Editorial

Citation

Evans, S. (2016), "Editorial", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 29 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-06-2016-2605

Editorial

Article Type: Literature and Insights From: Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Volume 29, Issue 6.

Looking forward to the past

In the wild days of my studies for a Bachelor of Economics degree and CPA accreditation (quite a while ago), a change in accounting standards heralded class discussion about its effect on business reporting and its usage. It made sense to argue the pros and cons, after all. What was the purpose of the change? What would be the benefits? What would the new regime require in additional or varied practices? It was not long, however, before the new requirements would become the norm and hardly worthy of such close attention.

Nonetheless, it is intriguing to think about what might be produced now if we took financial data for a current period and squeezed it through the filter of standards from, say, 20 or 30 years ago – maybe more. How about 70 years ago? It would be rather like time travelling. How different would the current data seem when expressed under an older reporting discipline? Perhaps overly simple compared to current ones? Would they elicit a yearning for the good old days? That likely depends on what you are looking for, and how you might use the results, i.e. it alters with your role. Are you a management accountant, or an investor, or a regulator, or a business owner, or an analyst… ?

A particular change in results might be like mere background noise to one person, or just a different flavour; a bit like adapting a tune from pop to swing, or from jazz to blues. For another person, though, it might affect their attitude to the enterprise’s performance or perhaps their livelihood could depend on it. If not just a fun exercise in nostalgia, perhaps such playing about with changes in standards over time would reveal more keenly what advantages the contemporary standards have introduced. You would hope so.

And speaking of past reporting, I rather like the idea of a greatest hits collection, something like the top ten of significant accounting developments through history, all supported by artefacts. There are accounting museums and numerous collectors about (our dear Professor Lee Parker, for one). I am thinking of a view of the full sweep of human attempts to account for commerce. That might require looking across civilisations globally, and delving into the archives of collectors wherever they are. Is there a book in it, perhaps a lavishly illustrated one incorporating short but witty and pertinent essays? Snappy bedside reading right there!

I also like to imagine an accounting archaeologist, some kind of forensic expert, perhaps centuries ahead of us, who tries to make sense of present-day reporting. She might also take some of their own reports and try reconfiguring them with those clumsy old standards of the early twenty-first century. Changes in accounting standards ought to result in better information, data that gives a more relevant and timely view of an operation. But what is relevance as time passes? Surely that changes too. Could these future-dwellers imagine us from these, and what matters to consumers of accounting reports in the current day?

And, lastly, what might accounting standards of the future themselves look like? Care to place your best on the direction they will be heading? That process is underway all of the time but try a really big leap, say one of 200 years. What new accents might appear in standards?

And now to our contributor’s material for this issue. Ian Gibbins, recently retired after an admirable career in medical science, seems to have lots of energy to devote to writing poetry and to working collaborating with other artists. You will discover that his approach to completing the requirements of the abstracts makes interesting reading in its own right. The poems present unique views on a range of subjects, from language itself to aspects of the world of work, whether it is battling departmental heads or looming retirement.

Your own creative contributions can be submitted via ScholarOne (see below), and your email correspondence is always welcome, of course, at: mailto:steve.evans@flinders.edu.au

Acknowledgement

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) welcomes submissions of both research papers and creative writing. Creative writing in the form of poetry and short prose pieces is edited for the Literature and Insights Section only and does not undergo the refereeing procedures required for all research papers published in the main body of AAAJ. Author guidelines for contributions to this section of the journal can be found at: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=aaaj

Steve Evans - Literary Editor