Richard Mattessich
Born in 1922 in Trieste but growing up in Vienna and graduating as a Dr.rer.pol. in 1945. Academic positions: Fellow of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (1945-47); Lecturer at the Rosenberg College (St. Gallen, 1947-52); Department Head of Commerce at Mt. Allison University (Sackville, NB. 1953-59); Associate Professor, University of California, Berkeley (1959-67); Professor of the Ruhr University, Bochum (Germany, 1966-67); Professor, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, 1967-87; since 1987 Prof. emeritus); Professor, Technische Universität. Vienna (1976-78—simultaneous with his position at UBC); also various visiting professorships in Austria, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and Switzerland. Apart from numerous papers, some 29 books bear his name (as author, co-author, editor, and co-editor). He received four honorary doctoral degrees and numerous other honors (including memberships in two national academies, and research awards from Canadian and American accounting associations). Profiled in such works as: Twentieth Century Accounting Thinkers (de. by J.R. Edwards, 1994), A History of Accounting--An International Encyclopedia (ed. by M. Chatfield and R. Vangermeersch, 1996), Les Grands Auteurs de la Comptabilité (ed. by B. Colasse, 2005).
Among his books, the best known are: (i) Accounting and Analytical Models (1964a with several reprints and translations into German, Japanese and Spanish) was the first among a series of books (by such authors as Chambers, Ijiri, etc.) that explored the analytical structure of accounting, thus influencing the conceptual frameworks of the FASB and other national and international accounting bodies. (ii) Simulation of the Firm through a Budget Computer Program (1964b) which (together with 1964a) anticipated the computerized spreadsheets of the 1980s. (3) Critique of Accounting (1995) which looked at the normative aspects of accounting from a philosophical point of view. (4) Instrumental Reasoning and Systems Methodology (2978; paperback ed. 1980), exploring epistemological aspects of the applied and social sciences. (5) The Beginnings of Accounting and Accounting Thought (2000) that, among other insights, showed that the “duality principle” manifested itself already in the Sumerian “token-envelop accounting” of 3,000 B.C. (though exploited only some four thousand years later). (5) Two hundred years of Accounting Research, (2008; paperback and Kindle editions: 2011), offering an international survey of personalities, ideas and publications. (6) Reality and Accounting – Ontological Explorations in the Economic and Social Sciences (2013), analyzing the structure of reality as a many-layered complex where the question “what kind of reality?” is no less crucial than “what is reality?”
website: www.sauder.ubc.ca/Faculty/People/Faculty_Members/Mattessich_Richard