The Audit Court Society: An Eliasian Framework for the Analysis of the Up-or-out System in PSFs

Abstract

This paper studies the “up-or-out” system that rules career management in Big 4 audit firms. In its approach to socialization of auditors, the existing literature has so far rather highlighted a top-down internalization Applying an Eliasian theoretical framework to the analysis of the up-or-out system in audit firms of patterns of behavior and social roles by junior auditors. We consider a more competitive and horizontal dimension of socialization in order to understand how auditors eventually succeed by surviving the up-or- out system. To this end, we use the concepts of figuration and interdependencies, as theorized by Norbert Elias. Based on participant observation and interviews, our research reveals that, in Big 4 firms, individuals are interdependent, as allies as well as adversaries, and that success in the