Public perception of the accounting professional through the movie “The Accountant”

Abstract

With the goal of understanding how the image of accountants is portrayed by the media, we analyzed elements of legitimacy proposed by Suchman (1995) and stereotypes linked to the image of the accountant found in the movie “The Accountant” (2016). The research is documentary, descriptive and qualitative. To analyze and interpret data, we used the Categorical Content Analysis proposed by Bardin (2010), and the categories were determined beforehand. It was found that the elements of legitimacy were present regarding pragmatic legitimacy in the way the accountant dresses, his involvement in criminal activities, the demonstrating of his technical capacity. Regarding moral legitimacy, there are conflicting ethical dilemmas in the actions of the accountant, a specialist in dirty money. Regarding cognitive legitimacy, he is seen as someone who pleases his clients and does not always choose the profession by affinity. Regarding stereotypes, there was a discrepancy between genders, relationship difficulty, lack of sense of humor and that the accounting professional presents accurate logical and mathematical reasoning and competence in their functions. As research contributions, therefore, we can highlight the elucidation of distortions found involving the image of accountants in empirical studies, in relation to what is portrayed by the media, by the movie under analysis, seeking to combat negative images of the profession by identifying how they arise. The accounting field benefits from this with a possible shift in the popular perception of the importance of accountants for companies, by understanding that the criminal professional, exposed in the current media, are different from the professional required by the job market.