Cristian Tomac

I. Which is the image of the accounting professionals and how it evolves in an international
environment?

1.1 Why is it important to identify and understand the image of accountants?

For a lingering period of time, the accountant profession was, stereotypically viewed as a grey and
dully occupation, with professionals who are portrayed as boring, methodical individuals covered in
paperwork. As Jeacle (2008) states in her study on the image of the accountants in the pop-culture, The
medical profession is catapulted onto our screens in the form of high octane entity-relationship type
dramas. The legal eagles are nimbly portrayed in the shape of kooky Ally McBeal type characters. [...],
accountants, inevitably remain, quite literally, out of the picture; their seemingly dreary characters not
racy and pacy enough for prime time viewing.
Why would I need a movie about my profession? I can simply do my job.
Well, from a pragmatic point of view, a shift in the image of accountant within public consciousness is
required for at least two reasons:
1. As any liberal profession, accountants are providing services to public and clients and, therefore, it
implies that the accountant should promote and sell his or her services to those who are interested in
them. As businesses are getting more complex and the computers and information systems are
retrieving a vast majority of the human task, the clients demand is shifting from paperwork
professionals to those who can provide more than that. Simply speaking, the businesses does not longer
need a beancounter (Baldvinsdottir et al, 2009) but more of a management person, as IFAC (2004)
cited in Albu et al (2011), stresses the importance of transforming accountants into consultants less
of a pure numbers person and more of a management advisor contributing ideas internally and
externally.. As these changes are incurring, the accountants should be able to understand the tendency
of the potential clients requirements and develop and provide those traits in order to fulfill the clients
demand.

2. The grey and boring image of the accountant may pose a potential problem for recruitment into the
profession, meaning that young graduates may reconsider while choosing the accountancy career
because of the expectation of having a boring job. Jeacle (2008) provides a relevant observation in this
respect, stating that whilst within the global business community it may seem farcical to claim that the
accountant is in any way stigmatized compared to other professions, however, to the hip young 20-
something within the graduate labor market, the specter of the accounting stereotype may carry a very
real stigma.

Moreover, from the point of view of recruitment, the stigmatization of the accounting profession may
be a both-way dilemma, meaning that not only fewer graduates take into consideration becoming an
accounting professional, but also the fact that those ones who are choosing this job, may have the
different expectations than the accounting firms, namely, the audit and accounting firms does not need
anymore, a beancounter or a bookkeeper which may lead to misunderstanding and frustration, both
sides.
1.2 The traditional accountant stereotype
Stereotypes are not just a matter of how individuals perceive others, but also about how
individuals locate themselves, or are located by others, as members of particular groups (Carnegie & Napier
2009).
With respect to the positive traits, the accountants are viewed as being professional, honest and
compliant. The fact that accountants are perceived as administrators of businesses assets enroots in
publics mind the image of a methodic, emotionally detached and sharp-minded individual who can be
trusted and consulted with respect to the various matters regarding the companys business.
There is aphorism in Romanian, which is widely used in business and quotidian idiom, Contabilul
te ridica si tot el te ingroapa which is translatable as the accountant can raise you (your business) but he
is also the one who can bury it. The statement in case, indeed, reflects the fact that, at least in Romania,
the accountant is viewed as, sort of, Superman, who can save your business in the most difficult situation
as well as an Achiless heel of a company if he or she is not acting as a professional.
Concerning the accountants negative features perceived by society, research on the accounting
stereotype has recognized a host of negative characteristics associated with the beancounter. She or he is
readily depicted not only as a boring companion but more seriously as a social misfit and an obsessive
control freak. These are surely deeply discreditable attributes to possess. (Jeacle, 2008).

Furthermore, according to Friedman & Lyne, (2001) cited in Carnegie & Napier (2009), the
traditional stereotype casts the accountant as single-mindedly preoccupied with precision and form,
methodical and conservative, and a boring joyless character.

A small range unofficial questionnaire performed by us shows that non-specialized public perceives
accountants as being boring; conservative white-collar clerks buried in paperwork and unable of showing
any emotion. People who are not involved in accounting profession tend to believe that the calculators are
a natural extension of an accountant hand and that his or her job consist in continuously performing
computation and working with numbers.
Moreover, because of the last decades several financial scandals which involved in one way or
another the accounting professionals, including one of the biggest of them, namely, the Enron scandal, now,
the accountants honesty and credibility is being seriously doubted by public.
The real problem is, although that, as Beard (1994) states, the public opinion provides a lens, often
distorted, for accountants to see themselves as others have been seeing them: as comically inept caricatures,
as dysfunctional misfits, as professionals and, on occasion, criminal inclined experts. Therefore, the
bigger problem is that the accountants perceive themselves as being conservative, unable to show creativity
and out of the box thinking which is again, leads to misunderstanding and frustration, both for the
accountants and the stakeholders.
Omar Hayder

