Century plus journeys: using career crafting to explore the career success of pioneer women accountants

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the struggle for entry and career success of the early pioneer women accountants in Great Britain and its former colonies the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.Design/methodology/approachA career crafting matrix guides the analysis of historical information available on five pioneer women accountants in order to understand their success in gaining entry into the profession and their subsequent careers.FindingsDespite an exclusionary environment, career crafting efforts coupled with family and organizational support enabled these women to become one of the first female accountants in their respective countries. Their struggles were not personal but much broader—seeking social, political, economic and professional empowerment for women.Originality/valueThis is the first paper to utilize the career crafting matrix developed from current female accountants' careers to explore careers of pioneering female accountants. It adds to the limited literature on women actors in accounting and may provide insight into approaching current forms of difference and discrimination.

A state-of-the-art overview of job-crafting research: current trends and future research directions

“…Career crafting involves lifelong proactive career behaviors that broaden career-relevant resources and explore career options so that individuals can respond to both the changing nature of jobs and their personal changes in needs, values, and/or interests (Lee et al, 2021). Other researchers have focused on examples of job crafting throughout someone's careeracross jobs and rolesas well as family, organizational and environmental influences on these careers (Vidwans and Du Plessis, 2019;Vidwans and Whiting, 2021). A recent intervention study operationalized career crafting as job crafting, which reflects the short-term career, and career self-management, which addresses the long-term or series of jobs that form the career (Van Leeuwen et al, 2021).…”

Indigenous peoples and accounting: A systematic literature review

“…The world's first professional accountancy body was established in Scotland in 1854 (Paris, 2016); others followed in England and Wales in 1880 and the United States, Canada, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand during the 1880s and 1890s (Vidwans and Whiting, 2022). Thus, accounting in the nineteenth century was part of a new colonial discourse (Hooper and Pratt, 1995).…”

“…Entry was restricted to those who met stringent requirements such as educational credentials, examination passes and work experience requirements (Chua and Poullaos, 1998; McKeen and Richardson, 1998). These closure strategies also used criteria unrelated to competence or merit to exclude people from practice (Richardson, 2017; Vidwans and Whiting, 2022) and as a result indigenous participation was limited.…”

Gender construction and the invisibility of women’s accounting activities: the All Nations’ Fair of 1895

“…Gender-based discrimination against women in accounting is not a recent phenomenon. The historical exclusion of women from accounting has been explained as a reflection of past attitudes towards women that excluded them from business, and the lack of educational opportunities available to most women (Reid et al ., 1987; Rico-Bonilla, 2020; Spruill and Wootton, 1995; Vidwans and Whiting, 2021). But exclusion rarely operates in the same way in all locations (Shapiro, 1994).…”

“…This case study was selected for six reasons. First, it provides a corrective to the extant research, where individual women who undertook accounting work in the nineteenth century are presented as trailblazers or are distinguished by virtue of their class, access to education or family connections (Cooper, 2008; Jeacle, 2011; Vidwans and Whiting, 2021). By contrast, this example concerns ordinary women undertaking accounting work collaboratively.…”