German and French writers: some relevant alternatives to IAS-IFRS conceptual framework

Germany and France have old glory and we wanted to recall some features of the history of their accountants on the threshold of the changing era of international standards. Many theories were put forth by creative European authors; Europeans discussed the personality and materialistic theories, the proprietary theory and the entity theory. In the 20th century, the Germans tried to solve problems of inflation and standardisation, the French tried to introduce a 'scientific' approach to accountancy. Then, the even more influential German scholars, like Schmalenbach and others, combined their practical business sense and their systematic aptitude in developing a variety of Bilanztheorien, the French standardised some charts of accounts. The European nations have learned the important lesson to 'reconcile' space and time. After centuries of warfare, they finally begun to cooperate closely and have made progress, reflecting their aspirations to establish accounting standards and systems of global dimensions.