2.1 Accounting, Organizations and Society

In this discussion section we find info about how mid-tier accountancy firm hatful with the changes
that took place in their institutional environment and how these changes affected the accounting
professional. These mid-tier firms mostly adopt practices related to the commercial logic, although they try
to commit to the trustee logic.1
Because of the process of the globalization and because firms have to deal with international clients,
accountancy organization have now to deal with international standards, which brings new knowledge
requirements for the accountants.

As it can be understood, there is a comparison between the Big Four and the mid-tier firms. While
the mid-tier firms had to focus more on the quality and were expected to advise the clients on how to
improve their business, the Big Four offer services that overcome the area of accountancy.

While the accounting industry had to face conflicting demands from the clients and the institutions,
the changes pushed the accounting firms to establish their service delivery by replacing the traditional form
with the MPB form.

On the one position, the mid-tier firms do not show so much interest in changing the basic structure
and identity of their accounting firms, staying faithful to their professional norm of autonomy. On the other
side, the Big Four stated the necessity of an evolution towards a more client-oriented firm, a decision that
according to Wyatt greed has influenced professional accountants, and the core values of the professional
firms were undermined by primarily commercial interests.

In all, the shifting role of the accountant is not truly embraced by partners and non-partners alike.
Partners perceive the need to complement their existing practices with advisory services, as long as it relates
to their original profession. Non-partnered accountants however are fearful and resistant to this change as
it forces them to draw on a completely different set of abilities as compared to their original work.

Generally, the mid-tier firms remain more embedded in their local institutional context and they
are more dependent on the national associations. In contract, the Big Four are operating in an international
area, dealing with multinational clients in a multinational arena.2 The changes that occurred in the Big Four
accounting firms cannot be extrapolated to the mid-tier firms in the accounting industry.

Valentin Zlatov
II. How the accountants competencies and roles are impacted by the global economy?
The profession of accountant usually has a stereotypic of profession correlated only to numbers
and to entries and exists of goods and services. In brute form we can say that an accountant of low
qualification who works in a small firm can has in his duty the written above, but in twenty first century
the profession of an accountant has grown into a much more influent person who also has knowledge in
very different areas and can advice the managers in different situations and the banal registration of
operations now a made by the accounting programs. Still because of number of scandals in the past 30
years the profession had to prove to the entire world that the specialists in this area are a step above all other
and they evolve day by day. The problems in the domain began to appear when some of worlds big
companies to fall down. The collapse of Enron which was followed by bankruptcy of WorldCom in the

1
Lander, M. W., et al. Committed to professionalism: Organizational responses of midtier accounting
firms to conflicting institutional logics. Accounting, Organizations and Society (2012),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2012.11.001 pg. 1

2
Lander, M. W., et al. Committed to professionalism: Organizational responses of midtier accounting
firms to conflicting institutional logics. Accounting, Organizations and Society (2012),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2012.11.001 pg. 3
United States as well as HIH in Australia, Royal Ahold in the Netherlands Equitable Life Assurance Society
in the UK showed to world that even in an area where professional have the duty to make clear am
understandably their work appear persons who have the main purpose to make money and in the dictionary
appeared a new word with meaning of highly questionable auditing and accounting practices-Enronits.

But with the fall of Communism and dawn of globalization began a new era for accounting and
auditors profession. Now entities providing services of accounting and audit, or even simple accountants
working in small, medium or big firms have to deal with international standards and/or European Directives,
which must be applied into national regulations or must be just followed in process of preparation of annual
financial statements. Also accountants must take care about interests of their main shareholders and also
stakeholders whose interests must have the main priority in front of just earning incomes or revenues.

And mainly because now, in 2016 a potential investor in process of making a decision about
investing or not his funds in one or other entity read information about the health of those firms made by
accountants we may argue that accountants are the mirror of entity into the exterior world or the connection
between firm and potential investors. Because of that we also may argue that the relationship between our
entity and the rest of the world are made by we very accountant who make his work and bay very auditor
who checks the financial statements and if them are done in correlation with the framework for specific
entity.

Also due to globalization the main tendency ant this certain moment of time in world of accounting
and audit is preparation of one universal framework which will be used by whole globe no matter if the
country that apply the standards have a growing or established economy. But like in every innovative idea
there are certain problems.

