Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2001) 12, 423–451
doi:10.1006/cpac.2000.0451
Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on
THE BEANCOUNTER STEREOTYPE: TOWARDS
A GENERAL MODEL OF STEREOTYPE
GENERATION
A NDREW L. F RIEDMAN† AND S TEPHEN R. LYNE‡
University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, BS8 1TN Bristol, UK
The image of the beancounter who is single-mindedly preoccupied with precision
and form, methodical and conservative, and a boring joyless character has, until
recently, been widely recognized as the clear stereotype of the accountant. Recently
the stereotype has been confirmed as applicable in the past, but some have
suggested that this long standing stereotype is disappearing. Evidence is provided
from a literature search on “beancounter” that this traditional stereotype is not
disappearing, but that it is multifaceted, incorporating several very different nuances.
Stereotypes may be generated from different sources, transmitted through varied
media and associated with a range of subtly different nuances. These nuances
can be affected by the nature of the relationship different groups have with
the stereotyped group. In order to explore further the different nuances of the
beancounter stereotype, we develop a general model of stereotype generation. This
accords with the range of ways the word beancounter has been used as a stereotype
of accountants in a database of newspapers and magazines published between
January 1970 and June 1995. We conclude by examining the implications of this
research for analysing stereotyping and the way the stereotype of the accountant
has been developing in recent years.
c 2001 Academic Press
Why Study the Beancounter Stereotype?
The image of someone who is single-mindedly preoccupied with precision and
form, methodical and conservative, and a boring joyless character has been widely
recognized as the primary stereotype of the accountant (Jackson, 1956; Decoster
& Rhode, 1971; Yamey, 1982). This stereotype is commonly summarized with the
label of “beancounter” (Friedman & Lyne, 1997). Some authors have suggested
that this long-standing stereotype is disappearing (Beard, 1994; Bougen, 1994;
Hopwood, 1994; Friedman & Lyne, 1995). However, there is considerable literature
which suggests that it continues to be the dominant stereotype (Smith & Briggs,
1999; Dimnik & Felton, 2000). We provide evidence that the traditional beancounter
†
E-mail: [email protected], Management Research Centre.
E-mail: [email protected], Economics Department.
Received 20 March 2000; revised 2 November 2000; accepted 20 November 2000
‡
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c 2001 Academic Press
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A. L. Friedman and S. R. Lyne
stereotype is not disappearing. Rather it is multifaceted, incorporating several very
different nuances.
If it is accepted that the beancounter image is the dominant stereotype of
the accountant, should individual accountants and the accounting profession be
concerned? It has been argued by many that accountants are concerned about their
general image. For example, Dimnik and Felton (2000) cite a series of articles in the
Wall Street Journal that present accountants as dull, boring, “wet blankets”. Dyer
(1993) argues that “how we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how
we treat others is based on how we see them; seeing comes from representation”
[emphasis added]. The beancounter sterotype is a dominant representation of
accountants in the mind of the public, and in sub-publics that have direct contact
with accountants. Thus the beancounter stereotype, where it exists, is likely to lead
to acountants being treated as boring, joyless, single-minded and dull. This will
adversely affect both the nature of their work and their social relations. Further,
this general influence of the beancounter stereotype is likely to affect the social and
intellectual composition of the accounting profession through biases in recruitment
that are discussed below.
A common view is that most stereotyping tends to recede the closer subjects
are to the object of the potential stereotype, so does it matter that accountants are
stereotyped as beancounters? Two sets of arguments suggest that it does matter.
First, even if the stereotype did recede as people came into closer or more frequent
contact with accountants, the existence of the stereotype among those distant from
accountants would still be a matter of concern for accounting and for accountants.
The most obvious cause for concern is with recruitment. Smith and Briggs (1999,
p. 28) warn that the negative stereotype may have “serious consequences for the next
generation of accountants if, as a result, the profession fails to recruit the best and
brightest of students”. Dimnik and Felton (2000, p. 2) cite a task force set up in 1988
by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants to assess the attractiveness of
the profession and further evidence from large US accounting firms worried about
the short supply of talented graduates willing to choose a career in public accounting.
To recruit the best and the brightest is fundamental to the “professional project” of
all professions (Macdonald, 1995). For young people, the reputation of a profession
as dull and boring is just about the most serious disincentive, particularly for the
“best and brightest”, as the authors know from decades of teaching accountants at
university level. Potential recruits will rarely have the opportunities to be up close
to accountants unless they are family members. Casual empiricism suggests that
many of our students do in fact have parents who are accountants.
A further consequence of the beancounter stereotype on recruitment of accountants is that potential recruits will expect that recruiters have not been choosing
new entrants on the basis of intelligence or other measures of merit. Appearing as
a collection of beancounters to the outside world, in spite of earning good money,
could suggest that recruitment has been in terms of personal contacts or characteristics, and not purely on merit. It makes accountancy look more like a closed club.
This would deter disadvantaged groups from attempting to enter accounting, as they
expect prejudice against them among recruiters.
A danger is that if the beancounter stereotype leads to a bias in recruitment of
The beancounter stereotype
425
accountants, it may lead not only to a “dumbing down” of the profession, but also to the
stereotype becoming self-fulfilling. A further consequence for the profession could be
a gradual loss of status as other professions come to take on higher level activities
currently carried out by accountants with their stock of brighter and presumably
more creative practitioners (see Friedman & Lyne, 1995). This could even reflect
back on the beancounter stereotype itself. All professions strive for respectablity.
Though we show below that the beancounter stereotype is primarily negative, it has
one important positive connotation. The beancounter is associated with honesty and
trustworthyness. However, if accounting begins to lose out on higher level activities
to other professions it may lead to a reduction in the financial opportunities for certain
groups of accountants. This in turn may lead to sharp practice in the scramble to
maintain incomes and market position, which will then hurt the positive side of the
beancounter image, as well as the general desire for all professionals not to appear
self-interested. See Hanlon (1999, p. 15) for this argument in relation to lawyers.
