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This paper aims to explore the relationship between New Zealand universities and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand (ICANZ), the main organization of the accounting profession in New Zealand.

The relationship is approached as an archival search, producing a descriptive analysis of the universities' involvement in the Institute's professional exams, from the creation of the Institute in 1908 until the turn of this century.

At first this connection was through the qualifying examination system of the Institute, with the universities providing the means for the Institute to educate prospective members. Differences in approach towards accounting education, identified in the ongoing issue of a degree prerequisite, and the development of accountancy departments in the universities, led to the Institute later in the twentieth century turning to other tertiary institutions to provide its accounting professional examinations. This paper shows that although the accountancy departments in the universities have benefited from contact with the Institute, the nature of the relationship has been determined to a large extent by the requirements of the New Zealand accounting profession.

The paper provides historical insights on the interaction between the universities and the Institute, explaining the reasons for the Institute's influence on accounting education in the universities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a professional accountants' Institute has projected its changing professional identity through its annual reports. Extensive research has shown that the annual report is one of an organization's most important documents to communicate with stakeholders. The New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants celebrated its centenary year in 2008. It is therefore timely to explore how this influential professional institute has projected its evolving identity to its stakeholders over 100 years of annual reports.

The paper uses a content analysis of archival records. The type of information and the manner of presentation via textual information and visual images in the Institute's annual reports are used to track a changing professional identity.

The analysis did not find any definitive statements of professional identity by the professional accountants' Institute. Early annual reports used a singular visual image to project authenticity. Increasing use ansd complexity of visual images and mission/vision statements projected an identity of expertise, integrity and global relevance, paralleling the impacts of globalization and advances in technology. The last decade of the Institute's annual reports reveals a sophisticated use of visual images and printing to enhance textual information. This marked a dramatic turn in the projection of professional identity whilst retaining the communication of a basic reality and professional traits to its members and stakeholders.

The paper is valuable as few other research studies have investigated the projection of changing professional identities via identity statements and visual imagery in annual reports.

The transformation from an industrial to a knowledge economy and society are underway. In the knowledge economy, the knowledge of people and organizations—their intellectual capital assets—are the primary factors of production and the source of wealth. This is in contrast to other kinds of capital that fueled the industrial and the agricultural economies. Librarians have understood the knowledge society as one characterized by an increased focus on digital resources and an expanded use of virtual channels to deliver those resources. However, the nature of the knowledge society and economy is far more expansive than a digital environment. A knowledge society is one in which all members of a society engage in knowledge transactions—in the business environment, in the social sphere, in civic activities, and in everyday environmental actions. This view of the knowledge society presents new opportunities for librarians to leverage their intellectual capital. This chapter profiles the intellectual capital assets of librarians, considers how they align with professional competencies, and presents use cases that illustrate the value of these assets. Future scenarios illustrate how traditional functional competencies might shift in the knowledge economy. These also suggest contexts which highlight undervalued or new competencies. Seven observations describe how librarians might prepare for expanded roles in the knowledge society.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical account of four unsuccessful merger attempts between Australia’s two major professional accounting bodies over a 30-year period (1969 to 1998), each of which ultimately failed. An analysis of the commonalities and differences across the four attempts is provided and social identity theory is used to explain the differences between members level of support for these merger bids.

This study adopts a qualitative approach using a historical research methodology to source surviving business records from public archives and other data gathered from oral history interviews.

The study found that, across all four merger attempts between Australia’s two professional accounting bodies, there was strong support from society members (the perceived lower-status group) and opposition exhibited by institute members (the perceived higher-status group). This study also found that the perceived higher-status organisation always initiated merger discussions, while its members rejected the proposals in the members’ vote.

This paper focusses on the Australian accounting profession, considering a historical account of merger attempts. Further research is required that includes interviews and surveys of those involved in making decisions regarding merger attempts.

This paper is the first to examine in detail these four unsuccessful merger attempts between the largest accounting organisations in Australia.

Society has undergone important changes. This can be perceived in the advances in computer, information and communication technology and the progress made in information science. The use of computers in our daily life, specially in the scope of libraries have pointed out development and possibility to store, to organize and to retrieve information in huge volume and in a rapid way. Communication between users has been supported through links between computers. This interconnectivity, in means of networking is transforming how libraries provide and users seek information. The organization of knowledge is necessary, otherwise retrieval will be difficult for the end‐users. They will not obtain the needed information unless they spend much time or they have gained vast experience in searching. In view of this, Information Professionals have to affront the emerging demands of the end‐users. Advances in technology and end‐users demands are evolving increasingly rapidly. The role of the information professionals has changed dramatically from a “book‐lending” person to a recognized “intermediary” between information and users. This recognition is not in general. In case of Latin American countries this situation is more evident, because of the budget decreasing. The expectation of a library is not only to satisfy users demands, without considering those accomplishment to require essential training, infrastructure and economic resources. Institutions in charge of formal library and information science education are making effort to affront training and skills to face the marketplace. The reluctance to change must be considered by the profession and society, which by means assimilate very slowly those changing profile. In contrast society demands these changes without recognizing the library as an active agent in a social system, neither to support the necessary infrastructure to satisfy users demands. In view of this information professionals got together to discuss issues about their concern of the directions of the profession. They concluded that the future is uncertain. There is a lack of policy and great diversity of opinion among members. Libraries in general are confronting with the idea that this institution is a decreasing stage because the overpromoting of the computer. Users specially in the educational environment have the idea that using a networked environment will immediately solve their information problems. Others have in mind that the cyberspace will substitute the library function and that libraries will be soon disappeared. Libraries in general have been affected not only by these mentioned opinions but also in their budget, which had strongly influenced their possibility to acquire appropriate equipment to satisfy information needs of users and training of the workers.

