What are the meaning(s) and context(s) of intellectual capital (IC) numbers? Specifically the number 42? The number which, as those familiar with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will know, was the (eventual) answer given by the gargantuan computer Deep Thought in response to “The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”. John Dumay […]
Tag: accounting
Accounting simplified, by Simon Rippon
Accounting — taking account of things — can be more pleasing if you don’t take account of some of the things. Here’s an example of that principle. Simon Rippon, former International Editor and European Editor of the publication Nuclear News, wrote an essay in their July 2009 issue. He explained that the public did not […]
Joking about accountants – a netnographical approach
Unfairly or not, some have characterised the rôle of accountants in popular culture as dull and boring. And the bottom line is that there is a plentiful stock of jokes about them. But a provisional audit of the scholarly literature reveals that researchers been extremely economical in accruing an inventory of accountancy-humour papers. In fact, […]
Accountancy in academia [3]
A partial review of the literature – Part 3 Colourful Accounting “How is the gregarious graduate to be tempted into the tentacles of the dull and the dreary?” This tricky, though perhaps not unsolvable question is posed in the paper –Beyond the boring grey: The construction of the colourful accountant, published in the journal Critical […]
Accountancy in academia [2]
A partial review of the literature – Part 2 Accountancy at the movies. As some have observed, popular cinema is an influential medium that reflects and shapes social attitudes. Bearing that in mind, how have twentieth century North American movies portrayed accountant stereotypes? To find out, Tony Dimnik (Assistant Professor at the Queen’s School of […]
Accountancy in academia [1]
A partial review of the literature – part 1. Despite criticism from some quarters, Neuroeconomics has now become a well-established field of academic study (with dedicated research departments at George Mason University, New York University, Duke University,and Claremont Graduate University). A logical extension of the field, however, remains considerably less mainstream – Neuroaccounting. To draw […]
Curious False Implements in Accounting
Some feel that accounting procedures should be considered “an iron cage” – while others see them more as a “sprawling network”. Either way, there are differences between accountants’ use of ‘Provisional Numbers’ and ‘False Numbers’. As Martha Lampland, Associate Professor in the department of sociology at the University of California, San Diego explains in a […]
Accounting songs and dance
Principles of accounting — the song from act 2 of the mini-opera “The Count of Infinity”, which premiered at the 2005 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Principles of accounting — the song-and-dance from the US Department of Defense, which “is unable to account for the use of $8.7 billion of the $9.1 billion it spent on […]
Great Circus Adventures in Accounting (2009)
The turn of the century brought a new openness to, and maybe even nostalgia and yearning for, accounting adventure, symbolized by the publication of a jaunty paper. “Juggling the Books: The Use of Accounting Information in Circus in Australia,” Lorne Cummings and Mark Valentine St. Leon, Accounting History, vol. 14, nos. 1–2, 2009, pp. 11–33 […]
Great adventures in accounting
The supposedly staid, unglamorous field of accounting is in fact packed, to some degree, with exciting adventures. But accountants rarely divulge this fact to persons outside the profession. Three monographs, all produced in Australia, document some of the adventure – and even some of the excitement. In 1967, a paper by Professor RJ Chambers, of […]