MEMAHAMI AKUNTANSIDARI PERSPEKTIF HISTORIS

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Behind what we know today as accounting lies a long and dismal story of
accounting ideas which involved many individuals who devoted their life in search
for general theory of accounting. The story begins in the early 20th century when
accounting development had shifted to America as a result of tremendous economic
growth. Despite long and hard struggle for the closure of general principal of
accounting thought, the history of accounting contained a never-ending controversy
which had prevented accounting to develop further and gain much respect as a
distinct body of knowledge. One distinguished accounting academician once said
that the series of accounting development were intermittent episodes. In spite of
great effort and endurence expended, the result was disapointing and general
accounting theory remained an elusive objective. One reason for the failure was the
lack of appreciation of conceptual arguments and ideas developed by prior
theoreticians. Instead of extending and developing contemporary ideas, many
accounting academics had developed a completely new theory which failed to
recognize the work of previous authors.
As a consequence, accounting literatures were filled with arguments and concepts
which only succeeded in explaining one particular issue but unable to provide
sound solution to other issue. In the light of philosophic perspective, the
disagreement in the formulation of accounting theory was rooted in the issue of
ontology. It seemed that different people see accounting differently. One
theoretician sees the nature of accounting in such a way that contrary to other
theoretician. The failure to see the nature of accounting from the same perspective
resulted in the difference way in finding the accounting truth (epistemology issue).