Social accounting for sufficiency: Buddhist principles and practices, and their application in Thailand

Gordon Boyce; Wanna Prayukvong; Apichai Puntasen

doi:10.1108/S1041-7060(2009)0000014007

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Advances in Public Interest Accounting

ISSN: 1041-7060
Series editor(s): Professor Cheryl Lehman

Subject Area: Accounting and Finance

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Social accounting for sufficiency: Buddhist principles and practices, and their application in Thailand

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Title:	Social accounting for sufficiency: Buddhist principles and practices, and their application in Thailand
Author(s):	Gordon Boyce, Wanna Prayukvong, Apichai Puntasen
Volume:	14 Editor(s): Kala Saravanamuthu, Cheryl R. Lehman ISBN: 978-1-84855-300-2 eISBN: 978-1-84855-301-9
Citation:	Gordon Boyce, Wanna Prayukvong, Apichai Puntasen (2009), Social accounting for sufficiency: Buddhist principles and practices, and their application in Thailand, in Kala Saravanamuthu, Cheryl R. Lehman (ed.) Extending Schumacher's Concept of Total Accounting and Accountability into the 21st Century (Advances in Public Interest Accounting, Volume 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.55-119
DOI:	10.1108/S1041-7060(2009)0000014007 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Abstract:	Social and environmental accounting research manifests varying levels of awareness of critical global problems and the need to develop alternative approaches to dealing with economy and society. This paper explores Buddhist thought and, specifically, Buddhist economics as a means to informing this debate. We draw on and expand Schumacher's ideas about ‘Buddhist economics’, first articulated in the 1960s. Our analysis centres on Buddhism's Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path and associated Buddhist teachings. The examination includes assumptions, means and ends of Buddhist approaches to economics; these are compared and contrasted with conventional economics. To consider how thought and practice may be bridged, we examine a practical application of Buddhism's Middle Way, in the form of Thailand's current work with ‘Sufficiency Economy’. Throughout the paper, we explore the implications for the development of social accounting, looking for mutual interactions between Buddhism and social accounting thought and practice.