News Letter

TOWARDS AMETA THEORY OFACCOUNTING FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: REVIEW THE

REALITIES TO STAGE THE CRITICAL THINKING OF KNOWLEDGE BUSINESS MODEL

SBE, Vol.20, No.1, 2017

ISSN 1818-1228

Qatar University

approved generally. In addition, these models

provide only improvements by integrating

more rules but are not replacing the existed

accounting model. Further, these alternative

models are based on new techniques (such

as discounted present value) that match the

managerial reporting more than the financial.

However, these models are not that much

relevant because it cannot provide comparable

information about knowledge activities across

industries and companies. Finally, no one

of the proposed models adequately match

the reporting requirements of the existed

accounting model practices especially in the

areas of uncertainty and risk quantification

(Blaug and Lekhi, 2009). The imperatives of the

knowledge management entail new paradigms

for managing, measuring, and accounting of

knowledge assets. A new accounting theory

is really needed to support the development

of knowledge management. The development

of such theory will provide an opportunity

to derive accounting to be knowledge assets

based with future orientation.

III. The research

methodology: radical,

integrated and value

perspective based

The accountant’s community has debated for

a long time the validity of accounting model

against knowledge. The debate has been

started by intangibles whether to be reported

as expense or capitalized as asset (Gherai and

Balaciu, 2011). This debate has triggered the

necessity to update the accounting rules to

communicate reliable business information.

Information vs. value is the new argument in

accounting (Hakansson

et al

., 2010).According

to the information perspective, accounting is an

organizational engine to provide information.

Accounting is not primarily a tool for measuring

or estimating value, but is a source of potential

information. The information content school

views the financial measures as measures of

information events, not of value (Christensen

and Demski, 2003). In business and knowledge

management literatures, several research

projects and reports have identified the serious

criticisms against the accounting model. The

main historical cause of the challenges and

problems has been the logical architecture of

the workingmechanism (Anton, 1966; Drucker,

1999; Brennan, 2001; Blagu and Lekhi, 2009;

Smalt and McComb, 2016). Thus, the current

study is a qualitative explanatory research

adopts value perspective to structure a theory

of accounting against knowledge management.

This paper introduces well defined paradigm

to analyze the structural components of

accounting in very critical sense to knowledge.

The proposed research methodology combines

the definitional expositions of Bukh, 2003;

Marr and Spender, 2004; MERITUM Project,

2002; Mouritsen, 2003; Prism, 2003; and

Howell, 2008. It’s a radical and calling to shift

the orientation of accounting from reporting

value realization to value creation. Further, the

conceptualization of theory building proposed

by Colquitt and Zapata-Phelan (2007), has

been followed when determining how a new

theory has to be structured. Accordingly, re-

engineering the structural components of

accounting is a must to match the necessities of

knowledge management. The implementation

of the radical research methodology has taken

five steps (See Figure-2 below). The first

step was based on reviewing literatures to

identify the problems in terms of paradoxes

and lacks. The current body of literatures

dealing with these problems is still fragmented.

The reviewed literatures of business and

knowledge management have identified the

transactional rules and reporting format as two

key obstacles of accounting for knowledge

(Holsapple, 2003; Stewart, 2001). The theorists