Second, the view that stereotypes will fade with familiarity rests on a particular
theory of stereotyping: the social cognitive approach. We note that there are other
conflicting approaches which imply that stereotypes will not fade with familiarity.
These are discussed in the following section. We provide evidence for an alternative
theory, the realistic conflict theory. This locates the generation of the stereotype
in competition for social and material resources among occupational groups. This
theory implies that a negative stereotype like the beancounter image, will be
more robust.
Formulations of stereotypes and stereotyping emphasize the rigid and simplifying
nature of the stereotype. Though simpler than reality, stereotypes need not be
uniform or homogeneous. Stereotypes may be generated from different sources,
transmitted through varied media and associated with a range of subtly different
nuances. These nuances can be affected by the nature of the relationship different
groups have with the stereotyped group. In order to explore further the different
nuances of the beancounter stereotype, we develop a general model of stereotype
generation. This accords with the range of ways the word beancounter has been
used as a stereotype of accountants in a database of newspapers and magazines
published between January 1970 and June 1995. We conclude by examining the
implications of this research for analysing stereotyping and the way the stereotype
of the accountant has been developing in recent years.
Stereotypes
The word stereotype was first used by American journalist Lippman (1922) referring
to the “pictures in our heads” of various social groups. Early social psychologists
regarded them negatively, as rigid and oversimplified or biased perceptions and
beliefs, associated with prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviours (Katz
& Braly, 1933; Allport, 1954; English & English, 1958). Following Adorno et al.
(1950) stereotypes were regarded as symptoms of deeper personality problems
(the “authoritarian” personality) caused largely by overly-strict parental discipline
in early formative years. Certain highly visible and powerless minorities were made
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scapegoats. Frustrated aggression against parents or other powerful tormentors was
displaced onto these groups (Allport, 1954).
Those who follow the recently dominant social cognitive approach regard
stereotypes in neutral terms, as a set of beliefs about the personal attributes
of a group of people (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981; Stroebe & Insko, 1989).
Stereotypes are conceived as categories that bring coherence and order to
our social environment. Following Simon’s (1955) pathbreaking work, the biases
and simplifications characteristic of stereotypes are interpreted as coming from
limitations of human capacities for processing information (Tajfel, 1969). By
proposing that cognitive constraints lead to breakdowns in perceptions and cognition,
and therefore to biased and incomplete pictures in our minds of certain social groups,
cognitive theorists need not rely on motivational factors to explain the formation and
longevity of stereotypes.
Cognitive theorists suggest that it is possible to alter stereotypes by linking
“disconfirming information” to typical or representative members and by associating
multiple instances of such information with typical members of the outgroup who
are seen as independent of one another (Wilder, 1986). This is suggested because
earlier psychologists found “subtyping” occurred when all disconfirming information
was concentrated in a few individuals. Stereotypes are protected from disconfirming
information by compartmentalizing (Freud, 1961) or by differentiating the few who
display disconfirming traits as an exempt subtype (Abelson, 1959; Williams, 1964).
More recently, many have questioned whether the cognitive approach, by itself,
can give a full explanation of stereotypes. Whereas it is useful for understanding
how stereotyping can occur, it does not explain why stereotypes are predominantly
negative. Hamilton and Trolier (1986, p. 153) state that any particular form of
stereotyping is likely to be determined by multiple cognitive, motivational and social
learning processes. Stroebe and Insko (1989, p. 14) recommend that the cognitive
approach be supplemented with conflict theory and social identity theory. “Realistic”
conflict theory considers stereotypes to be the outcome of intergroup competition
for scarce physical resources (Campbell, 1965). Real threats cause the perception
of threat. This increases ingroup solidarity, awareness of group identity and the
tightness of group boundaries. Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1985) assumes
an individual motive to achieve or maintain a positive social identity and therefore
modifies conflict theory by proposing that conflict can also occur over scarce social
resources such as prestige and status.
If this view of stereotyping were true, it would have serious consequences for
the tenacity and the intensity of stereotypes. Social learning theory suggests that
though stereotypes may be modified by experience, they are mostly acquired through
channels of socialization such as parents, schools and mass media. According to
realistic conflict theory stereotypes would not be expected to fade as the actual
people being stereotyped become more familiar if one is a member of a competing
group or if one is influenced by such a group. Also we may expect that negative
stereotypes (or negative nuances of a general stereotype) will become more intense
and widespread in times of greater conflict among competing groups (or shortly
afterwards if it takes time for the general public to latch on to locally stimulated
stereotyping).
The beancounter stereotype
427
We build on the idea that stereotypes may be altered by experience as suggested
by social learning theory, particularly if those experiences involve conflict over
scarce physical or social resources. We believe that this implies not only that
stereotypes may change over time, but also that a kind of subtyping can occur within
a stereotype. However, we are not concerned with subtyping by which stereotypes
are protected from disconfirming evidence by compartmentalising the stereotyped
group into subtypes to which the stereotype does not apply, or applies in a softened
form. Rather we wish to explore the idea that different portions of the general
public may be compartmentalized or at least distinguished as holding to different
nuances of the basic stereotype. This follows from the idea that experiences of the
stereotyped group will differ among “sub-publics”; that channels of socialization, such
as communities (families, schools, employing organizations, neighbourhoods) and
types of broadcast media, will differ for different people. Such differences do not
merely affect susceptibility to the stereotype, rather they affect the bases behind the
particular nuance of the stereotype different people are likely to experience. These
ideas are explored below in relation to the beancounter stereotype.
The Beancounter Stereotype of Accountants
Beard (1994) examined the portrayal of accountants in 16 popular Hollywood
movies. Accountants appear as stock comic characters, or when their identities as
accountants support characterization or plot development. Accountants’ reputation
for being single-mindedly, even obsessively preoccupied with precision and form
over content is exploited in films where they are comic characters. Obsessive
concentration on form or detail can cause them to harm themselves. For films
where being an accountant aids character development, it acts as a code for certain
base-line personality traits; “disciplined, self-effacing, tradition-bound, articulate and
respectful of the law. . . . These ‘perfect children’ usually want to do the right thing
but frequently have trouble sorting out what that might be” (Beard, 1994, p. 309).
