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Article
Publication date: 9 May 2008

Jane Broadbent and Linda Kirkham

The purpose of this paper is to set out some contextual issues in relation to the achievements of women accountants and academics.

6528

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to set out some contextual issues in relation to the achievements of women accountants and academics.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a discussion paper that uses academic and professional experiences as a basis from which to draw out an agenda for further study.

Findings

It is found that, despite changes over the last 30 years, the lived experience of women in accounting and academia is evidence that their academic and professional opportunities are still constrained. Two papers in this special issue offer feminist approaches to enrich study in the area, and it is argued that gender is an element that should be embedded in research in accounting.

Research limitations/implications

This editorial is a selective review and is not intended as a comprehensive review of research in the field.

Practical implications

The paper seeks to reā€ignite more research in the field, using a richer range of approaches.

Originality/value

The paper sets an agenda for research and provides an argument as to why the agenda needs to be pursued.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2008

Naoko Komori

The purpose of this paper is to open up the Angloā€centred argument in gender and accounting by exploring the relationship of women and accounting in a different social and…

4712

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to open up the Angloā€centred argument in gender and accounting by exploring the relationship of women and accounting in a different social and cultural context.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on inā€depth ethnographical studies to explore the realā€ life experiences of 66 Japanese women (9 percent of all women CPAs) who have entered the accounting profession from a range of backgrounds and generations.

Findings

The paper finds that some women accounting professionals in Japan have brought about changes in accounting practice there by applying a uniquely feminine approach in their dayā€toā€day work. Their strict approach is attuned to the ongoing globalization in the field of accountancy, and this has helped to widen the opportunities for women.

Research limitations/implications

This paper demonstrates that, in order to understand the issues surrounding gender and accounting, it is important to consider the prevailing social context and its underpinnings. In the Japanese ā€œinterdependentā€ social context, gender is intertwined in the process of accounting to establish its ā€œindependentā€ status.

Practical implications

It has been argued that the unique social and cultural context in Japan will make it difficult for the country to converge its accounting and auditing with global standards. By incorporating a gender perspective, the paper aims to clarify the social assumptions under which accounting and auditing operate in Japan.

Originality/value

By making a close analysis of the process by which Japanese women have entered the accounting profession, the paper reveals the connection between the growing significance of auditing and the changing role and position of women.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2008

Lee D. Parker

This paper sets out to investigate and critique the corpus of recent research into gender dimensions of strategic management and accounting processes with a view to establishing…

6321

Abstract

Purpose

This paper sets out to investigate and critique the corpus of recent research into gender dimensions of strategic management and accounting processes with a view to establishing the current state of knowledge and offering both future research and policy implications.

Design/methodology/approach

A literatureā€based analysis and critique are employed. This is constructed from a social constructionist perspective, drawing on concepts of the variably gendered identity of discourse and of process, and a theory of absence.

Findings

The study uncovers major gaps in research attention and consequent knowledge concerning gendered characteristics of managers' and accountants' approaches to, and involvement in, strategic management and accounting processes. Evidence suggests that in these processes both feminine and masculine features constitute important but at present inadequately researched and understood modes of operation.

Research limitations/implications

This research suggests opportunities for androgynous strategic management and accounting processes that draw on characteristics from both feminine and masculine perspectives. Also identified are a significant array of knowledge absences and related further research questions to be addressed.

Originality/value

The study opens up an area of significant research neglect, particularly in accounting. It offers theoretical and methodological paths for moving this research agenda forward.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2008

Kathryn Haynes

This paper seeks to critique recent research on gender and accounting to explore how feminist methodology can move on and radicalise the gender agenda in the accounting context.

3484

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to critique recent research on gender and accounting to explore how feminist methodology can move on and radicalise the gender agenda in the accounting context.

Design/methodology/approach

After examining current research on gender and accounting, the paper explores the nature of feminist methodology and its relation to epistemology. It explores three interā€related tenets of feminist methodology in detail: power and politics, subjectivity and reflexivity.

Findings

The paper suggests that much research in the accounting is concerned with genderā€asā€aā€variable, rather than being distinctly feminist, thus missing the opportunity to radicalise the agenda. It makes suggestions for how a feminist approach to methodology could be applied to the accounting context.

Originality/value

The paper calls for a wider application of a feminist approach to accounting research and gives suggestions as to where this might be applied.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2008

Stephen P. Walker

This paper aims to make an assessment of the contribution made by accounting histories of women produced since 1992 and the current state of knowledge production in this subject…

3911

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to make an assessment of the contribution made by accounting histories of women produced since 1992 and the current state of knowledge production in this subject area.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on a review of published sources on accounting history and women's, gender and feminist history.

Findings

Whereas feminist historians and historians of gender boast substantial advances in research and transformative impacts on the wider discipline of history, similar momentum is less evident in accounting history. It is argued that over the past 15 years scholarship has remained substantially in the ā€œrecoveryā€ phase, has not ā€œdefamiliarizedā€ the subā€field and is yet to engage with developments in feminist and gender historiography which offer regenerative potential.

Research limitations/implications

The paper argues that sex and gender differentiation persist in both the past and the present and their study should feature large on the accounting history research agenda.

