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The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to assess the impact of the 1999 Special Issue on Professionalization in Asia in the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ); and second, more generally to review research on this topic post-1999.

The paper starts with a discussion of the research articles of the Special Issue. It then identifies research that has cited papers in the Special Issue and which focusses on professionalization in Asia to identify relevant subsequent research. In addition, a literature search is conducted to locate post-1999 work that has not cited papers from the Special Issue but has investigated the same topic area. Analyzing both sets of work enables an integrated review of the field and aids the identification of future research opportunities. The study covers published research articles and books on professionalization projects in Asia from 1999 to 2018. In this paper, reference to Asia focusses on East Asia (including countries such as China and Japan), South Asia (including countries such as Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka), and South East Asia (including countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam). Given the elapsed time of near 20 years, there has been sufficient time for research to be published. Therefore, the review focusses on published output only and does not discuss unpublished theses, conference proceedings nor working papers.

First, the Special Issue of AAAJ in 1999 generally adopted a critical lens and studied professionalization as projects of market closure and collective mobility. The corporatist framework of Puxty et al. (1987) provided a useful framing to analyze the influence of states, markets and communities on professionalization. Second, the Special Issue has helped to spur interest in understanding professionalization in the region. Post-1999, there are studies of countries not covered in the Special Issue. Third, the themes identified in the Special Issue continue to be relevant and are examined in post-1999 work: the active role of the state, the legacies of colonization, the activities of transnational accounting bodies; and to a lesser degree, the influence of transnational accounting firms. Finally, future research could usefully focus on: the distinctive and more expansive role of Asian state agencies; the conduct of deeper comparative research; the role of accounting firms in the region; and the impact of transnational agencies such as the International Federation of Accountants and the World Bank.

There are three limitations. First, the review of literature omits unpublished research such as PhD theses and working papers. Second, it focusses only on research published in English. As a result, some work may be excluded. Third, it assesses the contribution of a single issue (i.e. the 1999 AAAJ Special Issue) and does not discuss work that preceded 1999.

This paper is aimed at assessing the impact of the 1999 Special Issue but also presents a wide-ranging analytical review of published research on accounting professionalization in Asia since 1999. The paper identifies several areas for future research and proposes a modified model of state-market-community-profession relations. In particular, the paper emphasizes the large and distinctive roles of Asian state agencies and the activities of transnational actors (both those within the profession as well as those that are external).

The paper reports on a study that investigated the (potential) impact of client use of blockchain technology on financial statement audits of Australian accounting firms.

Data were primarily collected from semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders including audit partners from first- and second-tier accounting firms in Australia. The interviews focused on the perceived (potential) impact of blockchain on the stages of obtain (retain) engagement, engagement planning, risk assessment, audit evidence and reporting of financial statement audits of clients that use blockchain technology. Perceptions of changes to financial statement audits were interpreted using the logics of professionalism and commercialism.

Australian accounting firms have either obtained or considered engagements with clients with a cryptocurrency business or that use a blockchain platform although they are a small group. There is a view that blockchain technology is distinctive and therefore poses risks not encountered before in audit engagements. These risks would most likely shift how firms plan, design audit methodologies and execute financial statement audits. The study showed that the logics of professionalism and commercialism are not conflicting but instead complementary. They present both opportunities and challenges for firms to apply and develop audit expertise in an emerging area in audit.

Being an exploratory study, the findings are tentative. A case study of an audit engagement with a cryptocurrency business will add to a nuanced understanding of the challenges posed to financial statement audits by blockchain technology.

This study is novel because of its focus on the impact of an evolving technology on the stages of financial statement audits.

The purpose of this paper is to examine accounting students' experience of compulsory group work. The paper hypothesises that a student‐centered style of teaching‐involving activities, like case studies and group‐based learning encourages students to take a deeper approach to learning. The paper also sought students' suggestions to improve learning in a group environment and to identify areas for future research.

There is a paucity of research that examines the relationships between group work and the adoption of a deep learning approach. This research uses empirical data in the form of a questionnaire with open and closed response options. This paper uses a qualitative method, phenomenography, to analyse the responses of 362 students.