More recently Smith and Briggs (1999) find that accountants are portrayed in
movies as primarily boring. According to Bougen accountants have encouraged this
stereotype by joking about it in their own professional publications. He contends that
the connection between being personally dull, boring and unimaginative, with being
conservative, methodical, impartial and honest, can be very valuable for encouraging
client trust and confidence. Bougen’s view that the traditional image of accountants
has positive nuances and that it could, at least in part, be manipulated by accountants
themselves, accords with the social cognitive approach discussed above.
Beard, Bougen and Smith and Briggs all propose that the traditional (beancounter)
stereotype is disappearing. In the 1980s the humorous view of the accountant
changed within the professional accounting literature. Now Bougen notes, they are
viewed as literally smoothing income with an iron or as chefs “cooking” the books.
Hopwood (1994, p. 299) concludes:
The previous boring and rather lowly clerk is now graced with characteristics of the
executive, the manager and even the entrepreneur. . . a thrusting, proactive and much more
creative being.
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This change is not altogether to be welcomed according to Bougen. Associated with
creativity is deception. The good name of accountants needs rescuing and to do
so it is time to go “back to bean-counting”. Bougen cites The Economist, “Never
has the reputation of accountants been so wretched. Beancounters have always
been thought boring: now it seems they are also bad, incompetent and, in some
cases corrupt” (1992, p. 14). Smith and Briggs conclude that the stereotypical view
of accountants has shifted from “boring” to “unprofessional” and “criminal”.
Complexity of the Beancounter Stereotype and Additional Nuances
The traditional beancounter stereotype is treated here as a complex configuration
of images. For Bougen the image arises from joining two pairs of elements: the
type of person an accountant is with tasks an accountant does; and the tasks of
accounting with bookkeeping. However, we suggest the stereotype may be even
more complicated than this because it is affected by other aspects of how a particular
occupational group, such as accountants, can appear to others. For example (in
accord with social learning, realistic conflict, and social identity theories), the image
of accountants will be affected by the experiences of certain social groups in relation
to accountants (particularly experiences of conflict over scarce physical and social
resources). These experiences can be affected by:
1. the position of accountants within organizational hierarchies compared with
other social groups;
2. the degree of market power accountants have in relation to their clients;
3. the degree of authority accountants wield over other occupational groups within
organizations, in terms of rewards and sanctions that may follow from the
actions of accountants; and
4. the degree of transparency or perceived arbitrariness of the actions of
accountants in relation to other occupational groups within organizations,
clients and those for whom the products of accountants’ activities are intended,
but with whom they may have no direct client or organizational relation (for
example, shareholders, tax authorities, members of the general public affected
by projects authorised by, or otherwise associated with accountants).
These aspects of accountants’ relations with others may influence stereotyping as
readily as accounting tasks. There is a fundamental divide between accountants who
work “in practice”, that is, for clients, and those “in business”. Accountants in practice,
particularly the largest multinational accounting firms, have a higher profile in the
media, yet most accountants work in business organizations where they interact and
compete with other occupational groups. Positions in organizational hierarchies and
their associated differential rewards of money, power and influence are important
scarce resources over which these accountants compete with other occupational
groups. According to Armstrong (1985, 1987) accountants generally occupy the
key positions of command within oganizations at the apex of the “global function
The beancounter stereotype
429
of capital”. This they took over from engineers in the early twentieth century and
then consolidated their position throughout the century. This has led to resentment
from engineers, and also from other occupational groups such as those in marketing
or personnel. It will be seen later that the most negative aspects or nuances of the
beancounter stereotype are concentrated in the managerial groupings that directly
compete with accountants.
Friedman and Lyne (1995) report evidence for the traditional beancounter
stereotype, but with different nuances and implications from those noted by
Beard, Bougen or Hopwood. In a study of 11 companies that were implementing
activity-based techniques, operations managers often referred to accountants as
beancounters, meaning accountants who produce information which is “regarded
as of little use in efficiently running the business and as a result, its production
has become an end in itself” (Friedman & Lyne, 1995, p. 68)1 . At one company
project leaders for an activity-based management exercise were chosen from outside
finance. According to the overall leader, “if it was a finance person heading it up
no matter how he started to communicate it, it would be seen as a beancounter’s
exercise and there would have been a lot of resistance” (Friedman & Lyne,
1995, p. 68). Accountants were not regarded as lowly clerks, nor as imaginative,
creative entrepreneurs. Rather they were regarded as a powerful group within the
organization who were able to control operations and operations managers, and
able to impose their own particular approach or “way of doing things”, but in ways
detrimental to operations managers. One manager talked about a “blame culture”.
Another manufacturing manager said he did not trust finance “not to stitch me up”
(Friedman & Lyne, 1995, p. 46).
The stereotype expressed by operations managers was not fundamentally different
from the traditional image described by Beard and Bougen. Rather, all three studies
revealed evidence for a complex configuration of this beancounter stereotype, one
which may be viewed as having a central image containing different nuances. The
central image with different nuances can have very varied implications for how well
accountants are viewed by the public and for how valuable the stereotype is likely
to be. Bougen’s thesis is that the traditional image of boring and precise people has
nuances of honesty, reliability and trustworthiness, and this is valuable to accountants
because it inspires client confidence. The nuance Beard picks up is of comically rigid
self-destructive, even disaster-prone, boring and precise people. It is not a stereotype
that would inspire client confidence. Operations managers reported in Friedman and
Lyne also viewed accountants as boring and precise, but the nuance they added was
of distant, unhelpful and controlling people. They were resented.
