Abstract

Recently a body of literature has emerged from the United States that attempts to quantify and explain the role the media plays in the provision of financial information to share markets. This paper extends that line of enquiry by focusing on the implications for the accounting profession of various forms of alternative, frequently mediadriven, financial information providers. The paper briefly examines the demographic changes in the Australian share markets and adopts a ‘value chain’ approach in its analysis of the relationship between the media and the accounting profession. It highlights the growth in the media’s provision of financial information, analysis and advice and examines the response of the accounting discipline to the changes in the ‘financial information’ market. Finally, the paper suggests that for the accounting profession to maintain its members’ presence in the financial information market it will need to rigorously develop and differentiate its knowledge set to reinforce its value against the growing competition for financial advice coming from ‘new’ media. We suggest that to achieve this goal the discipline will need to develop and adopt a more holistic intradisciplinary ‘evidence based’ knowledge management system approach to maintaining and developing its knowledge set.

Keywords: accountants, direct investors, media, financial information, evidence based accounting, value-chain analysis

How to Cite:

Clarke, K., Flanagan, J. & O'Neill, S., (2008) “The financial information value chain: repositioning accounting knowledge”, Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal 2(1), 82-94. doi: https://doi.org/10.14453/aabfj.v2i1.6