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The sociology of professions literature has theorized that the professions are undergoing a dramatic transformation from being traditional professions to “entrepreneurial professions” populated by “knowledge workers.” In part, this transformation is associated with the commodification and commercialization of professional endeavor.

Our purpose is to enlist the processual ordering perspective to examine the ongoing transformation of the Big 5 (and following the collapse of Arthur Andersen during our field study)/4 public accounting firms to become entrepreneurial firms populated by global knowledge experts. More specifically, we focus on the inter-play of power and meta-power across three moments of the social construction process – externalization, objectivation, and internalization – through which the ethos of entrepreneurialism is being socially constructed within these firms, their individual members, and in the public accounting profession. Finally, we explore impressions gleaned from our qualitative, naturalistic field study.

The time period from the mid-1980s through 2002 is described in this series of research as a “pre-SOX” era of rapid deprofessionalization in U.S. pubic accountancy resulting in the loss of professional status. This was a period, however, when all professions were suffering some deprofessionalization. During the pre-SOX period it appears that leadership in public accountancy responded to a nearly perfect storm of changes confronting the profession with a corporate mentality of management by objectives, commercialization, and profit maximization resulting in constant and substantial net deprofessionalization greater than that of other professions. Starting in the late-1970s and continuing through 2001, some critics of public accountancy have asserted that leaders in the profession either lost or forgot what was required for public accountancy to be recognized as a profession. The conclusion stated in this paper is that public accountancy has lost its professional status in or before 2002. The reasons and events leading to this conclusion are presented and discussed. In the United States it appears as though once professional status is lost, regaining the elite status is more difficult. The question is if public accountancy can learn from history going into the substantial changes to be confronted in the post-SOX era of public accountancy and regain or at least make progress toward regaining professional status.

Over the last decade, the accounting convergence process with the development and adoption of IFRS as national standards has become the focus of governments, professionals, and researchers. In 2005, the EU (including Germany) and Australia adopted IFRS. A survey by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (2010) reported that 89 countries have adopted or intend to adopt IFRS for all their domestic listed companies. Currently, more than 100 jurisdictions require or permit the use of IFRS, with countries such as Canada, Brazil, and Argentina being the most recent adopters (IFRS Foundation, 2011b). This growing number of countries implementing IFRS and their experiences and emerging challenges have further raised researchers' interest in this controversial topic (Ashbaugh & Pincus, 2001; Atwood et al., 2011; Byard et al., 2011; Christensen et al., 2007; Daske et al., 2008; Ding et al., 2007; Hail et al., 2010a, 2010b; Kvaal & Nobes, 2010; McAnally et al., 2010; Mechelli, 2009; Niskanen, Kinnunen, & Kasanen, 2000; Stolowy, Haller, & Klockhaus, 2001; Tyrrall et al., 2007). However, these studies have concentrated on the development and application of specific accounting standards and practices and/or cross-national and cross-cultural issues concerning adaptation, implementation, and evaluation of IFRS. Moreover, an increasing number of studies have been devoted to classifications of accounting models and categorization of accounting standards, principles, and values (Chanchani & Willett, 2004; D'Arcy, 2000, 2001; Doupnik & Richter, 2004; Doupnik & Salter, 1993; Gray, 1988; Kamla, Gallhofer, & Haslam, 2006; Nair & Frank, 1980; Patel, 2003, 2007; Perera & Mathews, 1990; Salter & Doupnik, 1992). However, very few studies have critically examined the historical development of accounting practices and issues related to convergence in its socioeconomic context and, importantly, we are not aware of any study that has rigorously examined the institutionalization of Anglo-American accounting practices as international practice with an emphasis on power and legitimacy in the move toward convergence of accounting standards.

This chapter examines the notion that contemporary tourists prefer luxury experiences rather than luxury products by testing the opinions and attitudes of middle-class tourists as a critical target for global luxury tourism through the lens of experience-oriented accommodation. Notions from the study were used in conceptualising a spectrum to describe the shades of grey within luxury tourism. A Japanese temple lodging known as ‘shukubo’ in Koyasan, an experience-based accommodation, was used as a case to investigate the preferences of two groups of middle-class Thai tourists: non-pilgrims and pilgrims. The results, which revealed positive opinions and attitudes towards the programme, confirm that both groups were satisfied with the luxury tourism experience programme. However, non-pilgrims, described as psychocentric tourists (represented in black at the left end of the spectrum), tended to embed them with luxury materials, such as the accommodation's facilities and amenities. Conversely, pilgrims, identified as allocentric travellers (represented in white at the right end of the spectrum), were inclined to define ‘simplicity’ as a luxury. They were also interested in learning experiences at both ‘off-the-beaten-track’ and famous branded destinations. The differences found in such an example as described above conceptualised tourists' personalities regarding luxury tourism within three shades of grey: dark grey, grey and light grey, depending on the intensity of their interests in material concerns or learning experiences. Findings from this study are general; however, it presents an original concept developed from demographic and psychographic factors to broaden the understanding of luxury tourism, which is undergoing a paradigm shift.

This paper presents narrative data collected from seniors and managers/senior managers of five international professional services firms. Participants voluntarily wrote comments on the face of a survey instrument that collected objective format data. Comments discuss a variety of aspects of the work environment. This study provides a view of the accounting workplace that focuses on individual perceptions and experiences. The narrative data is organized into categories addressing the nature of the job, compensation, organizational culture and personal sacrifice. Overall, the environment portrayed by the individual comments is one perceived by the respondents to be difficult and challenging: too much work, insufficient rewards, lack of appreciation, limited control by the individual, and poor-quality management. The paper discusses the comments and relates them to contemporary events, theory and research.