IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/37360.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Accounting for intellectual property?

Author

Listed:
  • Ghafele, Roya

Abstract

Accounting constitutes a very specific form of language, which is highly standardized, mathematical in nature and seeks to uniformly and systematically describe events while avoiding expressions of individual creativity or explicit political positions. In this sense, accounting is a social, cultural and historical artefact rather than a natural or technical phenomenon and can therefore be viewed as the decisive instrument to create and maintain imagined business communities. On the balance sheet, IP experiences a specific form of authorization. It is represented in the discourse of accounting by ‘intangibles’, an imprecise term associated with the increasingly observed ‘gap between the market and book value’, while current accounting systems are determined by a tangible assets’ based perspective and offer little scope to document how IP relates to business performance. Accounting may thus be seen as a gate keeper of the status quo that poses significant challenges for IP-rich companies, confronted with the challenge to either communicate around the lingua franca of accounting or accept that under current accounting statements they cannot adequately document how IP relates to their business performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Ghafele, Roya, 2010. "Accounting for intellectual property?," MPRA Paper 37360, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:37360
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/37360/1/MPRA_paper_37360.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meer-Kooistra, Jeltje van der & Zijlstra, Siebren M., 2001. "Reporting on intellectual capital," Research Report 01E50, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    2. David B. Audretsch & Erik E. Lehmann, 2004. "Financing High-Tech Growth: The Role of Debt or Equity," Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy 2004-19, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy Group.
    3. Brown, Stephen & Lo, Kin & Lys, Thomas, 1999. "Use of R2 in accounting research: measuring changes in value relevance over the last four decades," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 83-115, December.
    4. Macintosh, Norman B. & Shearer, Teri & Thornton, Daniel B. & Welker, Michael, 2000. "Accounting as simulacrum and hyperreality: perspectives on income and capital," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 13-50, January.
    5. Laux, Christian & Leuz, Christian, 2009. "The crisis of fair-value accounting: Making sense of the recent debate," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 826-834, August.
    6. Lev, B & Zarowin, P, 1999. "The boundaries of financial reporting and how to extend them," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 353-385.
    7. Baruch Lev & Theodore Sougiannis, 1999. "Penetrating the Book-to-Market Black Box: The R&D Effect," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3-4), pages 419-449.
    8. repec:dgr:rugsom:01e50 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Hines, Ruth D., 1988. "Financial accounting: In communicating reality, we construct reality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 251-261, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paugam, Luc, 2011. "Valorisation et reporting du goodwill : enjeux théoriques et empiriques," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/8007 edited by Casta, Jean-François.
    2. Schaberl, Philipp D., 2016. "Beyond accounting and back: An empirical examination of the relative relevance of earnings and “other” information," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 98-113.
    3. Gaëlle Lenormand & Lionel Touchais, 2008. "La pertinence des actifs incorporels avec les IFRS," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 11(2), pages 173-201, June.
    4. Roberts, John & Wang, Timothy, 2019. "Faithful representation as an ‘objective mirage’: A Saussurean analysis of accounting and its participation in the financial crisis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. Barker, Richard & Schulte, Sebastian, 2017. "Representing the market perspective: Fair value measurement for non-financial assets," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 55-67.
    6. Gaëlle Lenormand & Lionel Touchais, 2008. "The Value Relevance Of Intangible Assets With Ifrs [La Pertinence Des Actifs Incorporels Avec Les Ifrs]," Post-Print hal-03125514, HAL.
    7. Huikku, Jari & Mouritsen, Jan & Silvola, Hanna, 2017. "Relative reliability and the recognisable firm: Calculating goodwill impairment value," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 68-83.
    8. Lam, Kevin C.K. & Sami, Heibatollah & Zhou, Haiyan, 2013. "Changes in the value relevance of accounting information over time: Evidence from the emerging market of China," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 123-135.
    9. Lorena Mitrione & George Tanewski & Jacqueline Birt, 2014. "The relevance to firm valuation of research and development expenditure in the Australian health-care industry," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 39(3), pages 425-452, August.
    10. Zhang, Eagle & Andrew, Jane, 2016. "Rethinking China: Discourse, convergence and fair value accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-21.
    11. Quattrone, Paolo, 2009. "Books to be practiced: Memory, the power of the visual, and the success of accounting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 85-118, January.
    12. Walid Cheffi, 2008. "Etude Des Roles De La Comptabilite De Gestion Pour Les Managers : Le Cas D'Un Grand Groupe Automobile," Post-Print halshs-00522472, HAL.
    13. Anna Maria Biscotti & Eugenio D?Amico & Sabato Vinci, 2019. "The effectiveness of intellectual capital disclosure in market assessments of corporate value creation," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2019(1), pages 5-35.
    14. Bay, Charlotta, 2018. "Makeover accounting: Investigating the meaning-making practices of financial accounts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 44-54.
    15. Jeremiah Green & Henock Louis & Jalal Sani, 2022. "Intangible Investments, Scaling, and the Trend in the Accrual–Cash Flow Association," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 1551-1582, September.
    16. Tswei, Keshin, 2013. "Is transaction price more value relevant compared to accounting information? An investigation of a time-series approach," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1062-1078.
    17. Thomas Jeanjean & Anne Cazavan-Jeny, 2003. "Value relevance of R&D reporting: a signalling interpretation," Working Papers hal-00592028, HAL.
    18. Anne-Laure Farjaudon, 2006. "L'évaluation des marques, au carrefour des recherches en comptabilité, finance, contrôle de gestion et marketing," Post-Print halshs-00548127, HAL.
    19. Biondi Yuri, 2011. "The Pure Logic of Accounting: A Critique of the Fair Value Revolution," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-49, January.
    20. Maigoshi, Zaharaddeen Salisu & Latif, Rohaida Abdul & Kamardin, Hasnah, 2018. "Change in value-relevance of disclosed RPT across accounting regimes: Evidence from Malaysia," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 422-433.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    intellectual property; financial reporting; intangible assets mapping; accounting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:37360. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.