Abstract The article discusses the controversy over accounting for goodwill. Such issue has been existing for many years, and the recurrence of the problem shows that goodwill is indicative of a more fundamental problem in financial accounting theory. In an attempt to explore the goodwill phenomenon, financial accounting was analyzed from a systems-theoretic perspective. The article explains that accounting entities can be and are usefully conceived as open systems. The concept of open systems indicates the desirability of financial accounting theory being brought more in line with the emergence of management information systems.
Malcolm C. Miller (Sun,) studied this question.