ABSTRACT
The transplantation of conventional accounting figures from the physical dimension of stewardship reporting into the value dimension of performance reporting imposes upon the conventional system of accounting a strain which it is not designed to bear. ‘Backward-looking measures of volume’ have to be misinterpreted as ‘forward-looking measures of value’. The procedure for ‘attaching’ monetary figures to assets ceases to be merely the choice of a symbol of volume; it becomes an act of valuation. The choice of ‘code’, which for stewardship purposes is of no consequence, then assumes an importance which is critical.
