Understanding the responses of professional accounting bodies to crises: The case of the Australian profession in the 1960s

This historical study set in Australia seeks to make a contribution to our understanding of how the accounting profession responds to crises. The legitimacy of the Australian accounting profession was challenged in the early 1960s in the face of a Commonwealth government induced credit squeeze which resulted in a spate of corporate failures. Initially, the profession was slow to respond to criticisms levelled by company inspectors, finance journalists and shareholders. Eventually, the professional accounting bodies responded to mounting criticism and, among other measures, jointly formed the Accountancy Research Foundation (later renamed the Australian Accounting Research Foundation) in 1966. Drawing on perspectives on the dynamics of occupational groups and applying the legitimacy typology of Suchman (1995), the study examines the responses of the professional accounting bodies, both individual and collective, to the 1960s crisis, As the history of the accounting profession has been characterised by intra-professional rivalries, this case study illustrates how such rivalries were put aside for mutual benefit in repairing legitimacy as part of the ongoing struggle to maintain professional trajectory and monopolise social and economic opportunities.