From one accounting utopia to another: the manual as a plea

D'une utopie comptable à l'autre: le manuel comme plaidoyer

Michel Nefti ()
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Michel Nefti: IRGO - Institut de Recherche en Gestion des Organisations - UB - Université de Bordeaux - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Bordeaux

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Abstract: This article explores the similarities between two key periods in the history of accounting, marked by projects to reform accounting practices and languages. These projects have tried to spread their ideas in different ways by mobilizing different communication channels. Among these channels are didactic manuals that are traditionally devoted to the dominant ideology and therefore reproduce existing ideas. It is rarer to find reformist ideas, let alone revolutionary ones. However, more than a century apart, we find two "utopians", in the sense of idealists, of accounting. The first, Eugène Léautey, will fight against disorder that can benefit business secrecy, but harm society as a whole, which could collapse for lack of well-kept accounts that would allow everyone, from the proletarian to the State to the companies, to make better decisions, which E. Léautey names the social role of the accountant and the accountant. The second, Jacques Richard, tried to promote an integrated accounting model that took into account social and environmental issues in order to transform capitalism. The analysis in this text therefore focuses on the contemporary accounting utopia, which seeks to integrate the socio-environmental dimensions, and on the project of unification of accounts carried out by Eugène Léautey in the nineteenth century. Through these two eras, we examine resistance to change, conceptual and technical challenges, and methodological contributions. This analysis is based on the works produced, in particular the use of written works: essays, theoretical treatises and didactic manuals.

Keywords: Comptabilité; Histoire; Utopie (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-03-25
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Published in La place des manuels comptables : perspectives historiques et pédagogiques, Association Francophone de comptabilité; Association pour l'Histoire du Management et des Organisations, Mar 2025, Poitiers, France

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