Gender and the Accouting Profession in Saudi Arabia - Essay Example

3. Accountancy and Professionalism Accounting professionalization has been studied extensively from varying viewpoints like the functionalist, interactionist and/or critical perspectives. These views have tried to understand the expansion of professional accounting associations. For example, the functionalist view states that the main purpose of professionalization is to have professionals with specific knowledge and skills that are ready to aid society selflessly. One main concern of many authors has been whether accountancy is actually a profession due to its particular attributes like specialised knowledge and code of ethics.

Many theoretical and sociological perspectives have been applied such as Functionalist, Weberian and Marxist, in order to understand accountancy and professionalism. For example, the Weberian view proposes that only individuals who fulfil the required standards should be allowed to even undergo training. It further states that only after being professionally trained should they apply for membership to gain credibility (add reference here). The profession of accountancy has always boasted a particular male dominated image.

As a result, women have often been ignored as the ‘other’ and deprived of holding their own position as an accountant (Johnston & Kyriacou 2006). Accountancy has also always fought to maintain a professional position in society and therefore, it is easily negatively affected by different process. For example, when women’s position in society is seen as inferior to men, their increased entry into accountancy serves to harm its struggle. Due to this, multiple patriarchal structures have appeared in order to control the risk to professionalization that feminization supposedly caused.

The organizations and firms where accountancy is regulated affect the results and the authority of the outlined rules and practices. Often these firms are not given the importance they deserve. For, they are essential in standardizing accountancy practices, mediating identities and managing professional governing. Therefore, this research will attempt to understand the professionalization of regulation in the multi-national professional service firms (currently known as the Big 4) in Saudi Arabia and explore the role of women accountants.

In the following section core features and themes which define the institutional structures of Accountancy are mapped out. 4. Institutional Structures of Accountancy …… 4.1 Inclusion, Exclusion and Marginalization Studies have often ignored certain groups of accountants and have failed to include them when understanding the role of professional accounting. For example, different marginalized accountants like women, clerks, and blacks are integral in properly analysing the professional formation of accounting because they are a good indicator of the reconstruction of its boundaries.

Their inclusion in studies will allow us to understand the progress of accounting as a profession and its value relating to class, gender and race (Cooper& Robson, 2006). More studies of marginalized accountants will help to distinguish excluded groups, see how various systems of prestige are constructed and understand the professional development of accountancy and the important social and economic value its services are given (Cooper& Robson, 2006). One study carried out by Kirkham and Loft (1993) analyzed non-elite accountants like, cost and bookkeeping clerks in order to see how they professionalised their work.

For example, one method of increasing their professional formation was to ally themselves with elite accountants and auditors. Another study done by Witz (1992) explained the notion of ‘discursive strategies’ to better understand the link between ideology and professional practice. The exclusionary tactics of professional men were also examined which prevented others from entering the profession by deeming them ‘ineligible’ (Cooper & Robson, 2006). Lehman (1992) further researched the role of women accountants in Russia and how they increasingly controlled the profession.

However, the onset of the Western accounting model and its firms shifted this control to men (Cooper & Robson, 2006). Hanlon (1994) raises a vital point in the professionalization of accounting and its related social concerns. Hanlon looks at the analysis of power and the way accounting labour is divided in society with the bulk of the service class being marginalized and their work imperilled by automation and low wage competition (Cooper & Robson, 2006). For example, a small group of privileged accountants control the capital and reap immense rewards for their work while the majority are at junior levels like bookkeepers, women and new immigrants (Cooper& Robson, 2006).

Furthermore, a study by Cinar (2001) states that one reason for women marginalization is that most of them are concentrated in low-wage jobs. In an Arab context, Kamla (2012) showed how Western financial and auditing firms in Syria are contributing to the marginalization of Syrian women by excluding veiled women from their work-force. For example, preventing veiled Arab women from working as professional accountants in established firms excludes and marginalizes them due to their dress code (Kamla, 2012).

Witz (1992) argues that professionalization of any work seeks to control its activity and states that the concept of a ‘professional project’ defines the historically recognized characteristics of a profession. Also, accounting isn’t the only profession where roles and tasks are distributed unequally. For example, even in the medical field a certain level of division of labour exists where menial tasks are given to nurses just like senior accountants of firms delegate everyday tasks to junior accountants, mainly women.

Witz further explains that the professional projects seek to employ strategies that monopolize certain skills and power where the relationship between senior and junior groups needs to be examined further in order to understand the division of power. Also, strategies of occupational closure are prominent in establishing the boundaries of accountancy in relation to gender division. The fact that power is given to the elite few further propels the boundaries of power and gender division, allowing them to employ demarcation strategies to strengthen these restrictions.

This conceptual model of the masculinity of the accountancy profession is a key issue in maintaining differential power due to gender (add reference here).