tailieunhanh - DE ECONOMIST 150, NO. 4, 2002 ACCOUNTING FOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL VALUES

As the roles progress from accounting operations to management support, the amount of value added to the organisation and the contribution made by management accountants generally increases. Roles in management information systems work across the others, supporting these functions. At the same time, we analysed the results of our survey geographically, in particular looking for differences in how the roles of financial professionals are evolving in the east and west. In our study, we defined west as primarily Anglo-Saxon markets – Australia, New Zealand, North America and the United Kingdom (respondents from continental Europe were a small part of the. | DE ECONOMIST 150 NO. 4 2002 ACCOUNTING FOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL VALUES1 BY ARJO KLAMER Summary Economic reasoning heavily relies on an outdated accounting scheme. This article contains a proposal to reconsider the conceptualisation of the traditional notions of goods and capital. The point is that to account for crucial goods in the life of humans communities organisations and societies we need to go beyond the accounting for economic capital alone and include forms of social and cultural capital. These are the capitals that generate the values that really count . social and cultural values. The issue of measurement remains acute. The argument calls furthermore for a reconsideration of the concepts of property and ownership. Key words accounting capital goods property values The proposal is to reconsider the conceptualisation of the goods that count and with that the concepts of capital value and property. The point is that we humans possess a great deal more than what standard balance sheets and national accounts account for and that we derive crucial goods and values from the possessions that are unaccounted for. Indicators like profits for organisations income and wealth for households and individuals and economic growth for national economies do not suffice for a society in which the good life counts for more than the consumption of goods and services. Other indicators are needed to account for the variety of values that constitute a good life and a good society. The proposal goes quite far and admittedly falls outside the scope of the imaginable and the possible at this point. Then again when De Economist began its appearance there was no notion of national income and a magnitude like eco- 1 With thanks to Harmen Verbruggen Eric van Damme Martin Fase and the participants in the cultural economics seminar at the Erasmus University for serious and tough comments. Arnold Heertje charged during the session that I had failed to consider Hennipman s ideas. Others