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This paper examines radical reform of the Chinese public accounting profession in the 1990s. In particular, the paper seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding of the sources, responses and processes of this radical institutional change that effectively paved the way for development of the Chinese accounting profession into the twenty-first century.

The empirical data that inform this study come from both archival materials (mostly in Chinese) and in-depth interviews. These data are analysed and interpreted from a neo-institutionalist perspective, drawing, in particular, on the concept of institutional logics and the concept of institutional work.

A state logic initially guided the development of the Chinese accounting profession but was seriously challenged in the 1990s following a series of high profile financial scandals. The findings reveal a shift to a new professional logic, which was made possible through multiple forms of institutional works instigated by various state actors.

Research into the radical reform of the Chinese public accounting profession in the 1990s was mostly quantitative in nature, focussing mainly on one reform programme, i.e. the disaffiliation of the accounting firms from their sponsoring agencies. This paper adopts a qualitative approach and is aimed at providing a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the institutional change process within its political and economic contexts.

This paper aims to review the research on accounting professionalisation in China to develop insights into how the research is developing, offer a critique of the research to date and outline future research directions and opportunities.

This paper adopts a methodological approach of systematic literature review, as suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003) and Denyer and Tranfield (2009), to identify, select and analyse the extant literature on the Chinese public accounting profession. In total, 68 academic works were included in the review process.

This paper finds that the extant literature has produced fruitful insights into the processes and underlying motivation of accounting professionalisation in China, demonstrating that the Chinese experience has differed, to a large extent, from the hitherto mainly Anglo-American-dominated understandings of accounting professionalisation. However, due to the lack of common theoretical vernacular and an agreed upon focus, the extant literature illustrates a fragmented and contradictory picture, making attempts to accumulate prior knowledge in the field increasingly difficult.

This paper focusses only on research published in English. Consequently, the scope of review has been limited as some works published in languages other than English may be excluded.

This paper provides one of the pioneering exercises to systematically review the research on accounting professionalisation in China. It explores significant issues arising from the analysis and provides several suggestions for furthering the research effort in this field.

With the introduction of open door policy in 1978 and recent entrance to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), there seems to be a continuous growth of world business between China and the rest of the world. The purpose of this article is to make a comparison between Chinese professionalisation of accounting with other Western countries focusing on three professional themes: profession and the state, entry qualification to the profession and the relationship between higher education and the profession.

This study uses a qualitative method and it is based on using unstructured interviews with Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CICPA) (Beijing office), CPA Australia (Beijing Representative Office) and National Accounting Institute (NAI) (Beijing office) – all conducted in March 2005. Further information about the current accounting development in China is collected through secondary sources.

The results show that current accounting professionalisation project in China has been derailed mainly due to lack of coordination among accounting educational institutions. It seems that the CICPA purposely exert control over the supply of accountants by limiting the membership only to those who complete its own examinations mainly to maintain the “local status” of its members.

The professional accounting project should be closely linked with China's entrance to the WTO and the World Bank initiatives on accounting development. The results indicate that the accounting profession in China has so far been failed to take appropriate measures to align the professional accounting development with that of parallel professions as found in Western countries.

This paper aims to offer insight into how strategies within the accounting profession, which has been becoming more global, might be changed by the recent outbreak of the Second Cold War between the West and the Rest of the World.

We explore the strategies of those who called themselves “Confucian accountants” in China, a country which has recently discouraged its state-owned enterprises from using the services of the Big 4. We do this by employing qualitative research methods, including reflexive photo interviews, in which Big-4 accountants, recognised as the most Westernised accounting actors in China, and Confucian accountants are asked to take and explain photographs representing their professional lives. Bourdieu’s notions of “economy of practices” and “vision-of-division strategy” are drawn upon to understand who the Confucian accountants are and what they do strategically in their pursuit of a higher revenue stream and improved social standing in the Chinese social space.

