Time and Temporality in Accounting.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how concepts of time and temporality have been used in accounting in different historical periods. The primary argument of the paper is that while concepts of time and temporality are important to accounting, the categorization of events and transactions in organizational life into distinct time periods is not of recent origin, nor is time a commodity as has been argued by some historians. Instead, time and temporality have been present in organizations throughout recorded history. Moreover, accounting periods tend to repeat through time, with each period having a distinct nature, but nevertheless recurrent. Thus, periodicity in accounting is not progressive, such as that implied by the linear understanding of time in western philosophy. Time is accounting is more like a cyclical process which moves in a precise rhythm for the ultimate purpose of making sense out of organizational life. Methodologically we rely on archives and secondary sources pertaining to several historical periods discussed. The originality of the paper is that it reveals how time measurements are socially constructed and not an aspect of material reality.