Chapter 15

The context of the

contemporary
accounting
professional

Environmental changes
Changes in environmental conditions can
be characterised by the following trends:
1. technical and ideological
proletarisation of accountants in public
and private sectors
2. the institutional capitalism of the new
governing class
3. the assimilation of academic
accountants into a flawed universal
class
4. the manufactured consciousness of
users

Genesis of emerging structural

changes
Societies are constituted by groups of
protagonists competing for economic and
social power and political authority
Dominant modes of interaction
consistently favour one category over
another and result in exploitation of
others
At every societal level, groups of
protagonists face each other over the
contradictions that separate them

Genesis of emerging structural

changes (contd)
The emerging structural changes in the
accounting environment are
contradictions created by the global
conflicts and the emergence of new
protagonists in the accounting and
other environments

Technical and ideological

proletarianisation of accountants
The first element in the new-era conflict is
the emergence of new class differences
among accountants
Accountants have become proletarianised,
working according to a division of labour
conceived and monitored by management,
following procedural rules and repertoires
created by administrative processes and/or
fiat

Technical proletariansation
Has reflected a shift of control towards
employers or management and a loss of
the creative freedom accountants enjoyed
as self-employed professionals
In the process, as theorised by Marx, they
have lost control of both the means and
ends of labour, a phenomenon labelled as
technical proletarianisation

Ideological proletarianisation
In addition to technical proletarianistion, the
emergence of the new working class or
professional managerial class has led also
to an ideological proletarianisation, which
refers to the appropriation of control by
management for capital, over the goals and
social purposes to which work is put
The accountant has lost control of the
nature of the total product and may be
indifferent to the outcome of the activities
he or she is involved in

Results of the proletarianisation

May lead to the accountant losing the knowledge
base as capital restructures through
management the specification of the product and
management restructures the organisation of
work
Renders the accountant a mere technician of
functionaries, separate from the major social,
moral and technological issues of his or her
profession
These changes have led to a decrease in the
number and quality of people going into
accounting programs; the profession lacks
glamour

Effects on the accountant

The accountant may respond by either
ideological desensitisation or ideological
cooperation:
ideological desensitisation is a denial or
separation of the self from ideological control
of the job, disclaiming either interest or
responsibility for the social uses to which ones
work is put
ideological cooperation is a redefinition of
ones goals to make them consistent with
institutional imperatives
In either case, there is a high likelihood of the
accountant being alienated from his or her work

Alienation
Alienation in the domain of work has a fourfold
aspect:
1. a human being is alienated from the objects
he/she produces, and
2. from the process of production, and
3. from him or herself, and
4. from the community of his or her fellows
In this condition, the mindset of accountants,
their consciousness, is to a large extent only
the reflection of the conditions in which they
find themselves and of the position in the
process of production

Institutional capitalism
The second element in the new conflictual
order concerns the nature of the governing
class in corporations and accounting firms:
the corporate community is characterised
by a socially cohesive national upper class
according to Westergaard and Resler, this
governing class is composed of those who
own and those who control capital on a
larger scale they have a common stake
in one overriding cause: to keep the
working rule of society capitalist

Class-wide rationality
This assumes that the corporate elite is
largely capable of identifying and
promoting its common political objectives
Although corporate rationality still
characterises much of the internal
organisation of accounting firms, classwide rationality now characterises its
highest circles. Old school ties and
kindred signs of proper breeding greatly
facilitate access to the highest circles of
the CPA firms

Academic accountants
The third element in the new conflictual order
is a new class of academic accountants
Gouldner advanced two propositions regarding
this flawed universal class:
1. the rise of a new class comprising
humanistic intellectuals and technical
intelligentsia, whose universalism is badly
flawed
2. the growing dominance of this class as a
cultural bourgeoisie and having monopoly
over cultural capitalism and professionalism
from which it gains its power

Academic accountants (contd)

This new class forms one speech community,

sharing a culture of critical discourse. This
concept is defined as:
a historically evolved set of rules, a
grammar of discourse which:
1. is conceived to justify its assertions,
2. whose mode of justification does not
proceed by involving authorities and
3. prefers to elicit the voluntary consent
of those addressed solely on the basis
of arguments addressed

Academic accountants: a
flawed class
This new class is flawed because it is considered
elitist and self-seeking and uses its special
knowledge to advance its own interests and power
Gouldner suggests that the new class uses cultural
reproduction to maintain its power just as
economic reproduction is used to serve the
interests of the holders of economic capital
Academic accountants are motivated by selfinterest and the pressing need to publish
Academic accountants have gained a power
associated with their monopoly over the cultural
accounting capital

Capitalist domination of
information
The capitalist domination of information can be
expressed in three propositions:
1. the class rule of management appropriates the
information product they create
2. such domination is maintained by the states
enforcement of contractual arrangements,
protection of property rights and maintenance
of public order
3. information tools at the disposition of
management, such as annual reports and
press releases, allow management to
disseminate information useful for the
preservation of its interests

The manufactured
consciousness of users

The three propositions amount to three forms

of domination:
1. market exploitation
2. legal coercion
3. ideological domination
They allow management to convey its beliefs
to the users and, in the process, shape users
consciousness about the firm
The users acquire a manufactured
consciousness compatible with the
expectations of management

Manufacturing of consciousness
The manufacturing of consciousness is an
obstacle to the expansion of data that is
relevant to the users
The proper task is to announce the truth,
expose the error, and identify all the
constraints that can impede enquiring,
comprehension and efficient action
A similar approach, the ethical approach to
financial accounting, rests on concepts of
fairness, justice, equity and truth

Manufacturing of consciousness
(contd)
A user needs to be informed of the wide
dissemination of accounting reports
A better strategy with the attribute of better
informing the user is to expose the user to
various accounting reports from various
sources
What may result is a shift in the users
expertise: an expansion of the breadth of
knowledge, that the user may acquire a
better sense of what is useful and what is
not, and an evaluation of the different
preparers of accounting information