Accounting,Organizutions and Society. Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 3.

Pergamon Press Ltd., 1980. Printed in Great Britain.

THE MISSION OF THE UCLA CONFERENCE ON

THE ROLE OF ACCOUNTING IN ORGANIZATIONS AND SOCIETY

ERIC G. FLAMHOLTZ

Graduate School of Management

University of California, Los Angeles

The Conference on the Role of Accounting in
Organizations and Society held at the UCLA was a
recognition of, as well as a catalyst towards, the
development of a new school of thought in
accounting. In contrast to the traditional paradigm
that treats accounting principally as a technology,
the emerging view is a multistrata perspective. It
begins from the notion that accounting is a
measurement technology, but proceeds to recog-
nize the effects of accounting on individuals,
organizations and society. Thus it represents a
broader concern for the accounting domain.
This revised concept of accounting raises a
series of different research questions: what are the
roles of accounting in organizations and society? Is
there one accounting or are there many account-
ings? What is the nature of the metatheory of
measurement underlying accounting, and is the
traditional perspective still valid? Is accounting
free of value (as opposed to valuation) issues? In
what sense is accounting a social or historical
artifact? These as well as other fundamental issues
are the challenge for accounting researchers in the
1980s. The Conference was intended to provide a
stimulus to the sustained effort that is required to
develop this emerging school of thought, which
does not yet have a symbolic description. I
personally prefer to think of it as a socio-psycho-
technical view of accounting. Whatever its label,
the papers presented together with the discussants
papers represent various strands of thought which
may ultimately lead to a new accounting
paradigm.