Legitimacy, expertise and closure in the Romanian accountant’s professional project, 1900—16

Abstract

This study examines accounting’s professional project in Romania during the period 1900 to 1916. In the early twentieth century, as accounting practices in Romania were not regulated, access to the profession was liberal and therefore accountants represented a wide heterogeneous social category. Gradually, however, an elite group emerged, formed by the alumni of the schools of commerce. The alumni reacted with a reasoning of social closure and collective mobility within Romanian society, which subsequently led to the establishment of a centralized association (the Romanian Body of Alumni) that attempted to monopolize the accountancy field. The journal of the alumni played a fundamental role: it was a vehicle that called for professionalization and a device for legitimization. The first decisive step, namely the establishment of the Romanian Body of Accountants in 1915, was due to a separate initiative led by a dissident faction of the Romanian Body of Alumni.