Friedman and Lyne also found evidence for the “death” of the beancounter. In six
of eight companies where accountants had been held in low regard by operations
managers before the activity-based initiative, accountants came to be viewed as less
distant, more knowledgeable about the business and as providers of more relevant
information. This mirrors the change in image suggested by Bougen and Hopwood,
though there was no suggestion that by becoming more relevant accountants were
also becoming creative or corrupt.
None of these nuances is presumed to be more accurate than the others.
They are all aspects of a rigid and simplistic picture of accountants in people’s
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minds. Nevertheless they are not completely arbitrary. They can be understood
as reflecting different characteristics of accounting jobs, different occupations
within the accounting profession and different positions in organization hierarchies.
Accountants carry out a wide range of occupations involving different tasks and
inter-group relations which may become associated with significant variations in the
basic stereotype. These are not captured by the distinction between bookkeeping
and accountancy alone. In addition different nuances reflect different media.
Complexity in Identifying the Accountant Stereotype: the Media and the Messages
Different media concentrate on different facets of work and reflect different “voices”
both within and outside accountancy. Different and changing ways a stereotype
is transmitted must be considered as well as the different activities, mannerisms
or relationships out of which particular stereotypes are generated. Different media
may reflect conflicting images because the stereotype of accountants among varied
publics may actually be different, or at least there may be significantly different
nuances2 . Also media are not neutral transmitters of “truth”. As Bougen notes,
joking can be serious, it may serve a purpose beyond entertainment. The positive
nuance Bougen finds behind the traditional stereotype in accounting publications
must not be taken as straightforward evidence even for the image accountants hold
of themselves. Accepting that there is a voice with a motive behind what is published
implies accepting that those whose voice it is (publishers, editors and writers) will
be selective. Their publics may hold to certain views which will not appear in the
media because they do not accord with the motivation of the publishers and editors.
We would not expect to see jokes in accounting journals presenting the stereotype
with a completely negative nuance, though they may appear in a rival occupation’s
journal.
A model of stereotype generation
Figure 1 presents a model which illustrates the discussion above. The stereotype of
any group arises from how they appear or are represented to others. Aspects of the
way accountants appear to others which contribute to the stereotype (in common
with other groups defined by occupation), are characteristics of both their activities
and their relations with others3 . “Above” this base or source level are the ways such
generalisations are “mediated” into the realm of a public image, which we now see
as a complex and rather fuzzy entity. The beancounter stereotype of accountants
is regarded as a subset of the public image of accountants. This stereotype is itself
composed of several facets or nuances. The mediating processes are also part of the
public image or the stereotype. For example, the portrayal of accountants in a movie
as boring characters who harm themselves in amusing ways is at the same time:
1. a way of conveying this nuance of the traditional beancounter stereotype to
those who see the film or are otherwise exposed to the film and its publicity;
2. a means for generating this view of accountants in some and reinforcing it in
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The beancounter stereotype
Public Image of Accountants
Media
Company
Figure 1. Beancounter stereotype generation.
others (this is not to judge how effective it may be in this regard);
3. a part of the public domain in itself which may be taken as evidence for this
nuance.
Clearly there are many publics. These may be distinguished in connection
with a public image either in terms of their degree of actual exposure to the
stereotype group, and/or by differences in their degree of exposure to some mediated
representation of that group. For example, some sales staff in a large organization will
be exposed to accountants in that organization directly, say by being called to task
for “excessive” expenses. They are likely to have resented the interaction. Others
will hear of these experiences second-hand via the office grapevine. Within sales
these shared experiences may lead to a reputation or stereotype of the company
accountants. However, the accounting stereotype is ambiguous enough to allow
several quite different nuances. The sales people who have not had direct contact
with accountants may hold a stereotype of them close to the representation conveyed
in the movies discussed by Beard. They may regard accountants as amusing,
pathetic beancounters, harmful only to themselves. However sales people who had
direct interaction with accountants, and especially those who feel threatened by the
consequences of being ticked off by the company accountants, may come to hold
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a stereotype of accountants as dangerous, mean-minded beancounters, who are
able to stop them, and indeed all sales people, from doing what is necessary for
their jobs and for their careers. The extent to which the group of sales people without
direct contact with accountants hold to this negative nuance of the stereotype will, as
suggested by social identity theory, depend on the density of communication within
the whole sales group and the extent to which they identify their own situation with
those sales people who express the negative nuance of the stereotype to them.
They might consider derogatory remarks about accountants to reflect the insecurity
of a group of “incompetent” people, rather than fellow sales people. In addition, this
nuance of the stereotype may spread beyond the sales department to other parts
of the organization by word-of-mouth from the aggrieved sales people, or second
and third hand along the grapevine of colleagues (and into kinship or neighbourhood
communities via relatives and friends). The negative nuance of the stereotype is
likely to become more deeply embedded within the organization if people from other
departments have similar direct experience of accountants and if they express their
views to other non-accountants in the organization, who then pass on and reinforce
this nuance of the stereotype. This route by which experiences of a social group are
transmitted, the grapevine or personal contact route, may be particularly important
for stereotypes of occupational groups within organizations.
A particular nuance of a stereotype may also be transmitted to particular
subsections of the general public via specialized broadcast media. The experiences
and insecurities of sales people over their relations with accountants may be
transmitted through magazines which are aimed at sales people in general, rather
than the particular group of sales people in a single organization (though company
newsletters may influence the latter specifically). Particular media, aimed at a distinct
social group, may successfully influence attitudes of that social group towards
accepting a different nuance of the stereotype from that which is conveyed in more
general and diffuse broadcast media.
Finally there are the most general forms of broadcast media such as: the movies,
television, radio and newspapers. Few even of these media are aimed at “the general
public”; many are still aimed at a particular national or regional public, leading to
stereotypes among these different publics with different nuances.
