Women in the French accountancy profession: the test of the labyrinth

Ioana Ioan (1)

1 GREG - CRC - Groupe de recherche en économie et en gestion - Centre de recherche en comptabilité

Purpose – Our paper seeks to reveal the mechanisms fostering women's scarcity in top positions in the French accounting firms. A subsequent purpose of the paper is to explore women's professional trajectories and to show that despite the existing constraints, women do have a certain degree of influence on shaping their professional identities. Design/methodology/approach – From 27 interviews with male and female accountants, we seek to explore women's personal trajectories as they grapple to stay on the narrow path, to balance career and personal aspirations. Findings – This paper makes a contribution in two main ways. Firstly, using Eagley and Carli's (2007) metaphor of a labyrinth illustrates the obstacles for French women public accountants right from the early days of their intended career paths showing how the career path is influenced by organizational factors as well as by individual factors. We contend that, in spite of the recurring obstacles women nonetheless seem to have a certain degree of influence on the shaping of their own lives. Secondly, the paper begins to explore exit points and alternative destinations for women accountants. Originality/value – The originality of this study resides in the fact that we included in this study middle sized and small accounting firms, whereas the gender studies in accounting have been concerned almost exclusively with Big Four firms. We did this in order to emphasize the continuity of woman's trajectories as they travel from one firm to another or even leave the profession.

Mots clés: feminization; accountancy profession; labyrinth; organizational level; portray

Domaines: Gestion et management

Ioana Ioan. Women in the French accountancy profession: the test of the labyrinth. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting (IPA), 2009, Innsbruck, Austria. ⟨halshs-00475216⟩