Title: An analysis of thanatogenesis in Romanian accounting

Authors: Daniela Artemisa Calu; Lavinia Olimid; Madalina Dumitru; Viorel Avram

Addresses: Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, Piaţa Romană 6, sector 1, 010374, Bucharest, Romania. ' Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, Piaţa Romană 6, sector 1, 010374, Bucharest, Romania. ' Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, Piaţa Romană 6, sector 1, 010374, Bucharest, Romania. ' Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, Piaţa Romană 6, sector 1, 010374, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract: Our paper borrows from pathophysiology the concept of thanatogenesis and applies it to accounting concepts and practices. We define accounting thanatogenesis as the study of the causes and processes that lead to the disappearance of an accounting concept or practice. We choose a number of concepts and practices and we survey the opinions of academics teaching in a Bucharest university. Similarly to the clinical indices used by physicians to monitor the evolution of a patient, accounting thanatogenesis indices represent rates of rejection of concepts and practices, as measured by surveys of accountants. The ideological influence of IAS/IFRS is assumed to modify the opinions of the respondents that have been exposed to a decade of harmonisation with both European Accounting Directives and IAS/IFRS.

Keywords: accounting thanatogenesis; accounting concepts; thanatogenesis index; accounting practices; Romania; accounting reform; patrimony; socialist accounting.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2012.046382

International Journal of Critical Accounting, 2012 Vol.4 No.2, pp.217 - 236

Published online: 07 Aug 2014 *

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