SOCIAL CLOSURE IN DYNAMIC MARKETS: THE INCOMPLETE PROFESSIONAL PROJECT IN ACCOUNTANCY

Abstract

The professions are defined as status groups emerging from the division of labour in industrial societies. The claim of these occupations to status is rooted in the closure of market opportunities. The ability of public accountancy to achieve closure is argued to be constrained by the dynamics of the market for financial services which, over the last hundred years, has resulted in changes to the client base, technology and organizational structure of accountancy. The result is that the professional project in accountancy is incomplete: the profession has failed to gain statutory recognition of a task domain in which accountants are uniquely qualified to practice; the profession has failed to develop a cognitive basis sufficient to standardize the training of practitioners and close the profession; and, the market for public accounting services has shifted away from those core activities that the institutional structure was designed to support and protect. The argument is developed in the context of the evolution of the Canadian public accounting profession.