This site — for Professor William McCarthy and the REA (Resource-Event-Agent) accounting ontology papers — is under construction.
For potential students, here are Professor McCarthy’s teaching ratings for ACC-821, ACC-823, and ACC-825 for the period of 2011-2024.
Many people have requested a free draft version of the 2022 REA monograph. Version 0.90 of that monograph is available here:
The REA Accounting Model as an Accounting and Economic Ontology by William E. McCarthy, Guido L. Geerts, and Graham Gal
The AAA monograph (final version) can be ordered from the American Accounting Association here.
Below, please see the key research papers you may be looking for. If you don’t find what you need, please contact Professor McCarthy directly at: mccarthy@broad.msu.edu
Thank you.
Foundational Resource-Event-Agent (REA) Papers
William E McCarthy, “The REA Accounting Model: A Generalized Framework for Accounting Systems in a Shared Data Environment,” The Accounting Review (July 1982), pp. 554-78.
William E McCarthy, “An Entity-Relationship View of Accounting Models,” The Accounting Review (October 1979), pp. 667-86.
William E McCarthy, “Construction and Use of Integrated Accounting Systems with Entity-Relationship Modeling,” in P. Chen ed., Entity-Relationship Approach to Systems Analysis and Design (North-Holland, 1980), pp. 626-37.
William E McCarthy, “The REA Modeling Approach to Teaching Accounting Information Systems,” Issues in Accounting Education (November 2003), pp. 427-441.
The REA Ontology —
Expansions in the Temporal and Granularity Planes
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, “The Ontological Foundation of REA Enterprise Information Systems,” Presentation to the Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association, Philadelphia, August 2000. (Working paper, Michigan State University).
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, “Modeling Business Enterprises as Value-Added Process Hierarchies with Resource-Event-Agent Object Templates,” in Business Object Design and Implementation J. Sutherland and D. Patel (eds.), 1997, Springer-Verlag, pp. 94-113.
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, “An Accounting Object Infrastructure for Knowledge-Based Enterprise Models,” IEEE Intelligent Systems & Their Applications (July/August 1999), pp. 89-94.
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, "Augmented Intensional Reasoning in Knowledge-Based Accounting Systems," The Journal of Information Systems (Fall 2000) pp. 127-50.
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, “Using Object Templates from the REA Accounting Model to Engineer Business Processes and Tasks,” The Review of Business Information Systems, vol. 5, no. 4, 2001, pp. 89-108.
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, “An Ontological Analysis of the Primitives of the Extended-REA Enterprise Information Architecture,” The International Journal of Accounting Information Systems (March 2002) pp. 1-16.
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, "Policy-Level Specifications in REA Enterprise Information Systems," The Journal of Information Systems (Fall 2006), pp. 37-63.
International Standards Organization, “ISO 15944-4: Information Technology – Business Operational View – Part 4: Business Transaction Scenarios – Accounting and Economic Ontology,” Second Version of International Standard, The International Organization for Standards (ISO), Geneva, Switzerland, April 2015. (Link connects reader to request for free copy of certain ISO standards; reader then chooses to ask for 15944-4-2015.)
REA Computational Proofs of Concept
Graham Gal and William E McCarthy, “Operation of a Relational Accounting System,” Advances in Accounting (Volume 3, 1986), pp.83-112.
Graham Gal and William E McCarthy, “Declarative and Procedural Features of a CODASYL Accounting System,” in P. Chen, ed., Entity-Relationship Approach to Information Modeling and Analysis (North-Holland, 1983), pp.197-213.
Graham Gal and William E McCarthy, “Specification of Internal Controls in a Database Environment,” Computers and Security (March 1985), pp. 23-32.
Eric Denna and William E McCarthy, “An Events Accounting Foundation for DSS,” in C. W. Holsapple and A. B. Whinston (eds.) Decision Support Systems: Theory and Applications (Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Decision Support Systems, Maratea, Italy), Springer-Verlag Publishing Company, 1987, pp. 239-63.