We therefore distinguish two means that mediate between the way accountants
appear to others and their public image; that is, broadcast media and communities
(see Figure 1). Any individual may be influenced by a combination of these two
types. Beard and Bougen relied on the first type, Friedman and Lyne relied on the
second. Evidence from non-fiction printed media is presented below which suggests
differing nuances being held by different publics. Publics in this context are defined
as different readerships of particular types of non-fiction periodicals (and the voices
producing material calculated to interest those readerships).
The evidence in this study comes from a literature search for the word beancounter.
The aim of this study is not to investigate whether there are stereotypes of an
accountant—this is taken for granted. Rather, the aim is to investigate the particular
“beancounter” stereotype. From the discussion above it is clear that the beancounter
is a stereotype of an accountant universally known by accounting and finance
managers, and widely known by other managers (as demonstrated by the range
The beancounter stereotype
433
of journals included in this study). Dictionary definitions of this term indicate it is
colloquial and originated in the United States in the mid 1970s. The definitions are
generally uncomplimentary, for example: “obsessed with returns”, “penny-pinching”,
“. . . especially one reluctant to spend money”. Thus this study will examine the
development of the beancounter stereotype and the different nuances within this
stereotype. It will reveal that the stereotype is not wholly negative, and show a wide
range of nuances.
Beancounters in the Non-fiction Printed Media
Because the image is complex and because of the complex relation between the
image and the media, there is no one best way to explore the beancounter stereotype.
Even popular film, which Beard (1994, p. 303) argues is “almost by definition culturally
significant” and which both reflects and generates cultural values, will be limited
by the pursuit of commercial profitability to portray those values in an entertaining
manner. Hollywood films are notorious for their bias towards happy endings. If an
accountant is portrayed as the central character we would expect an entertaining
portrayal. Beard (1994, p. 304) noted that business films cluster in periods of “probusiness politics and relative economic prosperity”. This biases the representation
of accountants in the movies away from specialist occupations within business,
assuming that accountants within business come to the fore during hard times.
The non-fiction printed media is also culturally significant. Though the coming of
television was widely predicted to signal the demise of print, Drucker (1999) has
recently noted the enormous rise in print publishing, and particularly the rise of nonfiction specialist magazines, in the second half of the twentieth century. Non-fiction
sources may be expected to reflect different aspects of a stereotype from fictional
ones. It could be argued that the aim of those who publish, edit and write for such
magazines is ostensibly to inform, rather than merely to entertain their publics. This
would lead to less emphasis on (though not an absence of) amusing portrayal of
the beancounter stereotype in non-fiction media. The printed media may also be
expected to reflect a wider range of nuances of the basic stereotype than film. Films
are designed to be watched straight-through from beginning to end. This people
do in the cinema. Even at home, it is awkward to dip in and out of a video tape
or to select part of a track from a disk. Print is more flexible in that it is as easy
to turn pages backward as forward and it is easy to scan parts of items. This is
particularly so for newspapers and general magazines, which are compilations of
reports, stories and articles. While different newspapers and magazines may have
an overall, general style, within them a wide range of styles and approaches will
be displayed. Newspapers and general magazines therefore do not need to appeal
to a purchaser in their entirety. Many purchase a newspaper for its political news,
its financial or for its sports coverage alone. This is possible given flexibility of the
media and the relatively low financial and low time resources required to “consume”
the desired information. Furthermore, different sections of newspapers, and different
parts of the magazine racks in shops, will be aimed at particular sub-publics. New
technology means that publications can be produced viably in small enough numbers
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to be able to survive with appeal to relatively small interest groups. The overall effect
is to lead us to expect that non-fiction print media will display a more varied and a
more “grass roots”, set of stereotype nuances compared with representations limited
to those portrayed in popular films.
Research Method
Seven databases available through a university library on the DIALOGUE Information Service were searched for beancounter references for all years available
(ABI/INFORM, Accounting and Tax Database, Business Dateline, Harvard Business
Review, The Journal of Commerce, Management Contents and Trade and Industry
Database). Some had references from 1970, but the first beancounter citation occurred in April, 1979. The latest references were in June, 1995. The articles were
read separately by the two authors and each was independently assigned a category
of nuance as shown in Table 2. The categorizations of each researcher were compared and differences resolved. This method is well known (see Anderson & Young
, 1999). As a further check, an academic colleague not associated with this study
randomly chose a sample of 12 cases from the articles and the above process was
repeated yielding the same categorization. In view of the subjective nature of these
judgements a full discussion of the classification with quotations from the majority of
the articles is presented, enabling the reader to verify the basis of the categorization.
Prior to carrying out the database search, we expected the results to provide evidence
of the relative popularity of different nuances of the core beancounter stereotype of
boring and precise accountants; that is, as distant and irrelevant (Friedman & Lyne,
1997), as diligent and trustworthy (Bougen, 1994), or as perfect children whose rigid
pursuit of precision causes them harm (Beard, 1994). As the scope of the study is
the beancounter stereotype, this search was expected to be less useful for assessing the importance of the emerging image of accountants, as creative and possibly
dishonest entrepreneurs, that Bougen and Hopwood identified.
Data Description
The search generated 154 uses of the term beancounter. Beancounter referred to
accountants in all but 16 cases (counting coffee beans, seven times; counting crops,
once; general analysts who count, such as forecasters of prices or sales, five times;
computer software, three times). The 138 references to beancounters in connection
with accountants were distributed widely, among 95 different magazine, newspaper
and journal titles. The publications identified were primarily from the United States
(77), with 10 from British publications, five from Canada and one each from Australia,
New Zealand and Nigeria. A high proportion of the publications (59%) were from
specialist publications; that is, occupation-specific or industry-specific magazines.
Of these 30% were aimed particularly at accountants.
