ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to present our social constructionist research programme pertaining to the accounting profession, which emphasizes that social reality is constituted through social interactions. Here we elaborate upon three specific research projects which embody our social constructionist research programme: 1) the study of the role of informal communications in public accounting firms; 2) the roles of management by objectives (MBO) and mentoring in the accounting profession; and 3) the battle of knowledge experts within the auditing profession. A common thread and intellectual base for our social constructionist research programme has been the early work of Berger and Luckmann (1966) who reasoned that social reality is constituted through social interactions. This explicit acknowledgement that social reality is constituted through social interactions has been a key source that has shaped the conceptual framework in our own research pertaining to the study of the accounting profession (Covaleski and Dirsmith, 1990; Covaleski, Dirsmith, Heian and Samuel, 1998; Dirsmith and Covaleski, 1985b; Dirsmith, Heian and Covaleski, 1997).
