Accounting for intellectual capital: rethinking its theoretical underpinnings

The accountancy profession’s long association with measurement and reporting has ensured that it has made a substantial contribution to the evolving intellectual capital field. While many of the motivations shaping the accounting for intellectual capital project are of a practical nature, the emergence of intellectual capital and the challenges entailed in taking it into account in some way also raise important theoretical issues. As long as the accountancy profession seeks to progress accounting for intellectual capital within the confines of prevailing accounting theory, the prospects for a successful outcome appear remote. Alternative theoretical precepts need to be explored, an exercise that also has implications for the future development of financial reporting.