S. R. Rockwell and W. E. McCarthy. “REACH: Automated Database Design Integrating First-Order Theories, Reconstructive Expertise, and Implementation Heuristics for Accounting Information Systems.” International Journal of Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Management, and Finance (September 1999), pp. 181-97.
REA Literature Reviews and Summaries
Dunn, C., Gerard, G. J., and Grabski, S. V. “Resources-Events-Agents Design Theory: A Revolutionary Approach to Enterprise System Design.” Communications of the Association for Information Systems (2016).
Cheryl L Dunn and William E McCarthy. “Conceptual Models Of Economic Exchange Phenomena: History's Third Wave of Accounting Systems” in Collected Papers of the Sixth World Congress of Accounting Historians, 1992, Kyoto, Japan. Volume I, pp. 133-164.
Cheryl L Dunn and William E McCarthy. “The REA Accounting Model: Intellectual Heritage and Prospects for Progress” The Journal of Information Systems (Spring 1997), pp. 31-51 (with Cheryl Dunn).
William E McCarthy. "Semantic Modeling in Accounting Education, Practice, and Research: Some Progress and Impediments," in: Conceptual Modeling: Current Issues and Future, Editors: P. P. Chen, J. Akoka, H Kangassalo, B. Thalheim, L. Y. Wong. Springer Verlag, Berlin and Heidelberg, April 1999, pp.144-53.
Julie Smith David, Cheryl L. Dunn, William E McCarthy, and Robin S. Poston. "The Research Pyramid: A Framework for Accounting Information Systems Research,” The Journal of Information Systems (Spring 1999), pp. 1-23.
Semantic Modeling of Enterprise-Wide Economic Phenomena
Julie Smith David, William E McCarthy, and Brian Sommer, “Agility: The Key to Survival of the Fittest in the Software Market,” The Communications of the ACM (May 2003) pp. 65-69.
Robert Haugen and William E McCarthy, “REA: A Semantic Model for Internet Supply Chain Collaboration,” in the proceedings of the Business Object Component Workshop VI: Enterprise Application Integration (January 2000).
C. Dunn, J. S. David, and W.E. McCarthy, “Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Research: The Necessity of Explicating and Examining Patterns in Symbolic Form,” in the proceedings of the First International Workshop on Enterprise Management and Resource Planning Systems: Methods, Tools and Architecture. Venice, Italy. November 1999).
Chunka Mui and William E McCarthy, “FSA: Applying AI Techniques to the Familiarization Phase of Financial Decision Making,” IEEE Expert (Fall 1987), pp. 33-41.
William E McCarthy, “On the Future of Knowledge-Based Accounting Systems,” in the D. R. Scott Memorial Lecture Series, (The University of Missouri, 1987) pp. 19-42.
Guido L Geerts and William E McCarthy, “Database Accounting Systems,” in IT and Accounting: The Impact of Information Technology. B.C. Williams and B.J. Spaul (Eds.). London: Chapman & Hall, 1991, pp. 159-183.
REA Research Methodology and Design Science
Guido L. Geerts, Lynford E. Graham, Elaine G. Mauldin, William E McCarthy, and Vernon J. Richardson, “Integrating Information Technology into Accounting Research and Practice," Accounting Horizons (December 2013), pp. 815-840.
Julie Smith David, Gregory J. Gerard, and William E McCarthy. “Design Science: An REA Perspective on the Future of AIS,” in Researching Accounting as an Information Systems Discipline (eds., V. Arnold and S. Sutton) American Accounting Association, Sarasota, 2002, pp. 35-63.
William E McCarthy, “Accounting Craftspeople vs. Accounting Seers: Exploring the Relevance and Innovation Gaps in Academic Accounting Research." Accounting Horizons (December 2012), pp. 833-43.
W. E. McCarthy, E. Denna, G. Gal, and S. R. Rockwell, “Expert Systems and AI-Based Decision Support in Auditing: Progress and Perspectives.” International Journal of Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance, and Management (January 1992), pp. 53-63.
William E. McCarthy, “Information Technology Research in Accounting,” Journal of Information Systems, Fall 1990, pp. iii-iv.
AAA Design Science webinar