Position practices of the present-day CFO: A reflection on historic roles at Guinness, 1920–1945

Carmen Martínez Franco, Orla Feeney, Martin Quinn and Martin R.W. Hiebl

Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, 2017, vol. 20, issue 1, 55-62

Abstract: Contemporary studies of Chief Financial Officers (CFO) paint a picture of the role pre-1960 as being reflective of a more transactional one. Historical research sheds some doubt on this, and tends not to separate the role from its occupier. We provide an analysis of such a role in a large brewery from about 1920 to 1945. Drawing on the concept of position-practices, our results suggest that a CFO-predecessor role was informed by existing position-practices, which are separately identifiable from the occupier of the role itself. Some of the position-practices are recognizable in contemporary CFO roles. Importantly, focusing on the role as opposed to the occupier, gives our study potential to more broadly inform future research on the contemporary role.

Keywords: CFO; Position-practices; Role; History; Structuration theory; CFO; Posición-prácticas; Funciones; Historia; Teoría de la estructuración (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M10 M49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:spacre:v:20:y:2017:i:1:p:55-62

DOI: 10.1016/j.rcsar.2016.04.001

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