Financial Accounting Knowledge, Conceptual Framework Projects and the Social Construction of the Accounting Profession

According to most authors, a body of (formal) knowledge is the crucial trait of professions. It is the presumed existence of this knowledge which legitimises claims to expertise, professional powers, autonomy and control over work. The body of knowledge around which the financial accounting professionalisation project has taken place is described and it is shown that professionalisation took place around a variety of personal qualities, such as honesty, independence and respectability – skills not specific to “accountants”, such as penmanship, arithmetic, work and knowledge, which at the time were contestable as being the domain of the legal profession. It is suggested that (not unlike other professions), the knowledge foundations of the accounting profession are problematic and so in order to reproduce and advance the accounting profession, members must counteract threats to its legitimacy stemming from its underlying knowledge foundations. It is also suggested that the frequently repeated search for a conceptual framework represents a means of counteracting this threat to the social legitimacy of the accounting profession, and that conceptual framework projects are used as a political resource in the profession‐alisation struggle during times of possible intervention by the state and at times of competition from other (including accounting) groups.