Originality/value

Core themes in feminist and gender history are explored with a view to identifying research questions for accounting historians. These themes include the oppression and subordination of women, the publicā€private divide, restoring women to history, devising new periodisations, investigating socioā€cultural relations, and the construction of identities.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2008

Claire Dambrin and Caroline Lambert

Women in public accounting firms are still proportionally much fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men, whereas recruitment at junior level tends to be…

6754

Abstract

Purpose

Women in public accounting firms are still proportionally much fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men, whereas recruitment at junior level tends to be increasingly genderā€balanced. This paper aims to analyse the relationships between the glass ceiling and motherhood. The mechanisms explaining the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers in their hierarchical progression within the Big Four in France are identified.

Design/methodology/approach

From 24 interviews with male and female auditors of various hierarchical levels, one seeks to reveal the specificity of the difficulties encountered by auditor mothers.

Findings

It is argued that, throughout their careers, they are confronted with a dilemma that often leads to their being excluded and excluding themselves from the group of ā€œthose who may become partnersā€. It is shown that public accounting firms place both implicit and explicit obstacles in their way, tied to a desire to neutralise the effects, deemed costly, of motherhood. Moreover, the expectations of the organisation and society as a whole conflict on many points and confront female auditors with a dilemma: how to be a good mother and have a bright career? It appears that women who want to better manage this dilemma shape working practices imposed on the whole team and implement tactics to adapt their workā€life balance (specialisation and lateral move to staff departments). This leads to individual trajectories that break out of the organisational model and account for the scarcity of women in the upper management levels in audit firms.

Originality/value

The paper gives voice to male auditors and shows that managing the professional life/private life dilemma is difficult for fathers as well as mothers, in the long term. Moreover, rather than thinking in terms of horizontal and vertical segregations, this paper invites one to question the concept of the glass ceiling and consider the construction of the scarcity of women in the accounting profession.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 May 2008

Jesse Dillard and MaryAnn Reynolds

The purpose of this paper is to engage a different notion of feminism in accounting by addressing the issues of feminism, balance, and integration as a means of understanding…

1432

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to engage a different notion of feminism in accounting by addressing the issues of feminism, balance, and integration as a means of understanding differently the world for which one accounts. The ideas are communicated by the sharing of experiences through myth and storytelling.

Design/methodology/approach

An alternative lens for understanding the giving of accounts is proposed, drawing on earlier feminist accounting literature as well as storytelling and myth.

Findings

Including the subjective and intersubjective approaches to experiencing and understanding the world recommends an approach whereby both the feminineā€intuitive and the masculineā€rational processes are integrated in constructing decision models and accounts.

Research limitations/implications

Through an expanded view of values that can be included in reporting or recounting a different model is seen, and different decisions are enabled. The primary limitation is having to use words to convey one's subjective and intersubjective understandings. The written medium is not the most natural language for such an undertaking.

Practical implications

By enabling the inclusion of more feminine values, a way is opened to engage more holistically with the society in which decisions are embedded.

Originality/value

Drawing on the storytelling tradition, a holistic model is suggested that can lead to emergence of a more balanced societal reporting.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 21 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 June 2016

Jane Broadbent

The paper aims to categorise the nature of the research undertaken in respect of gender and accounting to identify where research is undertaken and where there remains lacunae in…

471

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to categorise the nature of the research undertaken in respect of gender and accounting to identify where research is undertaken and where there remains lacunae in the field. It seeks to offer prescriptions for more research in the field and for the consideration of a particular type of research that considers the gendered values that inform accounting.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach taken is to provide an illustrative review of the literature in the area to demonstrate the streams of thought that are reflected in research in the field. The paper is therefore an argument for undertaking research in relation to gender more generally and more specifically pays attention to how the nature of accounting information is informed by gendered values.

Findings

The argument is that the considerations of gender in accounting research are not providing the impetus for a change that will enrich accounting information and the decision-making processes that it informs. A different approach to accounting provides the possibility of providing more equitable opportunities for those working within the accounting profession, including women.

Research limitations/implications

The paper argues the case for more research in this field.

Social implications

The paper has implications for the situation of women working as accountants and for a broader diversity agenda.

Originality/value

The paper seeks to re-emphasise an earlier paper (Broadbent, 1998) and re-energise the debates about the effects of gender in accounting. There is no other research that addresses the agenda of the gendered nature of accounting information and technologies.

Details

Meditari Accountancy Research, vol. 24 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2049-372X

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 18 July 2008

518

Abstract

Details

Pacific Accounting Review, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0114-0582

Article
Publication date: 10 February 2012

Garry D. Carnegie

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to a special issue commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

2155

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to a special issue commemorating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides the background to the special issue and a summary of the articles appearing across the following pages. It features five retrospective/prospective essays by the guest editors of selected special issues, published between 1991 and 1997 within the first ten volumes of AAAJ.

Findings

The guest editors of selected special issues have endeavoured to identify and assess the impacts of the issues they edited in shaping future developments in the literature and to consider issues for future research developments in those fields.

Research limitations/implications

This paper serves as a selected commentary and is not a substitute for carefully reading each of the essays published. Each individual paper provides a comprehensive review of developments in the relevant literature and of the possibilities for future research developments within the theme addressed.

Originality/value

The paper outlines a novel approach to the development of the AAAJ special issue which may gain wider acceptance or provide a basis for the further development of approaches to the production of other special issues.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. 25 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

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