qui et à quoi sert la comptabilité ? Un état de l'art et quelques réflexions théoriques pour dépasser le déterminisme des différents paradigmes

This study looks at different paradigms in accounting history to understand the emergence, development, uses and functions of accounting. Firstly, we gave an overview of the various works that have examined the question of the evolution of accounting practices and theories. This first work allowed us to elaborate a theoretical grid allowing to go beyond the reducing typologies of the research in history of the accounting. Then we looked at the possibility of mobilizing neoclassical, Foucaldian and Marxist framworks to study and explain the developmenet and uses of accounting practices. To do so we propose to use a transversal approach that allows both to mobilize the postulates of these works but without fishing in a determinism of any kind. This approach is inspired by Flichy's work, it must make it possible to grasp both the rationalist functions and the social uses of accounting. This framework of theoretical reflection on the uses and the functions of a technique proposed by Flichy obviously requires to test its heuristic capacity to study the evolution of the accounting practices within the companies and in the literature.