Approved routes and alternative paths: The construction of women's careers in large accounting firms. Evidence from the French Big Four

Lupu, Ioana

doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2012.01.003

Cited by 104 publications

(176 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…This situation has been attributed to informal and formal processes that maintain the existing gender order (Lupu, 2012), and include gender stereotyping and a tendency towards homo-sociality, both of which favour the white, male norm (Duff, 2011;Simpson and Lewis, 2005). In addition, accountancy firms are characterised by an inflexible work and promotion structure which does not acknowledge women's 'dual role' in both the public and the private sphere (Windsor and Auyeung, 2006).…”

Section: 1: the Business And Moral Cases For Diversity In The Accoumentioning

confidence: 99%

Convenient fictions and inconvenient truths: Dilemmas of diversity at three leading accountancy firms

Ashley

Empson

2016

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractWe draw on comparative research conducted at three leading UK accountancy firms to ask, is the business case for diversity fatally flawed in relation to gender and flexible work? The business case has proved controversial in the academic literature, where it is said to have displaced the moral case and justified the enactment of ritual around diversity rather than generate substantive change. Studies suggest that within the accountancy sector both cases are subsumed beneath a strong 'client service ethic,' deployed to justify long hours and support the status quo. We show that the business case for diversity has made a limited contribution to transformational change because it is based on the retention of talent, when perceived competitive advantage and career progression rest on temporal commitment to work. For accountancy firms, this finding may represent an inconvenient truth.However, the business case can also encourage engagement with underlying narratives surrounding gender and equality, and thus represent a convenient fiction, contributing towards incremental change.

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Section: 1: the Business And Moral Cases For Diversity In The Accoumentioning

confidence: 99%

Convenient fictions and inconvenient truths: Dilemmas of diversity at three leading accountancy firms

Ashley

Empson

2016

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

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“…In particular, research has focussed on the glass ceiling and the principal impediment to women's career progression -combining a vocation with domestic commitments (Dambrin & Lambert, 2008;Gallhofer et al, 2011;Lupu, 2012). While work-life balance continues to dominate academic study and praxis, a number of allied gender issues remain substantially unexplored.…”

Section: Gender Essentialism and Occupational Segregation In Insolvenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender essentialism and occupational segregation in insolvency practice

Joyce

Walker

2015

Accounting, Organizations and Society

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Advances towards egalitarianism in professional recruitment may be offset by processes of occupational re-segregation. Drawing on gender theory this paper investigates horizontal segregation in the UK insolvency profession, as revealed through the lived experiences of female and male practitioners. It is shown that horizontal segregation pervades at different levels of practice and is undergirded by various elements of gender essentialism. Physical essentialism explains why insolvency practice has been traditionally gendered male. Interactional essentialism combines with the management of work-life balance to define the subfields of corporate and personal insolvency as masculine and feminine respectively. Gender essentialist assumptions also pervade the distribution of roles and the allocation of work tasks. Networks are identified as arenas for the reproduction and perpetuation of occupational segregation. The findings indicate the continuing potency of gender in everyday professional life, and suggest the limitations of diversity-orientated policies and the complexities of formulating transformative agendas.

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“…Dambrin and Lambert (2008) and Lupu (2012) study the scarcity of women at the highest levels of French auditing. Komori (2008) considers the experience of Japanese women and argues that women have changed accountancy practices by applying a feminine approach to their work.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A majority of the research on gender and accountancy focuses on Anglo-Saxon contexts (that is, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia), although the rarity of women at the Big Four has also been documented in the European context, for example, in countries such as France and Belgium (Lupu, 2012). Only several studies emphasize country-level factors or country case studies and the role of local factors (Komori, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New avenues of research to explain the rarity of females at the top of the accountancy profession

Jeny¹,

Santacreu-Vasut²

2017

Palgrave Commun

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The rarity of females in leadership positions has been an important subject of study in economics research. The existing research on gender inequality has established that important variations exist across time and place and that these differences are partly attributable to the cultural differences regarding gender roles. The accounting research has also established that women are rarely promoted to the top of the Big Four audit firms (KPMG, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young). However, the majority of research in accountancy has focused on Anglo-Saxon contexts (the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia) or country case studies without explicitly considering the role that cultural variations may play. Because the Big Four are present in more than 140 countries, we argue that the accountancy research that attempts to explain gender disparities at the top of these organizations would benefit from considering cultural factors. Such research, however, faces a key methodological challenge-specifically, the measurement of the cultural dimensions that relate to gender. To address this challenge, we propose an emerging approach that uses the gender distinctions in language to measure cultural attitudes toward gender roles. The idea that language may capture gender roles and even influence their formation and persistence has been the focus of emerging research in linguistics and economics. To support our proposition, we follow two steps. First, we review the accounting research by performing a systematic query on the bibliographic databases of the accounting articles that study gender and language. Second, we present data regarding the diversity of the global boards of the Big Four and the diversity of the linguistic environments in which they operate. We find that half of the countries where the Big Four are present exhibit a sex-based grammatical system for their most-spoken language, while the other half of the countries do not exhibit this system. Our findings suggest that the use of language as a measure of culture is a novel approach in accounting research. We conclude by emphasizing some potential directions for future research, namely, studying the linguistic determinants of the rarity of females at the top of audit firms and exploring accountancy practices in countries with linguistically diverse environments, such as Canada or Belgium, among others. This article is published as part of a collection on the role of women in management and the workplace.

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Approved routes and alternative paths: The construction of women's careers in large accounting firms. Evidence from the French Big Four

Cited by 104 publications

References 60 publications

Convenient fictions and inconvenient truths: Dilemmas of diversity at three leading accountancy firms

Convenient fictions and inconvenient truths: Dilemmas of diversity at three leading accountancy firms

Gender essentialism and occupational segregation in insolvency practice

New avenues of research to explain the rarity of females at the top of the accountancy profession

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