What Are the Different Accounting Roles?

Western behavioral accounting scholars have introduced the term "role" into the field of accounting, but have not given a precise definition.

Accounting role

Right!

Western behavioral accounting scholars have introduced the term "role" into the field of accounting, but have not given a precise definition.

Chinese name

Accounting role

Import

Accounting

Definition

Refers to the characters in the play played by actors

As stated

Accounting role is a social role

the study

Shi Benren (2002), Rao Shuilin

"Role" was originally a noun in drama, referring to the characters in the play played by actors. The term "role" was introduced to the field of sociology by Professor George Herbert Mead of the Chicago School in the United States, but he just borrowed the concept of "role" to show that different people behave similarly in similar situations. The phenomenon of behavior does not give a sociological definition. The official definition of "role" is the American anthropologist Professor Ralph Linton (1936). He believes that roles are behavior norms and behavior models that embody rights and obligations around status, and are the behavior expectations of society for people in a certain position. In 1959, JW Thibaut and HH Kelly also had a similar argument: roles are the expectation system of others' individual behaviors in a certain position in the interaction, and they are also the expectation systems of individuals in a certain position. In 1984, JL Friedman and others also pointed out that social roles are a set of rules about how people should act in certain types of relationships.

It is not difficult to see that social roles are the concrete manifestation of social division of labor and the functional requirements of social systems for each specific knot in their network structure. Different people have different divisions of labor in the same society, that is, they have different relationships and play different roles in different knots or positions. Accounting is the product of the development of human society to a certain historical stage. It is a division of labor, a knot, or a position in a complex social system, and society has specific functional requirements for it. Once an individual chooses the job of accounting, it means choosing his own social position or social occupation, and in a certain sense, he also chooses the specific "role" requirements of society for the job of accounting. Because for individuals, social roles can be different due to external circumstances, their own conditions, and hobbies, but role requirements are pre-established and established in a given social structure, and they are generally for special requirements and the relationship of structure to elements. , And then society's constraints on individual members, that is, individuals.

In reality, individuals enter society through roles, and the process of individuals choosing roles is the process of entering society or being transformed from a "natural person" to a "social person". Choosing an accounting role is an important way to socialize an individual. Choosing an accountant means that you are engaged in accounting work, wearing an accounting mask, and playing an accounting role. Some people ask: Can we not play the role of accounting? The answer is of course yes. However, as an "economic person" and a "social person", you do not play an accounting role, then you must play other social roles similar to doctors, teachers, engineers, and so on. As the eighteenth-century French philosopher Baron d'Holbach put it: in order to be happy, one must work for the happiness of others needed for his own happiness.

In summary, this article tentatively defines the role of accounting: the role of accounting is the social function requirements that people show in the process of engaging in accounting work, and furthermore, it is the specific behavior of accounting determined by the social status of accounting work Performance, code of conduct, and mode of behavior. Need to explain:

1. The accounting role is a social role, a professional role in a social role, not a gender role, family role, national role, learning role, citizen role, or other role;

2. The role of accounting is determined by the society's special function requirements for the accounting profession, and it is the behavior expectations of the "accountant" in the accounting position;

3. The role of accounting exists in a particular social relationship. It is a historical, developing, and advancing concept. The connotation of the role of accounting given by different social relations is not the same. In other words, accounting has different roles on different occasions.