Society is entering into an era where the future essentially will be determined by people’s ability to wisely use knowledge, a precious global resource that is the embodiment of human intellectual capital and technology. As people begin to expand their understanding of knowledge as an essential asset, they are realizing that in many ways the future is limited only by imagination and the ability to leverage the human mind. As knowledge increasingly becomes the key strategic resource of the future the need to develop comprehensive understanding of knowledge processes for the creation, transfer and deployment of this unique asset are becoming critical. Educational institutions and training organizations and businesses and knowledge‐based organizations in the public sector are in need of an integrative discipline for studying, researching and learning about the knowledge assets ‐ human intellectual capital and technology. An international society of knowledge professionals is proposed which can provide the necessary focus for fostering collaboration among the best minds and organizations on study, research and learning dedicated to the underlying disciplines and their integrative evolution into the emergence of Knowledge Management as a new discipline.

This paper aims to explore the role of organisational leaders and leaders within the professions in ensuring that society is well served by its professionals.

This paper draws on the authors own observations over 25 years of educating and developing clinical leaders.

This paper explores the particular challenges of leading professionals in fields such as, law, education or healthcare, where relationships can often be fraught and combative rather than constructive and effective. The paper concludes that if leaders insist on managing professionals as part of a connected hierarchy it will simply continue to provoke resistance.

This paper explores the particular challenges of leading professionals in fields such as, law, education or healthcare, where relationships can often be fraught and combative rather than constructive and effective.

The target date for the completion of the Single European market at the end of 1992 will see the achievement of a complex series of measures designed to promote the free movement of goods, capital, services and people between the twelve countries of the European Community (EC) (Department of Trade and Industry, 1989a). Members of the UK occupational groups to which the term “professionals” is often applied are among the people who will be able to offer their services elsewhere in the EC. By the same token, European professionals will be able to establish themselves as service providers in the UK. This essentially simple potential for free movement of professionals (a simplicity achieved, however, through complicated negotiations amongst European policy makers) brings with it a number of questions of interest to “profession watchers” in the UK. How will UK professionals, and their institutions, respond to the challenges and opportunities that accompany this EC‐wide extension to their own rights of establishment? How will they respond to incoming migrant professionals from elsewhere in the EC? What policies and practices will UK professional institutions adopt in relation to their counterparts in other EC member states? What links will they forge with them and to what extent will these contacts lead to joint initiatives at a community‐wide level? This article reports on the first phase of a study designed to consider such questions during the run up to the completion of the single market and in its immediate aftermath.

Multiple factors contribute to the attrition of women from STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). A lack of recognition for scholarly contributions is one piece of the puzzle. Awards are crucial not only for recognizing achievement but also for making individuals feel that their contributions are valued. Additionally, awards for research are important for promotion to various levels within the academic hierarchy, including tenure and promotion. With a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) has been examining the ways in which women are recognized for their achievements by professional disciplinary societies.

Working with the leadership of scientific societies, we developed best practices to increase gender parity and the transparency of awards processes. These recommendations included using gender-neutral language for solicitations and letters of recommendation, increasing the nomination and selection pools, clearly defining and discussing the types of achievements being sought and evaluated, including women on nomination and selection committees (particularly as committee chairs), and educating the committees about implicit bias.

AWIS partnered with 18 different societies and has seen an increase in the transparency of awards processes leading to more equitable recognition since the project’s inception in 2010.

Professional societies play critical roles in scientists’ professional development, and their awards programs make powerful statements about values. When awards show a gender gap, the implication is that men and women are valued differently by the society. Thus, leaders of disciplinary societies should work to ensure that their recognition processes do not disadvantage women.

This paper aims to advance understanding of the disciplinary decision‐making process underpinning the professional ethics machinery employed by professional accounting organisations, using elements of francophone organisational analysis to examine the influence of the key formal organisational components established by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI) to administer its disciplinary decision‐making process up to December 1999.

The paper uses evidence gathered from a series of in‐depth interviews with members of the ICAI disciplinary and investigation committees.

Illuminates the internal tensions and conflicts permeating the disciplinary decision‐making process of the ICAI and the influence key organisational components have on resolving these conflicts through their encouragement of decision making driven by a preferred reasoning or logic of action.

The evidence presented questions the public interest proclamations of the ICAI with respect to its disciplinary procedures pre‐December 1999. It further exposes the tensions between profession protection and society protection motives in the disciplinary decision making of accounting bodies.

This paper represents a first attempt at getting inside the disciplinary decision‐making process of a professional accounting body to examine the process using the voices of process participants.