EMERSON

1

ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL REPORTING IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT:
HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

(Essays in Economic and Business History Volume XVI 1998:307-329)
Stanley C. W. Salvary, Canisius College
ABSTRACT

Over time, a changing environment has produced changes in the types of accounting information and in the dissemination of such information (financial reporting). Certain changes in the environment do impel changes in accounting. This paper examines various theoretical issues in accounting in a historical setting and provides some insight on the manner in which the accounting profession has responded to problems.
1 - MODELING REALITY IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

Accounting has been in existence for about ten thousand years. emerged around 8,000 B.C. [Schmandt-Besserat 1986:36-37].

Token accounting

Three major functions

characterized the token system of accounting: data storage, communication, and an instrument of logic [Schmandt-Besserat 1986:36]. Moving forward from Shurupak (2600 B.C.) to Lagash
(2450 B.C.) in Sumerian civilization, one encounters the science of administration. Shurupak and its earlier ancestors are responsible for the development of the science of administration while Lagash is credited for implementing it. It is the science of administration which has enabled the continuation and further development of civilization [Lambert 1960:1-13].
Sumerian Civilization was a city civilization. It is nevertheless clear that priests regularly served as managers, planners and co-ordinators of the massed human effort . . . The priests alone possessed the skills of . . . keeping accounts, without which effective co-ordination of community would have been impossible. . . . Writing began in Sumer as a symbolic accountancy, used to keep records of goods brought into or dispatched from temple storehouses. . . . [W]riting was used for temple accounts, secondarily to record economic contracts between individuals,

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