IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01907518.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comment devient-on associé d'audit ? Le fonctionnement des réseaux informels de promotion dans les cabinets Big 4 en France

Author

Listed:
  • Claire Garnier

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

So far, literature has sought to describe and explain the advancement of auditors as a progression to the top of the pyramid, the climax in an auditor's career: co-option as a partner. By adopting an interactionist perspective, the longitudinal and micro-sociological concept of career enables us to consider promotion-to-partnership as a process that began the very first working day, and continues throughout the individual's career inside the firm. We demonstrate that invisible promotion networks, compared to "racing stables" informally organize the top-down structure of hierarchy inside Big 4 Firms, and play a critical but overlooked role before, during and after co-option as a partner.

Suggested Citation

  • Claire Garnier, 2017. "Comment devient-on associé d'audit ? Le fonctionnement des réseaux informels de promotion dans les cabinets Big 4 en France," Post-Print hal-01907518, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01907518
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01907518
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-01907518/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson-Gough, Fiona & Grey, Christopher & Robson, Keith, 2005. ""Helping them to forget..": the organizational embedding of gender relations in public audit firms," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 469-490, July.
    2. Kornberger, Martin & Justesen, Lise & Mouritsen, Jan, 2011. "“When you make manager, we put a big mountain in front of you”: An ethnography of managers in a Big 4 Accounting Firm," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 514-533.
    3. Martin Kornberger & Lise Justesen & Jan Mouritsen, 2011. "“When you make manager, we put a big mountain in front of you” : An ethnography of managers in a Big 4 Accounting Firm," Post-Print hal-02311997, HAL.
    4. Brendan O'Flaherty & Aloysius Siow, 1992. "On the Job Screening, up or out Rules, and Firm Growth," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 25(2), pages 346-368, May.
    5. Dirsmith, Mark W. & Covaleski, Mark A., 1985. "Informal communications, nonformal communications and mentoring in public accounting firms," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 149-169, April.
    6. Grey, C., 1998. "On being a professional in a "Big Six" firm," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(5-6), pages 569-587.
    7. Fogarty, Timothy J., 1992. "Organizational socialization in accounting firms: A theoretical framework and agenda for future research," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 129-149, February.
    8. Anderson-Gough, Fiona & Grey, Christopher & Robson, Keith, 2001. "Tests of time: organizational time-reckoning and the making of accountants in two multi-national accounting firms," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 99-122, March.
    9. Ioana Lupu & Laura Empson, 2015. "Illusio and overwork: playing the game in the accounting field," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(8), pages 1310-1340, October.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14746 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Martin Kornberger & Lise Justesen & Jan Mouritsen, 2011. "“When you make manager, we put a big mountain in front of you” : An ethnography of managers in a Big 4 Accounting Firm," Post-Print hal-02276736, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Claire Garnier, 2018. "L'associé est-il un auditeur comme les autres ? La construction de l'identité de l'associé dans les cabinets Big 4 en France," Post-Print hal-01907933, HAL.
    2. Beau, Pauline & Jerman, Lambert, 2022. "Bonding forged in “auditing hell”: The emotional qualities of Big Four auditors," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Lambert Jerman & Pauline Beau & Claire Garnier, 2016. "Le « dividual professional »," Post-Print hal-01902409, HAL.
    4. Bitbol-Saba, Nathalie & Dambrin, Claire, 2019. "“It’s not often we get a visit from a beautiful woman!” The body in client-auditor interactions and the masculinity of accountancy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. François Brouard & Merridee Bujaki & Sylvain Durocher & Leighann C. Neilson, 2017. "Professional Accountants’ Identity Formation: An Integrative Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 225-238, May.
    6. Covaleski, Mark A. & Earley, Christine E. & Zehms, Karla M., 2021. "The lived reality of public accounting interns," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    7. Lambert Jerman & Alaric Bourgoin, 2016. "L'identité négative de l'auditeur," Post-Print hal-01902594, HAL.
    8. Durocher, Sylvain & Bujaki, Merridee & Brouard, François, 2016. "Attracting Millennials: Legitimacy management and bottom-up socialization processes within accounting firms," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-24.
    9. Daoust, Laurence & Malsch, Bertrand, 2019. "How ex-auditors remember their past: The transformation of audit experience into cultural memory," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Daoust, Laurence, 2020. "Playing the Big Four recruitment game: The tension between illusio and reflexivity," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. José-Joaquín del-Pozo-Antúnez & Horacio Molina-Sánchez & Francisco Fernández-Navarro & Antonio Ariza-Montes, 2021. "Accountancy as a Meaningful Work. Main Determinants from a Job Quality and Optimization Algorithm Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-14, August.
    12. Anderson-Gough, Fiona & Edgley, Carla & Robson, Keith & Sharma, Nina, 2022. "Organizational responses to multiple logics: Diversity, identity and the professional service firm," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    13. de Vries, Marlies & Blomme, Rob & De Loo, Ivo, 2022. "Part of the herd or black sheep? An exploration of trainee accountants’ suffering and modes of adaptation," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    14. Guénin-Paracini, Henri & Malsch, Bertrand & Paillé, Anne Marché, 2014. "Fear and risk in the audit process," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 264-288.
    15. Guo, Ken H., 2018. "The odyssey of becoming: Professional identity and insecurity in the Canadian accounting field," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 20-45.
    16. Haynes, Kathryn, 2017. "Accounting as gendering and gendered: A review of 25 years of critical accounting research on gender," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 110-124.
    17. Kornberger, Martin & Justesen, Lise & Mouritsen, Jan, 2011. "“When you make manager, we put a big mountain in front of you”: An ethnography of managers in a Big 4 Accounting Firm," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 514-533.
    18. Edgley, Carla & Sharma, Nina & Anderson-Gough, Fiona, 2016. "Diversity and professionalism in the Big Four firms: Expectation, celebration and weapon in the battle for talent," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 13-34.
    19. repec:mth:ijafr8:v:8:y:2018:i:2:p:166-178 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Carmona, Salvador & Ezzamel, Mahmoud, 2016. "Accounting and lived experience in the gendered workplace," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-8.
    21. Adapa, Sujana & Rindfleish, Jennifer & Sheridan, Alison, 2016. "‘Doing gender’ in a regional context: Explaining women's absence from senior roles in regional accounting firms in Australia," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 100-110.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    audit; partner; informal promotion network; careers; symbolic interactionism; associé; réseaux informels de promotion; carrières; interactionnisme symbolique;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01907518. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.