To read this content please select one of the options below:

From meticulous professionals to superheroes of the business world: A historical portrait of a cultural change in the field of accountancy

Claire-France Picard (Faculté des sciences de l'administration, Université Laval, Québec, Canada)
Sylvain Durocher (Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada)
Yves Gendron (Faculté des sciences de l'administration, Université Laval, Québec, Canada)

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

ISSN: 0951-3574

Article publication date: 2 January 2014

4351

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative cultural shift from professionalism to commercialism in the accounting profession, based on an analysis of the promotional brochures used by the Ordre des comptables agréés du Québec (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Québec), over the last 40 years, to attract new members.

Design/methodology/approach

The study's specific objectives are: to examine accountancy's cultural representations depicted in promotional brochures; to evaluate the extent to which these representations are indicative of the commercialist shift as documented in the literature; and to establish whether the representations under study provide further insight into the nature of the cultural shift. Drawing on the semiotic approach developed by Roland Barthes, the authors' analysis is predicated on the idea that promotional brochures and advertisements, though often simple in appearance, constitute complex representations that convey meaningful information about influential values and cultural change.

Findings

The authors found that commercial values are increasingly apparent through the celebration of multidisciplinary services and the emphasis on generous compensation and high dynamism.

Originality/value

Barthes' framework was especially useful to analyze the interplay between images and text to gain insight into the historical emergence of what has become the accountant's representation of today. As such, this study points to promotional representations participating to the inculcation of a cosmopolitan culture, where the internationalization of business is supposedly natural, inevitable, and beneficial to everyone. The authors' research also highlights the increasingly significant role played by marketing experts in designing professional institutes' brochures, consistent with the broader view of marketization as a key trend within the accounting industry.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors benefited from the comments on previous drafts by Marion Brivot, Merridee Bujaki and Henri Guénin-Paracini. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Citation

Picard, C.-F., Durocher, S. and Gendron, Y. (2014), "From meticulous professionals to superheroes of the business world: A historical portrait of a cultural change in the field of accountancy", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 73-118. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-09-2012-1087

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles