Introductory description

This module explores the shaping of contemporary accounting practice, its rationales and frameworks. It will support students to critically engage with, reflect on, and get ready to actively contribute to the development of accounting professional services and financial expertise. This module does not require any previous accounting knowledge or experience.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

The module will include some or all of the following topics:

• Professional services and organisational change
• Accounting's role in markets
• Equality and diversity in professional service firms
• Digital transformation in accounting and finance
• Technology's impact on professional identity and judgment
  For example:
  [1] The reflective practitioner, and the scope of financial services.
  The power of accounting: representation, making markets and sustainability possible.
  [2] Power of accounting: making companies possible (action at a distance; management accounting, disciplinary power).
  [3] Professional Service Firms and the Accountancy Profession
  [4] Financialisation, Accounting and Organisational Change
  [5] Being yourself?: Equality and Diversity in financial services
  [6] From Manual to Digital: Historical Evolution of Technology in Accounting and Finance
  [7] Accounting as Social Technology: Power, Control and Digital Transformation
  [8] Trust, Technology and Professional Judgement
  [9] Future of Professional Identity in Digital Age
  [10] Summary – round up and guidance on the assignment

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Explain and critically appraise the role of accounting data and expertise in making capital markets function and large organisations possible.
• Explain and critically appraise the role of accounting regulation and professional service firms and the challenges they face, including diversity.
• Explain the relevance, for employability and ethical competence, of the concept of the reflective practitioner.
• Explain insights about the intersection of technology and professional judgment in financial services, particularly analysing how AI, advanced analytics, and digital transformation affect traditional accounting practices and professional decision-making.
• Critically reflect on personal assumptions about authority and accountability in accounting/financial services
• Synthesis and Integrate-the ability to combine insights from multiple domains - accounting, financial expertise, technology, and organisational change
• Demonstrate advanced critical reflection skills, specifically as a financial practitioner, incorporating financial expertise and professional identity challenges in an increasingly digital financial services environment.

Indicative reading list

Anderson-Gough, F., Grey, C. and Robson, K. (2000) ‘In the name of the client: The service ethic in two professional services firms’, Human Relations, 53(9), pp. 1151–1174.

Anderson-Gough, F., Edgley,C., Robson, K. & Sharma,N. (2022) Organizational responses to multiple logics: Diversity, identity and the professional service firm. Accounting, Organizations and Society, Volume 103

Cushen, J. (2013) ‘Financialization in the workplace: Hegemonic narratives, performative interventions and the angry knowledge worker’, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 38(4), pp. 314–331.

Haldane, A. (2024) ‘Blessed are the bean counters — except when it comes to growth’. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/2543a652-3313-45f2-81c8-627a31fc3c1a

Hines, R.D. (1988) ‘Financial accounting: In communicating reality, we construct reality’,

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 13(3), pp. 251–261. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-3682(88)90003-7.

Miller, P. & O’Leary (1994) ‘Governing the Calculable Person’, in Hopwood, T. and Miller, P. Accounting as social and institutional practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 98–115.

Ogden, SG (1995) Transforming frameworks of accountability: the case of water privatization Accounting, Organizations and Society 20 (2-3), 193-218.

Samiolo, R., Spence, C.,and Toh, D., (2021). Auditor judgement in the fourth industrial revolution, Contemporary Accounting Research, 41: 498-528.

Spence, C., Zhu, J., Endo, T. & Matsubara, S. (2017) Money, honour and duty: Global professional service firms in comparative perspective Accounting, Organizations and Society 62, 82-97.

Susskind, E. & Susskind, D (2015)., The future of professions: how technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press.

Research element

The module encourages students to engage directly with research articles and involves the working through of problems on the basis of concepts drawn from various strands of accounting theory.

Interdisciplinary

The module utilises accounting theory broadly considered, giving particular attention to approaches drawn from other social sciences such as sociology, history, and philosophy.

International

The module engages with the internationalisation of the accounting profession specifically global professional service firms and their recent development.

Subject specific skills

Explain and evaluate the contingency of current accounting regulations and organisational practice in relation to financialisation.
Explain and evaluate the social, organisational, institutional and epistemological factors that impact on the technical and ethical practice of accounting and financial services.

Transferable skills

Written communication
Professionalism and responsibility