No publication seems to refer to accountants routinely as beancounters. Most
publications (75%) only referred to beancounters once in the period covered by
435
The beancounter stereotype
Table 1 Incidence of beancounter label by year and type of publication
Accountants
%
Publications aimed at:
Other
occupations
%
General business
& general public
%
pre 1980
1980–84
1985–89
1990–94
0
0
12
88
2
9
20
69
0
0
26
74
N∗
26
46
57
∗ N = 131; 138 references to accountants as beancounters excluding nine cases in 1995 which was not
a complete year.
these databases. Only seven referred to beancounters more than twice and only
three publications published the label more than four times, (Business Week : seven
times, The Economist: six times, CA Magazine: five times). In some publications this
may reasonably reflect few references to accountants (such as in Sporting News or
Variety ), but most of the publications are aimed at a business, financial or accounting
readership, or they regularly carry items meant to appeal to this readership (such as
large city newspapers). We conclude that the beancounter label is known in many
diverse fields, but that it is not (yet) a standard way of referring to accountants. Table 1
shows the incidence of the beancounter label by year. Incidence is clearly growing;
the beancounter label is not disappearing.
Positive, Negative and Neutral Nuances of the Beancounter Label
Of the 138 references to accountants as beancounters, two cases could not be
classified4 . The remaining 136 citations were categorized according to the nuance
of the image implied by the term beancounter and its association with accountants.
In eight cases two nuances could be found in the reference (see the appendix). It
was decided to include these cases under both interpretations, giving a sample size
of 144. The full database is available from the authors. Table 2 presents this analysis.
Beancounters as positive image of accountants
Two clear positive reasons for accountants being beancounters were found among
the references. The first interpretation was that beancounters are needed in hard
times. Automotive News, (June, 1990) led with the title, “The ‘B’ word: the tag
of ‘beancounter’ may not be so awfully bad when the handwriting on the wall is
scribbled in red ink”. McLeans (December, 1993), a general public interest magazine
published in Canada, described the Canadian Finance Minister as the “bean counter
. . . tough but tries to be fair . . . ” who has done a “good job in a bad situation”.
The second positive interpretation referred to accountancy regulators. Interestingly
these references were from the British publication, the Economist, (October, 1990;
436
A. L. Friedman and S. R. Lyne
Table 2 Nuances of the beancounter stereotype
Numbers
1
2
3
Positive for beancounters
Neutral (synonym for accountant)
Narrow (negative for beancounters)
a Positively shedding beancounter image
(now or soon)
b Negative—should shed the image
c Negative and narrow
13
47
18
9
14
Total
4
Negative (negative for beancounters and others)
a Lack understanding of business
b Stifle initiatives of others
c Inappropriately short-term
d Misunderstanding causes business disaster
e Corrupt
Total
9%
33%
12%
6%
10%
41
17
9
6
10
1
28%
12%
6%
4%
7%
1%
43
144
30%
100%
December, 1991; October, 1992), two of which Bougen cites extensively for evidence
of the positive interpretation of beancounters. Accountants in practice have lost their
way and the guardians of beancounter values, the accounting standards regulators,
are trying to reimpose the honest but dull approach to accounting. “Bite of the
beancounter. Britain at last has accounting regulators with teeth” (October, 1992)
and “Bean-counters fight back. . . the bean-counters (British accounting standards
regulators) may soon be forcing accountancy’s more imaginative minds to calm
down” (December, 1991). Thus in the early 1990s The Economist consistently
argued that accountancy needs regulation and that America’s Financial Accounting
Standards Board (FASB) and Britain’s Accounting Standards Board (ASB) represent
the fundamental virtues of beancounting: precision, impartiality and the perfect
children image of accountants. The last unambiguously positive reference to the
beancounter refers more to a positive view of accountants in spite of the beancounter
image. According to the Canadian CA Magazine (May, 1994) “Even those who
sometimes refer to us tongue-in-cheek as bean counters have, in my experience, the
greatest respect for the job we’ve done”. It was not clear from the article whether the
tongue-in-cheek label was for being dull or narrow. The seven other positive uses
of the term beancounter were tinged, not with the proviso of boring accountants,
but rather the more clearly negative connotations of either people who do not
understand the business, or people who only think short-term. “Beancounter with
a score of pluses and minuses. He is seen as single-minded, frank and hardworking,
though critics argue that he has insufficient understanding of the advertising industry”
reported the British Financial Times (January, 1995). Finally, a headline in the
Atlanta Business Chronicle of March, 1991 read “Invasion of the beancounters”.
It reported that agencies were being squeezed by the recession as clients were only
interested in “short term” results. “I think clients are going to be irretrievably bean
The beancounter stereotype
437
counters as well they should be, just as we [accountants?] are.” (See the appendix
for a discussion of these ambiguous cases.) An interesting feature of these positive
references to beancounters is that the majority of them were either British (four of
13) or Canadian (three of 13).
Neutral interpretation: beancounter as synonym for accountant
A third of the references used beancounter as a synonym for accountant without any
implications (that we could find) for the term signifying any particular characteristics.
American Banker (December, 1982) referred to “Bean counter bingo. . . here’s a
riddle for accounting buffs”. In Accounting Today (March, 1992) an article about a
family of accountants was titled “Jack and the beancounters. . . all three (children)
show a talent for numbers”. An article in Ward’s Auto World (January, 1990)
referred to “Mr Arle, a Harvard MBA and a ‘bean counter’ by training”. Chiltern’s
Distribution (December, 1988) stated “. . . usually a middle management beancounter
was assigned to monitor physical distribution costs to ensure that expenses weren’t
eroding profit margins”. Folio (October, 1993) reported “. . . you don’t have to be a
great beancounter to figure out that less revenue per page means less profit”.
Beancounters as narrow accountants (negative for beancounters)
In this category we distinguished references to beancounters as being simply narrow
without clear negative connotations for others. These were close to the nuance of the
stereotype Beard found of the narrow accountant who inflicts self damage. Many (17)
came from specialist accounting magazines representing the majority of references
from this source.
The category had to be subdivided because of three different attitudes expressed.
The largest category suggested that accountants were more than beancounters
(16) or that they would soon be more than beancounters (2). The image was
recognized as applicable in the past, but it was no longer appropriate. “Not just
bean counters anymore, accountants have shed their background scorekeeper
image forever” declared an article in Management Accounting (USA) (March, 1993).
