Cross-fertilization Between Accounting and Anthropology

Keywords

Audit Cultures,accounting and culture, IFRS

Objectives

Modern accounting that originated from Italy in the Mediterranean era can be referred to safely as one of the disciplines that clearly have an evolutionism concept from lot accounting to periodic accounting of profit and loss and from cash basis to accrual basis. Because the development of modern accounting centered on corporate accounting, as companies became globalized, the globalization of accounting standards was inevitably sought. As a result, IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) was formulated as the global standard that goes beyond differences in corporate accounting between countries and its application has become a major issue among parties concerned in the accounting community.
Meanwhile, cultural anthropologists have made full use of ways to look at evolutionism ideas or globalization critically. They have also criticized market-based and self-discipline types of audit cultures (Shore & Wright 1999, Strathern 2000). However, we find it difficult to believe that these voices have reached accounting experts in the academic realm, who are positioned in the center of audit cultures in actuality.
Given these circumstances, we focus on non-profit-making accounting standards (Public Interest Corporation Accounting Standard 2008 (PICAS 2008), School Corporation Accounting Standard 2011, Social Welfare Corporation Accounting Standard 2015, etc., which are completely different from each other) that have become “galapagosized” among accounting standards as an issue that both parties can discuss easily. The cultural aspect of respective corporation systems is still well reflected in these accounting standards and all of these have been revised recently. In accounting and anthropology, two fields that have very little common ground, we believe that they are the most appropriate theme in order to approach the issues of accounting and culture and universalization and individualization from both disciplines. Through this application, we attempt to conduct interdisciplinary research on accounting and anthropology centered on these standards.

Research Results

This inter-university research project was challenging; the research team was made up of cultural anthropologists and accounting researchers who have rarely engaged in research together. Accounting research mainly studies corporate accounting, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which aims to create global accounting standards in response to the globalization of business, has been a major issue in the field. In contrast, in nonprofit accounting in Japan, individual standards have been formulated separately for different juridical person statuses and then developed individually. The problems that arise due to such dynamism in individualization and standardization are closely related to the knowledge gained from findings in cultural anthropology. For example, because looking at nonprofit accounting from the viewpoint of the majority culture of corporate accounting is similar to ethnocentrism, we developed the concept of “business-centrism.” This means to consider the world of profit (i.e., business) as the default, and think about the nonprofit world based on that sense of values. By developing this concept, we believe we have furthered our understanding of the nonprofit sector.
Other research results are as follows:
First, while cultural anthropologists sometimes only examine the aspects of the data brought back from the field that are of interest to cultural anthropologists, this research project achieved unprecedented results, including accountants “rediscovering” the importance of data from Zimbabwe and cultural anthropologists presenting research at Japan’s most distinguished accounting academic association, Japan Accounting Association.
Second, after discussing cultural anthropological studies on shell money in Tolai society in the research project’s workshops, we made more progress than initially expected, such as our research results being introduced in an MBA class.
Third, the results were applied to policy. For example, Shinichi Sato, Vice-Minister of Finance formerly of the Tax Bureau, revised the tax system keeping in mind the importance of culture in policy.
Fourth, by making all project workshops accessible to the public, a wide range of participants with interest in the project’s theme attended, enabling the project to expand into fields beyond those of the main members. Most importantly, the project drew considerable attention from accounting historians and the next steps came into view.