Constructing the governable small practitioner: The changing nature of professional bodies and the management of professional accountants’ identities in the UK |
| |
| Authors: | Carlos Ramirez |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. HEC Paris, Department of Accounting and Control, 1 rue de la Libération, 78351 Jouy en Josas, France;2. WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Institute of Management Accounting and Control (IMC), Burgplatz 2, 56179 Vallendar, Germany;3. Copenhagen Business School, Department of Accounting and Auditing, Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark;4. Trondheim Business School, Jonsvannsveien 82, 7050 Trondheim, Norway;1. ESCP Europe, 79 Avenue de la République, 75543 Cedex 11, Paris, France;2. HEC Paris, 1 rue de la Libération, 78351 Jouy-en-Josas Cedex, France;3. HEC Montréal, 3000, Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal (QC), Canada H3T 2A;1. Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia;2. Faculty of Business, University of Technology, Sydney 2007, Australia;1. Federal University of Pernambuco, Business Administration Department, Brazil;2. Federal University of Pernambuco, Accounting Department, Brazil;3. Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands;1. École de comptabilité, Faculté des Sciences de l’Administration, Université Laval, Pavillon Palasis-Prince, 2325 rue de la Terrasse, Québec, Québec G1 V 0A6, Canada;2. ESSEC Business School, 1 Avenue Bernard HIRSCH, CS 50105 Cergy, 95021 Cergy Pontoise Cedex, France;3. Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | This article aims at contributing to the sociology of the accountancy profession by analysing how professional organisations govern the various categories that have emerged in the professional body throughout its history. To this end, the attempt by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to give an institutional existence to the category of “the small practitioner” is examined. The plasticity and the polysemic nature of the notion of smallness, which refers simultaneously to physical (small/big), geographical (local/global) and moral (anonymous/notorious) characteristics, offers a particular opportunity to show how these three dimensions have been integrated into evolving organisational arrangements and discourses aimed at legitimising the professional order. It is contended that the definition of what small practitioners are, and how they should be dealt with, can only be understood as part of the broader issue of governance of the accountancy community and the nature of the professional body. The ICAEW’s efforts to problematise the nature of small practices indicates a will to integrate distant modalities of accounting expertise into a single professional space, so as to prevent the physical and geographical distance between big and small firms from becoming too conspicuous a hierarchical distinction, and thus preserve the ideal of the community of peers upon which professional bodies have been built. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
