حسابداری در جامعه اینترنتی accounting in cybersociety

The rise of the web[1] as a source of information and as a communicative medium is widely acknowledged as a key phenomenon of our times. It is a visible example of globalisation and the rise of knowledge economies (Halal and Taylor, 1999; Lymer et al., 1999). Halal and Taylor (1999) emphasise how different the social and economic global context is becoming – and the threats and opportunities that this represents – as a result of what they see as the “unifying” of the world “into a global market governed by the imperatives of knowledge” (Halal and Taylor, 1999, p. xvii). For these authors, the changes constitute an information revolution that creates new systems of political economy. Our ability to “handle information”, they suggest, which “multiplied by roughly a factor of 1 million” in the latter decades of the last century is on course to increase by another millionfold sooner rather than later (Halal and Taylor, 1999, p. xvii). In this regard, they maintain: “In short, a more sophisticated, technological foundation for economies is being built that transcends our former constraints” yet this “presents a variety of equally unprecedented challenges” in relation to political, economic and ecological dimensions (Halal and Taylor, 1999, p. xviii). The online revolution’s impact on reporting has meant that the internet has increasingly been used The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3574.htm The guest editors are grateful to James Guthrie and Lee Parker for their guidance and support in the guest editors’ editing of this special issue (and for arranging the refereeing of this paper) and to all the people who supported the special issue by submitting papers or acting as reviewers for these papers. They also would like to thank Gloria Parker for her administrative support during her stay in Aberdeen. Accounting in cybersociety 625 Received April 2006 Accepted May 2006 Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Vol. 19 No. 5, 2006 pp. 625-630 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0951-3574 DOI 10.1108/09513570610689631 as a means of communication in the dissemination of accounting information. Corporations, for instance, have increasingly been using the internet as a medium for disseminating accounting information, constituting what Lymer et al. (1999) term a “rapidly changing world of business reporting”. And other organisations, including NGOs and campaign groups who may campaign against various dimensions of corporate activity, are also mobilising the available technology. This AAAJ special issue seeks to critically discuss these important developments vis-a`-vis accounting and the wider socio-political and economic consequences. In relation to the contextual dynamics, the implications for accounting in its various guises (official, unofficial; financial, non-financial; social and environmental; and so on) appear significant. From a number of perspectives, whether critical, alternative or mainstream, there has been an emerging and developing interest in online reporting and accounting. The positive and negative potential of online reporting in relation to perspectives shaped by technological, economic, sociological, cultural and political lenses is the focus of substantive interest and there have been a number of theoretical interventions in this respect in the wider literature. There is also a need to gain insights into online reporting contextually in terms of how it is constituted or constructed and what it constitutes or engenders, a task that may be fruitfully undertaken with various emphases, including economic, social and political (Gallhofer et al., 2006a). Following the recent research undertaken in South Korea, the internet is understood to change the character of democracy in practice: the issues to be explored are significant (Hwang Yong-seok and Yang Seung-chan, 2003; Chang Woo-young, 2005). The developments entail changes to the character of accounting standard setting and policy making to reflect the manifestation of accounting in cyberspace (Lymer et al., 1999; Xiao and Jones, 2002). While more than a start has been made, there is still much to be done in terms of critical, interpretive and contextual analysis in the wider literature (Pauwels, 2005). And there is a particular need for the issues to be studied more thoroughly in relation to accounting. While there has been significant growth in studies focused on the accounting/online interface (Lymer et al., 1999; Xiao and Jones, 2002; Gallhofer et al., 2006a) many have been of a conventionally descriptive character and there is a need for more theoretically informed critical and interpretive social analysis in this area. Hence, the case for this special issue. The AAAJ special issue on online reporting that has emerged is constituted by four diverse contributions bringing critical and interpretive perspectives to the interface between the online medium and accounting/reporting. In addition, Prem Sikka, who along with colleagues in the Association of Accountancy and Business Affairs, makes extensive use of a form of online reporting in his own campaign work, offers a commentary (Sikka, 2006) on two of the contributions (those of Gallhofer et al. (2006a) and Paisey and Paisey (2006a)), both of which are influenced by a desire to foster and promote forms of enabling or emancipatory accounting on the web. Gallhofer et al. (2006b) and Paisey and Paisey (2006b) in turn offer their responses.