Original Research
The concept of a scale in accounting measurement
South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences | Vol 13, No 4 | a95 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/sajems.v13i4.95
| © 2010 Saltiel Wedzerai Musvoto, Daan Gouws
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 30 August 2010 | Published: 01 December 2010
Submitted: 30 August 2010 | Published: 01 December 2010
About the author(s)
Saltiel Wedzerai Musvoto,, South AfricaDaan Gouws, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Full Text:
PDF (99KB)Abstract
Accountants generally believe that accounting is a measurement discipline. Every process of measurement should specify a scale of some kind that makes it possible to distinguish the extent to which every object in a particular class possesses a specified property. However, accounting theory has not specified the scales of measurement that can be used to distinguish the extent to which every object in a particular class of accounting phenomena (e.g., class of current assets) possesses a specified property.
The objective of this article is to investigate the nature of the application of the concept of a scale in accounting measurement. This study compares the practices of accounting measurement with the principles of the representational theory of measurement to determine if the attributes of accounting phenomena are measured on well-founded scales. The results of this study indicate that the concept of the representational scale is misapplied in the accounting discipline. Since, the principles of representation measurement are hinged on the assumption that a discipline can only be considered to be a measurement discipline if the dimensions and qualities the phenomena that are being studied are measurable on well-founded scales, then, these findings suggest that accounting is not a measurement discipline.
The objective of this article is to investigate the nature of the application of the concept of a scale in accounting measurement. This study compares the practices of accounting measurement with the principles of the representational theory of measurement to determine if the attributes of accounting phenomena are measured on well-founded scales. The results of this study indicate that the concept of the representational scale is misapplied in the accounting discipline. Since, the principles of representation measurement are hinged on the assumption that a discipline can only be considered to be a measurement discipline if the dimensions and qualities the phenomena that are being studied are measurable on well-founded scales, then, these findings suggest that accounting is not a measurement discipline.
Keywords
No related keywords in the metadata.
Metrics
Total abstract views: 5804Total article views: 5096