The homegrown Confucian accountants share cultural-cognitive characteristics with neighbouring social actors, such as their clients and government officials, who have been inculcated with Confucianism and the state’s cultural confidence policy in pursuit of a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics”. Those accountants try to enhance their social standing and revenue stream by strategically demonstrating their difference from Big-4 accountants. For this purpose, they wear Confucian clothes, have Confucian props in their office, employ Confucian phrases in their everyday conversations, use Confucian business cards and construct and maintain guanxi with government officials and clients.

This paper is the first attempt to explore Confucian accountants’ strategies for increasing their revenue and social standing at the start of the Second Cold War.

The purpose of this paper to systematically review and critique research on professional accounting development published in English during the last two-and-a-half decades. This paper focusses on developing countries (DCs) and suggests a future research agenda. In recent decades, many DCs have undergone reforms in the professionalisation of accounting (PA).

Extant research articles are selected from major accounting journals between 1995 and 2020 for the review. A conceptual analysis of the selected literature is presented to evaluate the focus and scope of existing work.

Previous empirical research on DCs has focused on the state and political ideology, religion and Sharia law, racial/class discrimination, colonialism and closure (e.g. the monopolisation of accounting work). Also, a complex set of globalisation, political, economic, and social contexts. In particular, a strong tradition of British accounting associations providing accounting qualifications in DCs is noted. Future research should aim to examine such issues as the politics of decolonisation, domination, neoliberalism, competition from Western professional associations, accounting in state-owned organisations, government accounting reforms, and social and environmental accounting issues.

This paper covers only PA research in high-ranked English language accounting journals and chapters of a monograph. Accounting research published in other languages and lower-ranked journals could be imperative sources as well but not included in this study.

While PA has been explored in a variety of locations and from different perspectives in Western countries, a review in DCs was lacking.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the effects of the ethical climate in Chinese certified public accounting (CPA) firms on auditors' perceptions of organizational‐professional conflict (OPC) and affective organizational commitment (OC). We also test for differences in the perceived ethical climates of local and international CPA firms.

The study is based on a survey of 167 professional auditors (seniors and managers) employed by local and international CPA firms operating in the People's Republic of China.

Certain dimensions of the perceived ethical climate are significantly related to OPC, and to affective OC. As anticipated, there was also a strong negative relationship between OPC and OC. There was no clear pattern of differences in the perceived ethical climates in local and international CPA firms. Impression management was highly correlated with OPC, OC, and three of four ethical climate dimensions, suggesting that Chinese auditors bias their reports of these variables in a socially desirable fashion.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to address the relationship between ethical climate and OPC, and the first to examine OPC and OC among auditors in Mainland China. The findings support our contention that the perceived ethical climate is a key determinant of OPC, suggesting that future research on OPC should place more emphasis on organizational characteristics. In addition, the apparent tendency of auditors to bias their reports of OPC, OC, and ethical climate stresses the importance of controlling for social desirability response bias in surveys of professional accountants.

This study aims to investigate the organizational learning of trainee auditors who represent the young generation of new entry-level professionals in CPA firms, and examines the possible associations between organizational learning and job satisfaction.

A questionnaire survey is administered among the target group of trainee auditors to explore possible approaches to their organizational learning in CPA firms. The results are used to generate organizational learning variables, which enable us to empirically test the research hypotheses regarding the association between organizational learning and job satisfaction.

The authors conclude that there are three main dimensions of organizational learning for new entry-level professionals in CPA firms, namely: workplace interactions, supervising and monitoring and supportive informational systems. The authors also find that workplace interactions and supportive information systems are significantly associated with job satisfaction. The authors show that the females and males prefer different approaches to organizational learning in CPA firms. The authors also find that trainee auditors who work for bigger CPA firms enjoy more job satisfaction than those working for smaller CPA firms, and that male trainee auditors are more easily satisfied with audit jobs than female trainees.

This study is limited in that its sample is composed of trainee auditors, who are used to proxy for entry-level professionals in CPA firms. Future studies can include a direct focus on the organizational learning of junior auditors in CPA firms. Future studies can also investigate organizational learning in the firm-wide context in which CPA firms and their employees are considered as part of a larger situational process of organizational learning.

