A New Form of Accounting with Traditional Chinese Cultural Thinking through the Lens of Social and Environmental Accounting

This thesis explores a thought of a new form of accounting and designs a practical accounting model ‘Accounting for Thrift’ with traditional Chinese cultural thinking for a harmonious society. It introduces and discusses the development of traditional Chinese cultural thinking in the context of a brief history of China. The writer argues that the spirit of traditional Chinese cultural thinking is oneness between heaven and man, and there are three layers of meanings of heaven: Dao, Moral Virtue and the Natural World and they are in order. The moral corruption has been throughout the history of China due to leaving Dao since Confucius’s time, and the moral corruption makes people unable to see the interconnection of everything; consequently, people lose the harmonious relationship with nature and between ourselves in this natural world. The up-to-date research data collected regarding the general environmental situation in China uses Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and it shows the immorality of the whole society due to the economy-focused thinking; therefore, a practical accounting model with spiritual and organic values is designed based on Dao for helping recover the morality of the whole society and then restoring the harmony between human beings and nature and between ourselves; i.e. primal episteme in which intrinsic sustainability can be achieved in all aspects