Financial scandals, accounting change and the role of accounting academics: A perspective from North America

David Cooper, Jeff Everett and Dean Neu

European Accounting Review, 2005, vol. 14, issue 2, 373-382

Abstract: This paper examines the responses of North American academics to the recent wave of accounting and audit scandals, pointing out that the main response has either been to appeal to a moralistic concept of ethics or to portray them as isolated incidents or indicative of problems elsewhere (e.g. relating to investment advice). We suggest that these responses fail to address the social and political context of accounting. Drawing on Bourdieu's framework for analysing academic work, the paper locates North American accounting academia, even though it is quite fragmented and diverse, in the Corporate University, and the allegiances of North American accounting academics to the accounting industry. However, recent scandals also provide an opportunity to intervene effectively and produce meaningful change. Through collective action, perhaps through the Association for Integrity in Accounting, we offer suggestions for interventions to produce substantive and worthwhile changes in teaching and research.

Keywords: Accounting scandals; Association for Integrity in Accounting; symbolic capital; accounting ethics; accounting interventions; accounting academia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09638180500124905 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:euract:v:14:y:2005:i:2:p:373-382

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/REAR20

DOI: 10.1080/09638180500124905

Access Statistics for this article

European Accounting Review is currently edited by Laurence van Lent

More articles in European Accounting Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().