The development of the Encyclopedia of Accounting and Finance. The case of Estonia

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the framework, content and principles of composing a special encyclopedia – the Encyclopedia of Accounting and Finance. The paper presents the concept of a two-volume special Encyclopedia – the Encyclopedia of Accounting and Finance – written and revised by the authors over the course of a decade. An analysis of the practical lexicographic work done by the authors of the Encyclopedia of Accounting and Finance is presented. The analysis describes how the authors composed the Encyclopedia and discusses how the components of the work relate to one another. Part of the Encyclopedia is a biographical reference book including more than 900 mini-essays. Another feature of the book is its extensive network of cross-references. Principles of lexicography were used in the process of composing the Encyclopedia of Accounting and Finance. This paper is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of the authors’ viewpoint on the special Encyclopedia, which contains almost 8,000 entries