Failure to unify Australia’s leading accounting professional bodies
- Sidhu, Jasvinder, Stevenson-Clarke, Peta, Joshi, Mahesh, Halabi, Abdel
- Authors: Sidhu, Jasvinder , Stevenson-Clarke, Peta , Joshi, Mahesh , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Management History Vol. 26, no. 4 (2020), p. 491-514
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical account of four unsuccessful merger attempts between Australia’s two major professional accounting bodies over a 30-year period (1969 to 1998), each of which ultimately failed. An analysis of the commonalities and differences across the four attempts is provided and social identity theory is used to explain the differences between members level of support for these merger bids. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a qualitative approach using a historical research methodology to source surviving business records from public archives and other data gathered from oral history interviews. Findings: The study found that, across all four merger attempts between Australia’s two professional accounting bodies, there was strong support from society members (the perceived lower-status group) and opposition exhibited by institute members (the perceived higher-status group). This study also found that the perceived higher-status organisation always initiated merger discussions, while its members rejected the proposals in the members’ vote. Research limitations/implications: This paper focusses on the Australian accounting profession, considering a historical account of merger attempts. Further research is required that includes interviews and surveys of those involved in making decisions regarding merger attempts. Originality/value: This paper is the first to examine in detail these four unsuccessful merger attempts between the largest accounting organisations in Australia. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.
- Authors: Sidhu, Jasvinder , Stevenson-Clarke, Peta , Joshi, Mahesh , Halabi, Abdel
- Date: 2020
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Management History Vol. 26, no. 4 (2020), p. 491-514
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical account of four unsuccessful merger attempts between Australia’s two major professional accounting bodies over a 30-year period (1969 to 1998), each of which ultimately failed. An analysis of the commonalities and differences across the four attempts is provided and social identity theory is used to explain the differences between members level of support for these merger bids. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a qualitative approach using a historical research methodology to source surviving business records from public archives and other data gathered from oral history interviews. Findings: The study found that, across all four merger attempts between Australia’s two professional accounting bodies, there was strong support from society members (the perceived lower-status group) and opposition exhibited by institute members (the perceived higher-status group). This study also found that the perceived higher-status organisation always initiated merger discussions, while its members rejected the proposals in the members’ vote. Research limitations/implications: This paper focusses on the Australian accounting profession, considering a historical account of merger attempts. Further research is required that includes interviews and surveys of those involved in making decisions regarding merger attempts. Originality/value: This paper is the first to examine in detail these four unsuccessful merger attempts between the largest accounting organisations in Australia. © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Accounting and Slavery: the case of Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão (1755-1778)
- Authors: Pinto, Ofelia
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Contrary to the traditional view of accounting as a neutral technical practice, recent studies have increasingly viewed this technology as being social and institutional in both its orientation and effects. An important outcome of these portrayals of accounting’s decisive influence within organisations and broader contexts has been to highlight the enabling role it has played within significant historical events. This has included exploration of what has been termed the “dark side” of accounting: abhorrent episodes from human history in which accounting has been implicated. Slavery is one such episode. Adopting the conception of accounting as a social and institutional practice, this interpretative historical study applies the concept of “action at a distance” and previous literature on the interrelations between accounting and the state as a conceptual framework to critically analyse the accounting practices that were developed and adopted by the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão, a Portuguese company established primarily for the purpose of trading in human beings (slaves) in the second half of the 18th century. As well as providing a novel addition to the literature dealing with the “dark side” of accounting, this archive-based case study also sheds further light on accounting’s potential to act as a powerful agent of social change, including its facilitation of episodes of human misery.
- Description: Doctor of Philsophy
- Authors: Pinto, Ofelia
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Contrary to the traditional view of accounting as a neutral technical practice, recent studies have increasingly viewed this technology as being social and institutional in both its orientation and effects. An important outcome of these portrayals of accounting’s decisive influence within organisations and broader contexts has been to highlight the enabling role it has played within significant historical events. This has included exploration of what has been termed the “dark side” of accounting: abhorrent episodes from human history in which accounting has been implicated. Slavery is one such episode. Adopting the conception of accounting as a social and institutional practice, this interpretative historical study applies the concept of “action at a distance” and previous literature on the interrelations between accounting and the state as a conceptual framework to critically analyse the accounting practices that were developed and adopted by the Companhia Geral do Grão Pará e Maranhão, a Portuguese company established primarily for the purpose of trading in human beings (slaves) in the second half of the 18th century. As well as providing a novel addition to the literature dealing with the “dark side” of accounting, this archive-based case study also sheds further light on accounting’s potential to act as a powerful agent of social change, including its facilitation of episodes of human misery.
- Description: Doctor of Philsophy
Accounting professionalisation and occupational context: The role of the public accounting profession in China
- Authors: Yee, Helen , West, Brian
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 6th Asia Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting Conference: Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting (APIRA 2010) p. 1-28
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: While applied broadly within the setting of accounting and some other occupations, ‘profession’ is a particularly Western concept with peculiarly British origins. However, the significance of such status and the process by which it is acquired has defied precise explication. Examination of the sociology of the accounting occupation within non- Western locations can contribute to exposing and clarifying these problematic and contingent aspects of occupational stratification, as well as assist in redressing the bias towards English-speaking and European countries within the accounting history literature. Proceeding from these theoretical premises, a historical study of the accounting occupation within China is undertaken. Integrating episodes from this country into the broader historical narrative of the professionalisation of accounting reinforces – often vividly – that accountants’ work status is not bound to an innate and predetermined trajectory. Rather, the variety of localised and time-specific variables which constitute the occupational context are shown to exert a dominating influence.
- Authors: Yee, Helen , West, Brian
- Date: 2010
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 6th Asia Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting Conference: Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting (APIRA 2010) p. 1-28
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: While applied broadly within the setting of accounting and some other occupations, ‘profession’ is a particularly Western concept with peculiarly British origins. However, the significance of such status and the process by which it is acquired has defied precise explication. Examination of the sociology of the accounting occupation within non- Western locations can contribute to exposing and clarifying these problematic and contingent aspects of occupational stratification, as well as assist in redressing the bias towards English-speaking and European countries within the accounting history literature. Proceeding from these theoretical premises, a historical study of the accounting occupation within China is undertaken. Integrating episodes from this country into the broader historical narrative of the professionalisation of accounting reinforces – often vividly – that accountants’ work status is not bound to an innate and predetermined trajectory. Rather, the variety of localised and time-specific variables which constitute the occupational context are shown to exert a dominating influence.
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »