Professional Identities of Accountants in the Role of Business Partners Controllers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14392/asaa.2023160303Keywords:
Professional Identities, Relational and Biographical Processes, Accountants, Controllers, Business PartnersAbstract
Objective: to analyze how the professional identities of accountants in the role of controller business partners are constituted in the light of socialization processes in the action systems in which they are inserted.
Method: Claude Dubar's sociological approach was used, based on professional identity. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professionals controllers accountants and the respective senior management of each company. Data from the participants was also collected through an online form. It was a qualitative study with a priori general categories and inductive research that identified, a posteriori, constituent elements of professional identity, through content and narrative analysis supported by the QSR NVivo® software.
Results: empirical evidence corroborates the argument that the professional identity of these controllers business partners consists of a range of elements articulated between objective and subjective transaction: centrality of work experienced since childhood; socioeconomic background; renunciations in spheres of personal and professional life; employability; continuing experiential and theoretical-practical learning; multidisciplinary socio-professional interactions; tax and corporate competences; hybridity of responsibilities and professional hybridity; and management.
Contributions: the study contributed to the understanding of professional identities of accountants in the roles of controllers business partners in the business world, based on historical and social elements. It advances by confronting the opinion of professionals with their superiors who require operational roles, but also expanding the strategic role of controllers. These, despite incorporating this attribution, seek an alternative to balance or detach themselves from operational roles.
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