provided by Research Papers in Economics
Journal of Applied Economic Sciences
VolumeI_Issue1 (1)_2006
CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTING AS
INFORMATIONAL SYSTEM AND ASSISTANCE OF DECISION
Valeriu Brabete
University of Craiova, Romania
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Cristian Dragan
University of Craiova, Romania
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Abstract:
The accreditation of accounting as scientific discipline is far from being achieved. In our attempt to
establish the status of accounting as a science, we have used the current understanding of the term, and the
contemporary perspectives on know-ledge in general.
Key works: information system and assistance of decision; accounting; accounting as measurement
system; accounting as information system; accounting as instrument for social intermediation
1. Introduction
From a signally practical activity, of which knowledge was empirically acquired, by error
successive elimination, the accounting became a scientific discipline, as the increase of its decisional
role imposed the systematization of knowledge used in practice. Besides, this is the reason for which
was needed that the accounting practice to be based on an accounting theory and on a conceptual
basis, at the fundament of which the research starts to play a determinant role.
The accounting authorization as a scientific discipline is far from being finalized, as the options
concerning this matter are various, starting from the total rejection of accounting as a science, passing
then through the stage as a science in its “teenage” phase, while other authors to consider it as a
“mature scientific discipline”.
The tentative to establish the accounting status stops, firstly, into different approaches
concerning this matter. The definitions given to the accounting differ a lot, both in time and space, so
now we do not have a unity in reference to this matter, therefore, for the characterization of this
discipline are proposed in a multitude of variants, out of which we remind the most important ones:
art, techniques, informational system, language, social game, science.
2. The characterization of accounting by means of its role in supporting the processes to adopt
decisions inside an organization
Without proposing analyze of the character kind of contradictory of these terms, we will try to
characterize the accounting by means of its role in supporting the process to adopt decisions inside an
economical entity. Taking into consideration the sides of accounting outlined in the special literature,
and also the evolution in time for the solutions proposed to define it, one might make a grouping of
explanatory models in three important categories: accounting as measurement instrument;
accounting as information instrument; accounting as social intermediation instrument.
As measurement instrument (Figure 1) accounting is approached as an activity having as scope
to reflect the company economic activity. Seen in this context the accounting is assimilated especially
to an art of recordings or to an administrative technique, points of view which, in our opinion, have a
limited character, as they reduce its role only to entries. Approaching accounting as an informational
instrument coincided with its definition as a informational system represented by “an assembly of
elements (human and material resources) which allow the collection, processing, stocking and
communication of information, in order to take the decisions”.1
1 Ioπa⅞cu, I., (1997), Epistemology of Accounting, Economic Publishing House, Bucharest, pp.37.
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