Three readings of human capital in social accounting: overcoming an ambiguous concept

Taking people into account in accounting is a project that has been the subject of several different accounting frameworks. Whatever the model, there systematically remains an ambiguous reading of humans, caught between a productive force and a resource to be preserved. More precisely, it seems possible to us to identify three families of different approaches. We offer a presentation of each conceptual framework and its philosophical foundations. To embody each of these readings, we illustrate it through the example of the management of psychosocial risks and suffering at work then we take a critical look at the ambiguities or failures of these approaches. We show that these approaches share a vision that is ultimately quite close to humans. Finally, we propose to overcome these limits by adopting a relational ontology of humans.