More than ‘continuing professional development’: a proposed new learning framework for professional accountants

This paper explores literature relating to continuing professional development (CPD) and lifelong learning to develop an understanding of how the learning landscape has evolved in recent years, both in the accountancy profession and more widely. Three different perspectives on learning are drawn together and this synthesis is used to develop a framework for professional learning. In this, the concepts of CPD and lifelong learning are replaced with ‘learning relating to professional competence’ and ‘learning relating to career adaptability’. The framework also contrasts the learning of an ‘informed professional’, a ‘competent professional’ and a ‘complete professional’. This holistic model, derived from existing literature, will be of interest to professional accountancy bodies and educators of accountants and will inform their ongoing interactions with current and future professional accountants.     

决策模型在职业生涯与发展决策过程中的应用

大学生是重要的人力资源,其就业是关系到个人前途和全社会发展稳定的大事。我们应从高校入手关注大学生的职业生涯发展,指导学生如何利用决策模型来规划自己的职业,这对大学生而言具有重要的现实意义。     

Accountancy on the periphery: the profession in Exeter to 1939

This paper presents an historical case study of the accountancy profession in the English cathedral city and county town of Exeter. Inter alia, it examines the idea that the formation of professional accountancy bodies served not only to enhance the collective economic status and social mobility of their members but also, in the case of a city like Exeter located on the periphery of the UK, to enhance their geographical mobility. The emphases of the paper are on the growth in the numbers of accountants, migration of accountants (both within the UK and overseas), and the overlapping 'jurisdictions' of accountants with other professions. Exeter's experience is compared and contrasted with that of the UK as a whole and suggestions are made for further research. The paper includes data on professional accountants qualifying in and/or working in Exeter from the late 1870s to the outbreak of the World War II in 1939.     

Australian Rural Accountants’ Views on How Locally Provided CPD Compares with City-based Provision

Abstract

This paper analyses Australian rural accountants’ attitudes and levels of satisfaction with continuing professional development (CPD), based on whether the CPD was delivered by a professional accounting body in a rural or metropolitan area. The paper responds to prior research that finds rural accountants are dissatisfied with professional accounting bodies [Rural and regional Australian public accounting firm services: Service provision, concerns and tensions. Australian Accounting Review, 23(23), 163–176]. Findings of a survey to which 156 rural accountants responded were that when CPD is delivered into the rural areas, there are greater levels of CPD satisfaction. The study also found that cost was significantly better for rural-delivered CPD and that when more rural-based CPD was attended differences became more significant across a number of satisfaction measures. The findings have important implications for both rural accountants and professional accounting bodies.     

Deprivation,social class and social mobility at Big Four and non-Big Four firms

Using the work of Bourdieu and Savage, this paper investigates social class and social mobility among chartered accountants who qualified with The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland in 2009. We find that these accountants tend to come from privileged backgrounds and that those who qualified with Big Four firms possess more economic, social and cultural capital than those who qualify with other firms. Our study provides fresh insights into how elements of social class interact with social background. In contrast with the prevailing view that there is limited social mobility in the accountancy profession, we find some evidence of social mobility, suggesting that current debates are based on contestable assumptions. We also find that chartered accountants from more deprived backgrounds as indicated by childhood postcode often have a father who has a professional or managerial occupation, so are not deprived on all measures. Where those from more deprived backgrounds accessed chartered accountancy careers, this was at the expense of people whose parents held lower rather than higher professional or managerial jobs. This suggests that the most advantaged maintain access to chartered accountancy but those from more middling professional homes are displaced when those from more deprived backgrounds gain access.     

Determinants of academic cheating behavior: The future for accountancy in Ireland

This paper considers the potential for improving the reputation of the Irish accountancy profession by exploring undergraduate accounting students’ intolerance of academic cheating as a predictor of future attitudes to unethical workplace practices. The study reports that females are significantly more intolerant of cheating than males. Further, with regard to ethical ideology, idealism was found to have a significant positive association with intolerance of cheating while relativism reported no association. It is anticipated that the growing admission of women to professional accountancy membership together with educational intervention to increase idealism may improve ethical attitudes and help restore the profession's reputation.     

