Abstract The tenor of this discussion seems to demonstrate that the accounting profession is involved in more than technical changes confined to a refinement of methods and the adaptation to larger and more complicated economic units, it marks rather the reaction of the profession to the forthcoming recognition that accounting has outgrown its formerly historical function of recording "given data" only, that its closeness to business administration involves it in the responsibilities of management with respect to the national economy, since most economic operations are transacted by business enterprises, that, in other words, the accounting profession performs not merely a clerical service, but also an important social function. These and similar recognitions of days, together with the necessity to keep in line with ever changing conditions, must be accepted by the accounting profession as its share in the "permanent revolution" with which people are confronted. Evaluations and judgments can be derived from fixed standpoints only. In order to gain these, a line has to be drawn between primary interests of the enterprise as an economic unit, and secondary, often conflicting interests of the various types of participants in a given business.
Konrad Engelmann (Tue,) studied this question.