance , 2009 .

[51]  Eric Flamholtz,et al.  Human Resource Accounting: Advances in Concepts, Methods and Applications , 1999 .

[52]  Karl-Erik Sveiby.  The New Organizational Wealth: Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets , 1997 .

[53]  R. Roslender.  Accounting for the Worth of Employees: Is the Discipline Finally Ready to Respond to the Challenge? , 1997 .

[54]  J. Guthrie,et al.  Reflections and projections: A decade of Intellectual Capital Accounting Research , 2012 .

[55]  S. Hart,et al.  Taking the customer into account: transcending the construction of the customer through the promotion of self-accounting , 2010 .

[56]  Isa Jensen Kjærgaard,et al.  Intellectual capital statements: the new guideline , 2003 .

[57]  Eric Flamholtz,et al.  Human resource accounting , 1988 .

[58]  V. Beattie,et al.  Value Creation and Business Models: Refocusing the Intellectual Capital Debate , 2013 .

[59]  Jan Mouritsen,et al.  Intellectual capital and the 'capable firm': narrating, visualising and numbering for managing knowledge , 2001 .

[60]  R. Hermanson.  Accounting for Human Assets , 1986 .

[61]  Peter Baladi,et al.  Navigating with new managerial tools , 2000 .