The title “Not just beancounters anymore” also appeared in the February 1990
issue of Management Accounting (USA). Other examples included: “Death of the
beancounter” (Business Credit, May, 1995), “Shedding the bean counter image”
(Management Accounting, October, 1994), “. . . gone are the days when accountants
were seen as beancounters” (CA Magazine, December, 1993), “Beancounter No
More!” (Charters (Australia), April, 1994) and “Good-bye to the bean counter”
(Nigerian Accountant, April, 1991). One of the two which predicted that beancounters
would soon disappear reasoned that centralization of finance functions and
rationalizing data systems would also lead to getting “finance people integrally
involved in overall business strategy” and this justified the headline: “A day of
reckoning for bean counters” (Business Week, March, 1994). The other reported “that
the public sector financial manager of the future will not be the beancounter of popular
myth, but a key part of the corporate team, significantly involved in strategic decision
making.” (Certified Accountant, December, 1993). This accords with the change in
438
A. L. Friedman and S. R. Lyne
the traditional stereotype of the accountant identified by all the recent writers on the
public image of accountants: beancounters are too narrow, but accountants are no
longer beancounters.
Related to this category were articles which preached or encouraged accountants
to become more than beancounters. Accounting journals accounted for eight of
the nine references in this category. “Too many of us are stuck with the image of
‘scorekeeper’ called a ‘beancounter’. . . . To escape from this dead-end road, we
must participate in management issues. . . thinking like a business person, not an
accountant” (Management Accounting (USA), October, 1994). “You can’t just be
beancounters. You’ve got to go in, change people, change the systems, change the
attitudes and then move on!” (Accountancy, August, 1994). The November 1993
issue of Accountants’ Journal (New Zealand) led with the headline, “Bean-counters
or business advisers?” The article then reported that a “growing expectation exists
that public accountants should advise on a wider range of business matters”. “Let’s
Bury the ‘Bean Counter’ Image” Public Utility Fortnightly (January, 1987). Two
references in this sub-category referred to auditors. “Auditors: be watchdogs, not
just bean counters” was a headline in Accounting Today (November, 1993).
The third sub-category of references to narrow beancounters were those which
implied that this was a current accurate description of accountants and that it was
a failing. In Computergram International (April, 1990), doubts about beancounters
were expressed as “does a bean-counter have the vision to pilot a $1,500m-a-year
computer company that has got left behind”. In the Production and Inventory Control
Journal (November, 1993) there was a parable featuring three accountants, Mr
Beancounter, Mr Greenshade and Ms Hope. The two gentlemen were the butt of
humour for their lack of knowledge of what was going on within the factory. Ms Hope
was not much more knowledgeable, but at least she (who was clearly much younger
than the other two) was willing to find out. The limitations of beancounters was
expressed in Regulation (November, 1994) as follows, “we have little tolerance for the
bean counters, who seem indifferent to environmental values because they are more
difficult to measure”. In Marketing News (August, 1992) marketing managers were
exhorted to start “Busting Budget Beancounters”. The article continued, “The bottom
line for marketing is not to let the accountants take over control of the marketing plan”
because they are narrow. “Beancounters fall mute when attention turns to uncharted
territory.”
Foreign Affairs (July, 1993) criticized Robert McNamara as just a beancounter
accountant.
What the nation wanted during the Vietnam War era was not a whiz kid, not a supreme
beancounter, but a leader of vision, moral courage and scrupulous honesty. . . . Yet, as
Vietnam would demonstrate, McNamara was more of an accountant than a global strategist,
more of a technical manager than a man of vision. . . McNamara, it turned out, was penny
wise and pound foolish.
This borders on the more negative category of the beancounter as actually harmful.
It also has in it the somewhat humorous image of the accountant as one who
cannot see the wood for all those trees he/she has to count. The articles in this
sub-category indicate that a beancounter lacks vision. How far this image of the
beancounters is from the one Bougen identifies is clear from the association of
The beancounter stereotype
439
moral courage and scrupulous honesty along with vision. It seems there is honesty,
meaning accuracy, and there is another sort of honesty associated more with moral
courage. The single reference in an accounting publication in this sub-category
implied that there was a minority of accountants who were beancounters, lacking in
vision and much else. The article in Today’s CPA of September 1994 was headlined
“Beancounters Need Not Apply”.
Beancounters as negative image of accountants (negative for others)
Almost a third of the references considered beancounters in clearly negative terms in
that they harmed others. This category was divided into five sub-categories of roughly
ascending negativity. First were those that were negative but not clearly connected
to specific harmful consequences, rather they were negative because beancounters
lacked an understanding of the business. Next were those where the criticism was
of accountants for stifling initiatives, for stopping others within companies from doing
useful things. Then there were references to criticisms of accountants for short-term
perspectives with an implication that they were detrimental to companies. Next were
references to accountants as misunderstanding business issues and thereby leading
companies to disaster. Finally there was the case Bougen refers to of beancounters
now being bad because they were considered corrupt or dishonest.
An example of the first of these sub-categories was the case cited in the Financial
Times above with the score of pluses and minuses, insufficient understanding of
the advertising industry was definitely considered a minus. An article in World Oil
(September, 1993) referred to “a beancounter consultant from Harvard who didn’t
know the difference between a sucker rod and a pipe jack”. In Accountants’ Magazine
(UK) in May 1985 an article was titled “Accountant bean-counter or business expert”
implying the accountant knew nothing of business. Examples of the sub-category,
beancounters harmful because they stop useful initiatives were: “Borrowers, bean
counters, and other impediments to effective ideas” (Administration Management,
February, 1983) and an article in Computergram International (October, 1994) which
referred to “political issues raised by beancounters and lawyers” slowing down the
development of computer interfaces.
Next beancounters were associated with a short term perspective (when this
perspective was assumed to be inappropriate). In National Underwriter Property
and Casualty (December, 1992) an article was titled “Beware the bean counters”.