The first is the concurrence between United States and Europe, and the problem is that in America
the wish to make money here and now take the prime position but in Europe is more gladly seen the way
of building economy in time and space. Because of those divergences either of this powers have certain
points where they do not want to give up and so appear the process of convergence who aims to unite these
two frameworks into one.

Also like a reason of divergence are historical non-written-rules and how in a certain region the
people are used to do something and the difficulty to change an approach in how they want something to
be done. Those are differences between Continental and Anglo-Saxon points of view. In this case
accountants and auditors are mediators of this conflict and they try by interpretation in one way or another
to make everybody happy and to encourage the process of convergence.

In case of emerging economies and all other countries of 3-rd world accountants and auditors who
a member of corporate body of their profession try to take the very best of the international standards which
lead to performance in other countries and to apply them in their respective state, or to change and adjust
them and after that to implement into their economy.

In conclusion we may say there is no accountant or auditors who do not are affected by global
economy or do not affect global economy because the world is now in an open border mode for economy
and investors and accountants and those people who try to attract founds into their entities must provide
that they are the best, must prove that they know how to perform, must prove that they can evolve and live
one step ahead of all others.
 Raluca-Elena Sarbu
2. IFRS implementation and Big4 impact on accounting proffesion
The IFRS implementation is one of the most important factor that influenced the accountants
competencies and roles, conducting to the convergence of accounting profession. But this process of
convergence of the profession is quite slow and a difficult one, because as we know every country has its
own characteristics and the accounting culture is developed over time in close relationship with the political,
social and economical environment and these facts influence the manner in which IFRS are applied from
country to country.
The application of IFRS requires from professionals to have and to exert a professional judgement,
to apply the accounting principles and treatments as they are and not in relation with taxation treatments
and provisions, to apply valuation concepts. Because of these requires, Romania when adopted IFRS in
2005 encountered many issues in applying it; on one hand its professionals were not trained for this and on
the other hand Romania had lack of financial resources to implement IFRS.
In Romania, since 2005, measures were taken to enhance the accountants competencies, measures
such as: introduction of IFRS courses in universities, organization of IFRS courses by CECCAR and ACCA
training courses. But, these measures are not sufficient for accountants in Romania (focus is still on national
regulations) and because of this lack of resources to learn IFRS they are in disavantage in front of the Big4
companies.
The Big4 companies are perceived as enjoying a high level of IFRS competence, as having the
power to impose adequate accounting policies, as benefiting from the acceptance of foreign investors and
local entities.
Given the fact that usually the companies that apply IFRS are big companies or foreign investors,
they preffer to seek suport from Big4 companies rather than seek chartered accountants from CECCAR or
others national bodies. This is due to the fact that Big4 have significant financial resources that they invest
in maintaining IFRS competencies.
The Big4 companies are concerned with training their staff to speak IFRS, with avoiding
divergence through different interpretation and with developing publications and electronic resources on
IFRS.
Besides the financial resources that Big4 have, the fact that they keep the knowledge inside gives
them a huge advantage and role on the market. That is way some authors consider that Big4 have some
interest in sustaining and promoting the implementation of IFRS, especially in emerging countries where
the accounting profession lacks developed competencies.
In conclusion, the introduction of IFRS provides and opportunity for accountants to consider the
possibilities of creating an integrated accounting system and also to develop the accounting profession
much more than it is now.
The accounting profession is transforming more and more and in the same time the requirements
regarding accounting competencies are more complex, companies requiring a wider range of diverse
technical competencies not only related to accounting reporting but increasingly also related to others
disciplines.
Refferences:
Jeacle, I. (2008). Beyond the boring grey: The construction of the colourful accountant. Critical
Perspectives on Accounting, 19(8), 12961320.
G. Baldvinsdottier, J. Burns, H. Nrreklit, W., & R.W. Scapens. (2009). The image of accountants: from
bean counters to extreme accountants. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 22(3), 858882.
Beard, V. (1994). Popular culture and professional identity: Accountants in the movies. Accounting,
Organizations and Society, 19(3), 303318.
IFAC (2004) The diverse roles of professional accountants in business. Available at: http://www.ifac.org
Albu, C. N., Albu, N., Faff, R., & Hodgson, A. (2011). Accounting Competencies and the Changing Role
of Accountants in Emerging Economies: The Case of Romania. Accounting in Europe, 8(2), 155184.
Albu et al. (2011) The power and the glory of Big 4: A research note on the independence and competence
in the context of IFRS implementation, Accounting and Management Information Systems, vol. 10:4354.
Lander M. W., et al. (2012) Committed to professionalism: Organizational responses of midtier accounting
firms to conflicting international logics. Accounting, Organizations and Society.