Accounting professionals and the accounting profession: linking conduct and context

Abstract

Recent years have seen an upsurge in published research concerned with the daily conduct of accounting professionals in Big Five firms. However, in general, these studies have given scant consideration to the institutional setting within which accountants work. In this paper we analyse the UK accounting profession in terms of the fragmentation of its professional bodies and the diversification of its markets, and link this to empirical findings from a detailed qualitative research project examining the professional socialisation of trainees in the UK regional offices of two Big Five firms. These findings confirm earlier studies in terms of the key relationship between professionalism and forms of self-conduct, but extend the earlier studies by exploring trainees' accounts of their professional expertise, qualification and examination. We conclude by arguing that these conceptions reinforce, albeit in unintended ways, the changing institutional context of the accounting profession.