Intra-professional hierarchies: the gendering of accounting specialisms in UK accountancy
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 21 October 2013
Abstract
Purpose
Concomitant with the trend towards specialisation in UK accountancy and the rise of relatively separate formal spheres of professional work along formal specialisms such as tax, audit and management consultancy, women entered the profession in unprecedented numbers, but not evenly distributed across those specialisms. This paper aims to draw on the sociology of accountancy and feminist studies of the professions to show that specialisms have emerged through and, in turn, have been shaped and recreated by gender as well as other processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper's research approach combines the sociology of professions with critical gender studies. It draws on interviews, brochures, web pages, and results from a questionnaire survey to investigate professional identities within UK accountancy.
Findings
Accountants' self-articulated notions of professionalism in the different specialisms are gendered and ordered hierarchically. Gender is an encompassing conceptual frame for ordering discursive attributes of the different specialisms. Working long and unpredictable hours was central to accountants' understandings of their professional life. Socialising with clients was seen as functional in bringing new opportunities to the firm. Socialising with peers also was deemed important, especially in solving internal frictions and in controlling new entrants' behaviour in firms. The more “public” the ideology of a specialism, the more masculine it was perceived to be.
Originality/value
This study challenges the uniform representations of professional identities offered by previous studies. It suggests that gender offers a discursive and ideological frame of reference for accountancy whose relevance extends beyond the working practices of men and women to the very constitution of the profession. It does so with reference to an original mix of qualitative and quantitative data.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the advice and support of Thomas Ahrens, Chris Humphrey and Linda Kirkham during the research for this study, the constructive comments of the journal reviewers, and Lee Parker's editorial guidance to develop the paper to its present form. The author is also grateful to Kris Hardies as well as various conference participants, for their useful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.
Citation
Khalifa, R. (2013), "Intra-professional hierarchies: the gendering of accounting specialisms in UK accountancy", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 26 No. 8, pp. 1212-1245. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-05-2013-1358
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited