INTANGIBLE ASSETS AND THE ACCOUNTING REPRESENTATION CRISIS

Abstract

This theoretical essay aims to promote a reflection on the accounting process’ ability to capture and represent the companies’ economical status through accounting statements. It puts in question the current model of recognition, measurement, and disclosure. This reflection particularly focuses on the intangible assets, which have been widely recognized as the most relevant assets in the current days, yet rarely stated and measured adequately in the accounting statements. This reduces the informational power and the usefulness of such statements. Assuming the likelihood that accounting has been going through a representational crisis, a crisis in which the intangible assets play a crucial role, this essay, consistent with critiques emerging in the financial and capital markets, recommends a wide re-examination of the philosophical and theoretical grounds of the current accounting model. This leads to an issue that seems to be inevitable: the accounting professionals will have to face the challenge of subjectivity and discretion, feared by some, desired by others, but fundamental to everyone. Without subjectivity and discretion, accounting will remain far-off from the company’s economical representation.