The conclusions can help to improve practice management and human resource policies in CPA firms. The findings highlight the importance of establishing an effective organizational learning culture, and suggest how this can be achieved by providing friendly and instructive workplace interactions, helpful supervisory and mentoring relationships, and better information support.

This study contributes to the audit literature by identifying the three dimensions of organizational learning for entry-level professionals in CPA firms. The authors substantiate the argument that mentor-protégé relationships in CPA firms have different effects on job satisfaction for female and male trainee auditors.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which Iranian accountants think ethically. Furthermore, the paper aims to elaborate on the factors influencing the level of Iranian accountants' ethical decisions.

The method used is a quantitative design. Data were collected via a structured questionnaire from a sample of students from four universities in Iran.

Among the factors correlated with students' ethical decision making are gender, level of education, work experience, and familiarity with the Iranian Association of Certified Public Accountants' Code of Ethics.

As no study has previously been conducted on Iranian accountants' ethical decision making, this study was initiated in order to gain an insight into it.

This study seeks to explore the powerful role(s) of institutionalised performance measurement systems or metrics in smart city governance in a politically and militarily sensitive developing country.

This study extends the application and contribution of a multi-level institutional framework to previous management accounting literature on the potential relationship between performance measurement and smart city governance. The value of utilising a multi-level framework is to broaden and deepen theoretical analyses about this relationship to include the effect of political pressure from the military regime at the macro level on the institutionalisation of a performance measurement system at the micro-organisational level. Taking the New Cairo city council smart electricity networks project (Egypt) as an interpretive qualitative single-case study, data collection methods included semi-structured interviews, direct observations and documentary readings.

Performance measurement systems or metrics, especially in politically and militarily sensitive smart cities, constitutes a process of cascading (macro-micro) institutionalisation that is closely linked to sustainable developments taking place in the wider arena of urban policies. Going a step further, accounting-based performance metrics, arising from political and military pressures towards public-private collaborations, contribute to smart city management and accountability (governance). Institutionalised measurement systems or performance metrics play a powerful accounting role(s) in shaping and reshaping political decisions and military actions in the city council.

Theoretically, this study goes beyond the cascading institutionalisation process by arguing for the powerful role(s) of institutionalised accounting and performance measurement systems in smart city decision-making and governance. Empirically, it enriches previous literature with a case study of a developing Arab Spring country, characterised by an emerging economy, political sensitivity and military engagement, rather than developed and more stable countries that have been thoroughly investigated. It is also among the first politically engaged accounting case studies to highlight public-private collaborations as a recent reform in public sector governance and accountability.

This paper aims to deepen the understanding of logics and practice variation in sustainability reporting in an emerging field.

This paper adopts the institutional logics perspective and its conceptualization of society as an inter-institutional system as a theoretical lens to understand reasons for the presence of and variation in sustainability reporting. The empirical findings are based on analysis of 28 semi-structured interviews with significant social actors, and extensive documentary evidence focusing on eight companies pioneering sustainability reporting in Pakistan.

This paper confirms the presence of multiple co-existing logics in sustainability practices and lack of a dominant logic. Sustainability reporting practices are underpinned by a combination of market and corporate (business logics), state (regulatory logics), professional (transparency logics) and community (responsibility logics) institutional orders. It is argued that institutional heterogeneity (variations in logics) drives the diversity of motivations for and variations in sustainability reporting practices.

The paper offers a deeper theoretical explanation of how various logics dominate sustainability reporting in a field where the institutionalization of practice is in its infancy.

Understanding the conditions that influence the logics of corporate decision-makers will provide new insights into what motivates firms to engage in sustainability reporting. A broader understanding of sustainability reporting in emerging fields will foster its intended use to increase transparency, accountability and sustainability performance.

This paper contributes to relatively scarce but growing empirical research on emerging fields. Its major contribution lies in its focus on how multiple and conflicting institutional logics are instantiated at the organizational level, leading to wide practice variations, especially in an emerging field. In doing so, it advances the institutional logics debate on practice variations within the accounting literature.