Chapter I Introduction介绍
由于英国工业革命发生在18世纪，会计业发展迅速，因此在现代社会中的会计专业的地位和重要性正在增加（帝舵，2013年）。经过200多年的发展，取得了会计的会计准则，会计职能，外部监管系统增加和改善更大程度，会计核算方法和工具，以及其他许多方面（Zeghal和Mhedhbi，2006）。在会计行业的发展过程中，有很多因素对发展和会计成熟的影响，包括公共利益，企业管理的需求，科学技术，政治，法律和文化因素等，其中公共利益是影响会计行业发展的最重要因素之一。冈本（2014）认为，维护公共利益是会计行业生存的基础。都铎王朝（2013年）还提到，会计行业需要有责任在公众利益“行事。由此可以看出，为会计行业公共利益的重要性，社会公共利益发挥会计行业的发展具有十分重要的作用。研究本文的目的是分析公共利益的会计自18世纪起的作用，分析公共利益的影响发展和会计行业的成熟度如何。Since the 18th century when the British Industrial Revolution happened, the accounting industry developed rapidly, the status and importance of the accounting profession in modern society was increasing (Tudor, 2013). After more than 200 years of development, accounting gained a greater degree of increase and improvement in accounting standards, accounting functions, external supervision system, accounting calculation methods and tools, as well as many other aspects (Zeghal and Mhedhbi, 2006). In the development process of the accounting profession, there are many factors which have an impact on the development and maturation of accounting, including public interests, business management needs, science and technology, political, legal and cultural factors, and so on, of which public interests is one of the most important factors affecting the development of the accounting profession. Okamoto (2014) believed that safeguarding public interests is the basis of the survival of accounting profession. Tudor (2013) further mentioned that accountancy profession takes the responsibility to act in the public interests". Thus it can be seen the importance of public interests for accounting profession, public interests plays a very important role in the development of accounting profession. The research purpose of this dissertation was to analyze the role that public interests play in accountancy since 18th century, analyzing how public interests impact development and maturity of accounting industry.
Accountancy is an economic management activity, it takes currency as the main unit of measurement and uses vouchers, such as invoice acquired when economic business happens as the basis, it uses a series of specialized methods to conduct continuous, systematic, comprehensive, integrated accounting and supervision towards economic activities of enterprises or organizations (Oulasvirta, 2014). In the 18th century, with the start of the industrial revolution, accountancy gained rapid development and modern accounting system began to form (Crawford, et al., 2014). After World War II, affected by the socio-political, economic and technological environment, the traditional external accountancy was enriched and improved constantly, financial accounting work became more standardized, generic and standardized (Nobes and Stadler, 2013). Today, accountancy has become an important industry relates with modern society and economy (Cortese and Irvine, 2010), followed are relevant facts. First of all, accountancy helps to improve enterprise management and economic efficiency, it also helps to assess the fulfillment of economic responsibility of corporate management (Nobes and Stadler, 2013). Then, accountancy helps to provide information about the financial position, operating results and cash flow of an enterprise to improve corporate transparency, standardize enterprise behavior and protect public interests (Hu, Li and Zhang, 2014). Finally, accountancy helps to assess the situation of corporate management’s fulfilling their economic responsibility. When listed companies receive investments from the public, including all investors and creditors, they have the responsibility to make rational use of resources, strengthen management, improve economic efficiency, accept the assessment in accordance with their intended development objectives and requirements (Nobes and Stadler, 2013). Accounting information is useful in assessing the performance of an enterprise, as well as assessing the fulfillment of economic responsibility of the corp
