Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting, Volume 13, Issue 3
From the inception of human resource costing and accounting it has been taken as axiomatic that “people” are highly valuable organisational assets or resources. The rejuvenation of interest in the task of accounting for people, associated with the emergence of the intellectual capital field in the mid-1990s, has seen human capital propelled to the central role in the value creation and delivery process. It is people who create both relational and structural capital through the exercise of their creativity, ingenuity and intellectuality as manifestations of their individual and collective experience,expertise and kindred human capital attributes. Consequently, it is a little distressing for anyone who is strongly committed to the project of successfully accounting for people to witness the continued rapid rise in unemployment levels as business enterprises in particular seek to respond to what is being referred to as the “Credit Crunch” by slashing their labour forces. Such actions see us regress to practices that, while seemingly appealing and not entirely devoid of theoretical underpinning, are wholly at odds with the principles that have informed human resource costing and accounting for decades.
The former practices are symptomatic of a return to the worst excesses of short-termism, a failing that the new management accounting had begun to address in the mid-1980s, and which played no small role in set of corporate failures such as Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat, etc. – the delivery of profit this year, this quarter, this month, in order to assuage the demands of the capital markets. Currently, the objective is not so much to increase profits rather the minimisation of losses, the easiest means of so doing being to attack the wage bill, still the major cost in many organisations. While treating people as being disposable in this way has always been massively debatable, it now makes little sense if one takes a longer term view. Investments in human capital, i.e. in people, are nowadays, more than ever, for the long term. If people's various attributes do reduce over time, they do not do so in ways that cohere with the principles associated with the depreciation or amortisation concepts. In an age in which knowledge or information are the crucial economic drivers,people are not likely to be “worn out” at the same age as was the case for previous generations of physical workers. Consequently, there is merit in investing in people for as long as they wish to remain in employment, in an effort to grow their capacity for value creation and delivery. The idea of laying off software designers, engineering technicians, customer service agents or, as is currently happening, accounting and financial management practitioners, in an attempt to return acceptable numbers this quarter is not the answer.
The necessity to promote accounting for people, or whatever name one wishes to use for such practices, and equally the many humanistic ideas that complement it, is greater than ever these days. It is vital that those who are researching in these fields redouble their efforts to provide robust research findings and highly persuasive discursive contributions designed to remind the various stakeholders of the continuing, fundamental importance of people to the successful creation and delivery of value by all organisations. And to do so via the pages of this journal and those others seeking to promote a reflexive agenda within the space of management practice.
The 2009 volume of the journal has seen it move to four full issues per year,this one being scheduled for publication in September, to be followed by the fourth in December. The previous issue that contained an excellent collection of essays in memory of our late friend and colleague, Jan-Erik Grojer, was the first of a regular series of special issues of the journal. Many many thanks to Bino, Matti and Maria, together with all of the contributors for their work in creating such a fitting tribute to Jan-Erik's life and work. The proposed 2010 special issue will contain a number of papers initially presented at the 2009 International Labour Process Conference, held in Edinburgh at the beginning of April. Suggestions for further special issues are welcome from readers who are encouraged to revisit the extended editorial published in issue 3 of volume 12, which outlines in some detail the intended scope of the journal in the coming years.
The four papers in this issue reflect the continuing evolution of the journal. Manuel Castelo Branco and Lucia Lima Rodrigues examine social responsibility disclosures by Portuguese companies in relation to their status as “best companies to work for”, determined in turn by their positive reputation in respect of their human resource management practices. The paper by Andrzej Buszko and Marian Mroziewski focuses on the relationship that exists between stocks of intellectual capital assets, including human capital,net profit growth, among Polish construction companies. The other pair of papers share an interest in understanding the interaction between managerial accounting and human resource management practices. Ian Herbert's data are drawn from a longitudinal case study of the evolution of an empowerment initiative within a large UK utilities company. In contrast, Reza Kouhy, Rishma Vedd, Takeo Yoshikawa and John Innes report some of their findings from studies of six case organisations situated in Canada, Japan and the UK.
Robin Roslender
