Title: Accountants – 'know thyself'

Authors: Susan P. Briggs, Scott Copeland

Addresses: School of Accounting, University of South Australia, City West Campus, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide 5000, Australia. ' School of Accounting, University of South Australia, City West Campus, GPO Box 2471, Adelaide 5000, Australia

Abstract: This paper examines the concept of the |self| of an accountant through psychology, philosophy and literature. It looks at what Marx and Jung read to see how that influenced their own writings. We are interested in the concept of self and attempt to illustrate how a person maybe influenced consciously or unconsciously by what they read. We suggest that if accountants and accounting educators took the time to read widely and possibly some of the texts we mention, including Goethe, Gogol, Kafka, Tchehov, Rousseau and Sartre, they may develop a further understanding of their self.

Keywords: Marx; Jung; psychology; philosophy; literature; accountants; concept of self; accounting.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2009.028059

International Journal of Critical Accounting, 2009 Vol.1 No.4, pp.327 - 342

Published online: 03 Sep 2009 *

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