ACCOUNTING AS BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE: SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND PRACTICE

Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterize the accounting as branch of knowledge in three different fields: science, technology and practice. Through theoretical essay, we was argued that, although distinct, these fields interact, in that, as epistemology that justified the analysis here undertaken, the practical activities may be technology subject matter and that to be effective if based on one or more sciences. The difference between science and technology is given by the nature of knowledge. While science studies how the reality or the facts occur naturally and socially, technology devises ways to change or interfere in reality targeting certain goals. Suggests that while scientific accounting studies the events and processes that change the wealth between agents and between periods, technological accounting develops means to interfere in the generation and control of wealth for resource allocation purposes in the economy, distribution of results and planning and control the performance of individual or organizational agents. The result of this essay indicate that as science area also has the challenge to develop towards the construction of scientific theories can explain and predict a set of circumscribed facts in its scientific study object, this subject matter distinct from the technological object. A contribution of the distinction between science and technology, presented in this study, is its use to settle the dispute between normative accounting and positive accounting. Other contributions are as follows: the possibility of research into the interactions between the three fields and studies on the content and methods in training researchers, technologists and professionals of the accounting practice.