Management Accounting Section Midyear Meeting

Management Accountants and Identity Work: the Emergence of System Partners.

• In Event: Qualitative Research in Management Accounting

Abstract

Purpose:
This study examines the emergence of a new identity, of accountants during the process of IT technology transformation, which goes beyond business partnership. It unpacks conditions and processes disrupting accountants’ identity and how encountered situations are experienced upon which the new identities and roles of system partnership are constructed.
Research design:
By drawing on liminality and social identity theory, illustrative case study is utilised advance our understanding beyond traditional roles of management accountants as self-concept is continuously shaped by professional, organisational, occupational and individuals’ identities. Interviews, documents and observations are key sources of data subjected to rigours analysis and interpretation informed by theoretical framework.
Findings:
System partnership as an identity is an outcome of identity work experienced intensive period of development shaped by three overlapped processes, which centred around interaction, competencies and identification. These processes facilitated rites of passages of separation from accounting profession, being a liminal for a while between-betwixt switched professions before incorporating into IT community to be identified as system partner. However, these processes are more dynamic and complex than portrayed influenced by accountants’ past aspiration as path-dependent.

Authors

• Mahmoud Alsayed, SBS

• Pingli Li, University of Southampton

• Sameh Ammar, Qatar University