American Accountants in 1880

Although much has been written about the foundation and maturation of the early US public accountancy profession, little is known about the community of American accountants that existed prior to the main foundational events of the 1880s and 1890s. Using data extracted from the 1880 US Census, this study provides a contextualised review of American accountants in that year. Contextual factors include the population and manufacturing economy of the US in 1880, and other accounting service providers such as auditors and bookkeepers. The study reveals a very small community of accountants relative to the US population and manufacturing economy, occupational and economic distinctions between accountants, auditors and bookkeepers, little evidence of public accountancy as a significant occupation, the presence of a small female subset of the accountant community, and a significant proportion of accountants associated with lower socio-economic classifications and immigration. The evidence of the study is consistent with contemporary comments recorded by British public accountants and American bookkeepers.     

农村区域发展专业实践能力培养途径研究

学生专业实践能力的培养是提升农村区域发展专业建设层次的重要途径。基于农村区域发展专业实践能力培养的基本要求,本文从课程实践教学、实践基地、学生参与式学习与研究、实践平台构建以及课外专业讲解模式等方面探讨如何培养学生的专业实践能力。     

Re-theorizing the configuration of organizational fields: the IIRC and the pursuit of ‘Enlightened’ corporate reporting

This paper studies the emergence of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and its attempts to institutionalize integrated reporting as a practice that is critical to the relevance and value of corporate reporting. Informed by Suddaby and Viale’s [(2011). Professionals and field-level change: institutional work and the professional project. Current Sociology, 59, 423–442] theorization of how professionals reconfigure organizational fields, the paper delineates the strategies and mechanisms through which the IIRC has sought to enroll the support of a wide range of stakeholder groups for the idea of integrated reporting in order to deliver a fundamental reconfiguration of the corporate reporting field. The paper’s analysis reinforces the significance to any such field reconfiguration of the reciprocal and mutual arrangements between influential professionals and other powerful actors but does so in a way that (a) refines Suddaby and Viale’s theorization of processes of field-level change and (b) pinpoints the fundamental policy challenges facing the IIRC. Gieryn’s [(1983). Boundary work and the demarcation of science from non-science: strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48 (6), 781–795] notion of boundary work is operationalized to capture some of the complexity and dynamism of the change process that is not sufficiently represented by Suddaby and Viale’s more sequentialist theorization. From a policy perspective, the paper demonstrates just how much the IIRC’s prospects for success in reconfiguring the corporate reporting field depend on its ability to reconfigure the mainstream investment field. Ultimately, this serves to question whether the IIRC’s conceptualization of ‘enlightened’ corporate reporting is sufficiently powerful and persuasive to stimulate ‘enlightened’ investment behavior focused on the medium and long term – and, more generally stresses the theoretical significance of considering connections across related organizational fields in institutional analyses of field reconfiguration efforts.     

论职业院校“双师型”教师专业发展的四种模式

职业院校"双师型"教师专业发展有四种模式,即"学术-理性"模式、"技术-训练"模式、"实践-反思"模式和"文化-生态"模式。每种模式都体现出不同的特点和路径。通过分析这四种模式使我们认识到,职业院校"双师型"教师专业发展是一个复杂的多种因素作用的过程和结果,是一个"学术性、技术性和师范性"相融合的文化过程,是一个学术体系与工作体系、理论知识与实践操作、应用与创新的生态化发展过程。     

教学团队建设与青年教师专业发展的实践与探索

教学团队建设与青年教师专业发展的实践与探索是当前高等教育研究的重要课题。研究表明,大学英语教学团队建设对学科建设、课程建设、创新教育思想和教育理念、创新教学模式、推进教学改革、提升教学质量和人才培养质量以及青年教师专业持续发展起着重要的推动和促进作用。     

Perspectives from mainland China,Hong Kong and the UK on the development of China’s auditing firms: implications and a research agenda

Based on gaining privileged access to interview senior representatives of audit firms, regulatory bodies, financial institutions, universities and other organisations in mainland China, Hong Kong and the UK, this exploratory study presents a range of informed views about the rapid development of China’s auditing profession over the last 25 years. It explores the emerging roles of the firms in the 2nd-tier international networks and among the larger stand-alone firms as challengers to the Big 4, nationally and internationally. It identifies national and international institutional interactions that have shaped and are being shaped by this rapid growth, with particular reference to the overarching role of the State’s shifting strategies to create a domestic profession in China that can compete internationally. The potential consequences, given China’s unequalled size and its expanding global influence, could change the nature and structure of the global profession. A significant contribution of this exploratory empirical study has been to deconstruct the continuing conventional political and academic rhetoric that dichotomises firms into ‘foreign vs local’ and ‘Big 4 vs other’. It contributes new voices and alternative perspectives to the emerging literature on the glocalization of large professional services firms and suggests new opportunities for future auditing research.