The findings reveal variations in conceptions of group work among students with evidence of both surface and deep approaches to learning.

The following limitations are recognised: the questionnaire may not have given students an opportunity to express their perceptions fully; the absence of demographic data did not permit consideration of cultural factors on the outcome and the analysis was able to focus only on perceptions of behaviour rather than actual behaviour. A major implication from the paper is the value of research into accounting education. The paper provides the opportunity to trial research, reflect upon and change curricula, delivery and assessment based on research findings.

Student experiences in group work in accounting, while not entirely new, is however, an area not widely reported on.

Critical accounting research has viewed corporate annual reports as the signed public records of organisations' dominant managerial groups and/or as reflective and constitutive of a wider set of societal values. To date, however, there has been little research on the social context of these reports. This paper seeks to further explore and question the role of corporate annual reports in post‐modernity. Since the end of World War II, a post‐modern, media‐dominated culture has risen in Western countries like Australia. The question of this paper is whether corporate annual reports are instrumental in reflecting and reproducing this consumerist culture. A content analysis of Australian National Industries Limited's annual reports from 1962 – 1991 demonstrates that there is a link in the content and form of these reports and the rise of a consumerist culture in Australia. This paper shows that if everything can be made to sell, so aesthetics can be commodified and be made part of a product (corporate annual reports) whose primary objective is to convince dispersed stakeholder groups that the company and its management are worth investing in.

The aim of the paper is to argue that accounting practices in colonial systems of government can help to construct the identity and “competency” of colonised communities.

The approach was a historical analysis of the colonial political and economic policies of the USA in the Philippines from 1898 to 1924. The role of accounting practices was demonstrated by focusing on the case of the Philippine National Bank from 1916 to 1924. The bank was created by a wholly‐Filipino Legislature when Americans were actively promoting “home rule” by the Filipinos as a prelude to independence. Using Weber's theoretical distinction between modern and traditional societies, primary documents on the bank and secondary references of the policies of the USA during the period of study were examined.

It was found that the Americans used controls over government moneys to express their modernity, efficiency and goodness, while the Filipinos resisted them to perpetuate traditional social arrangements in the context of a “modern” Philippine state. The controls “failed” under the stress of such tensions. The Americans concluded that the Filipinos were unable to manage government moneys “properly”, thus denying them their independence.

Weber's theorization of traditional and modern societies should be applied to understand interactions between coloniser and colonised in cases other than the Philippines.

This paper will be valuable to academics and policy makers because it shows that accounting need not be an active agent by colonisers/administrators to appropriate spoils from its colony.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the lack of staff engagement with a university’s strategy on sustainability could be an enabling lever for organisational change. It examines the attitudes and views of employees of a business faculty at an Australian metropolitan university as it attempts to adopt a holistic approach to sustainability.

The paper opted for a case study using data from an on-line survey, semi-directed interviews with key management personnel and archival material. Responses were analysed using Piderit’s (2000) notion of ambivalence.

The paper provides empirical insights into why staff lacked engagement with the university’s strategy on sustainability. It suggests that staff were ambivalent, displaying dissonance in their personal beliefs on sustainability, the university’s strategy and the extent of their intentions to support the university. Staff were willing to offer ideas on how the university could, in the future, change towards sustainability. These ideas allow the possibility for the university to learn to adjust the scope of the implementation of its sustainability strategy.

The research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to further examine staff attitudes on sustainability in higher education using Piderit’s notion of ambivalence. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions could allow a better understanding of harmony and dissonance in cognition of and intention for university sustainability strategies and initiatives by academic, professional and sessional staff.

The paper includes implications for staff engagement with sustainability in higher education.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study how staff engagement with sustainability in higher education can be enabled for organisational learning.

The efficacy of the “rational” corporatist regulatory framework of Philippine financial reporting and, in particular, accounting has generally been questioned. We will show that the regulation of accounting in the Philippines is not corporatist at all in its implementation. A “traditionalist”/familial culture mediates the “rationalist”/legalistic regulatory process of Philippine accounting regulation. Two cases of apparent ethical misconduct in the practice of public accounting are examined to illustrate the process of mediation.