ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of how value is understood in mainstream management and accounting and discusses the difference between use value and exchange value. It presents the case study of the Ford Pinto car scandal to highlight the value of human life in mainstream management and accounting. Value is one of the central concepts of modern-day economics and business, but it is usually defined in terms of monetary or financial measurement. Economists understand value in terms of supply and demand, resulting in the idea that the value of a thing is determined by what people are prepared to pay for it. Adam Smith’s image of value determined by the ‘invisible hand’ of the market shapes the business disciplines. It lies behind the business school’s promotion of self-interest and ideology over social science. In biodiversity planning and schemes of species protection, the simplistic economic type of value given to nature allows for different species to be ‘traded’ against each other.
