ISBN : 9782923710990
Year of publication : 2016
Nombre de pages : 122
Langue : Anglais#French</trp-gettext#!trpEnglish#
Accounting is an essentially social activity. Its influence extends far beyond the world of private profit calculations. It defines the notion of return at the private level as a measure of profitability, and also at the social level, where accounting concepts are used to guide collective decisions. Our era of deficit fighting is built around an accounting concept that has been elevated to the status of a new Leviathan. In private enterprise, the new understanding of profit is used to justify pay cuts or layoffs.
In our society, accounting, and especially auditing, has been elevated to the status of a profession, with all the necessary apparatus to support this status: guilds, curricula, examinations and jargon abstruse to the general public. From his position as a specialist, the accountant can issue rulings that will have an effect on society as a whole, just as lawyers and doctors do.
For these and many other reasons, our understanding of accounting needed to be given a special focus, a sociology, just like other social activities.
Holder of a master's degree in French studies and a doctorate in accounting, the author has also published a series of scientific articles, many of which emphasize qualitative approaches with a sociological flavor. Author or co-author of a dozen essays on a variety of subjects, but never straying far from politics in the broadest sense, i.e. sociology, Gaétan Breton is Professor of Accounting at UQAM.