This referred to:
companies that forget that while they can improve short term, bottom line performance
through cost cutting, their long term growth and financial health can only be achieved by
keeping existing customers satisfied and by attracting new customers.
An article in the Los Angeles Times (February, 1988) reported “Critics should stop
bashing the bean counters, firms may put too much stress on the short-term, but
that is not the fault of the accounting division”. The connection between short term
perspectives and the narrowness of accountants, with the label beancounters, was
well put in an article in Ward’s Auto World (September, 1988). The title was “Bean
counter and engineer. It’s one against the other”. It is clear on whose side this writer
was, he went on to write.
440
A. L. Friedman and S. R. Lyne
To their critics, corporate ‘bean counters’ . . . the sobriquet widely applied to finance people
. . . are by background, training and persuasion, a conservative lot who narrowly judge
performance by short term bottom line results. They know and care little about cars.
Publications for the automotive industry are frequent users of the beancounter label.
Ward’s Auto World and Automotive News each had four references. Three of the
four references in Ward’s Auto World were negative and one was neutral. Shortterm was clearly associated with down-sizing which helps to explain the frequency
of the beancounter label in the early 1990s. Marketing News (August, 1992) referred
to “downsizing-minded bean counters” who “demanded more work on a smaller
budget. . . . Those financial flunkies sniff the air for cash to pay off debt, because
management runs unidimensionally and short term”.
Finally, and perhaps most serious for accountants, were references to beancounters as harmful because they lead companies to disaster due to their single-minded
concentration on costs. An article in Ward’s Auto World (March, 1993) referred to “the
widespread, ever present feeling that financial staff, ‘beancounters’ are subverting
product quality and integrity goals as they drive to cut costs”. Or in National Underwriter under the title “Beware the bean counters!” it was warned that “a relentless
bottom line mentality can also undermine the viability of a company”. PR Newswire,
(September, 1990) reported “unnecessary profit plunges caused by cautious corporate beancounters” and warned “You can’t save your way to prosperity as beancounters contend”. CA Magazine of Canada (November, 1993) stated “Here comes this
beancounter to take over, and he doesn’t know a thing about the TV business”. The
Boston Globe (November, 1991) reported that doctors believed “beancounters have
taken over America’s medicine, to the detriment of both doctors and patients”.
Balance of positive and negative nuances
The view of the traditional stereotype being of benefit to accountants, the boring
but honest nuance, occurred in only 13 cases and of these seven were mixed, as
noted above. Instead the majority attitude towards the beancounter stereotype of the
accountant was negative; either negative because the beancounter is too narrow, or
worse. Negative nuances to the beancounter stereotype outnumbered positive ones
by more than 6 to 1.
We believe the more extreme negative views of the beancounter as bad for others
derive from the basic notion of one who is narrow. Being narrow can lead accountants
to ignore specific important issues and it can prevent them from seeing the “big
picture”; that is, they do not see how their narrow concerns fit into a wider purpose,
they concentrate on a limited set of means to achieve a general end, and in so doing
they do not achieve their ends. The narrow concerns which lead to these two negative
consequences are either expressed as a concern with costs alone, which leads to
the stifling of ideas and ignoring revenue-side issues, or an excessive concern with
the short-run.
Table 3 presents the data in terms of the nuances of the stereotype discussed in
previous work. The corresponding categories from Table 2 appear in square brackets.
Taking out cases where beancounter is simply used synonymously with accountant
leaves 97 references.
441
The beancounter stereotype
Table 3 References relating to nuances of the accountant image in the literature
Number
Positive traditional image: Bougen [1]
Positive emerging image: Beard, Bougen, Hopwood, Friedman and Lyne [3a]
Self-harming narrow traditional image: Beard, Friedman and Lyne [3b + 3c]
Negative image: Friedman and Lyne [4a + 4b]
Negative emerging image as corrupt: Bougen [4e]
Drastic negative image [4c + 4d]
13
18
23
26
1
16
97
[ ] refer to categories in Table 2.
Table 4 Nuances of the beancounter stereotype in different types of publication
Accountants
%
Publications aimed at:
Other
General business
occupations
& general public
%
%
Positive for accountants
As beancounters [1]
No longer beancounters [3a]
Total Positive
Neutral: synonym [2]
Negative
Ought to be more [3b]
Narrow [3c]
Not understand business [4a]
Harm others [4b]
Harm whole business [4c + 4d + 4e]
Total Negative
N (= 144)
4
28
6
2
32
18
28
4
14
0
4
14
14
8
30
2
14
20
12
14
28
40
0
9
5
4
14
50
100
62
100
32
100
28
50
66
Nuances of the Beancounter Label by Types of Publications
Interestingly the publications aimed specifically at accountants were not clearly
distinguishable by portraying a positive image of the accountant (see Table 4).
However, there was a striking difference between accounting publications and the
rest for those nuances of the beancounter stereotype which expressed the view
that accountants were no longer beancounters or that they ought to be more than
beancounters (categories 3a and 3b). These accounted for 56% of accounting
publications, compared with only 4% of those aimed at other occupational groups
and 14% of general business publications and newspapers. These articles were, by
and large, written by accountants. It would seem that accountants themselves are
not anxious to embrace the image of the traditional beancounter, nor do they see
the dangers associated with the loss of the beancounter image.
Table 5 shows that the negative image of accountants harming other occupational
groups and subverting business applies primarily to accountants in business rather
442
A. L. Friedman and S. R. Lyne
Table 5 Nuances of the beancounter stereotype in practice and in business
Practice
%
Business
%
Positive for accountants
As beancounters [1]
No longer beancounters [3a]
11
17
Total positive
Neutral: synonym [2]
Negative
Ought to be more [3b]
Narrow [3c]
Not understand business [4a]
Harm others [4b]
Harm whole business [4c + 4d + 4e]
8
14
28
42
14
8
5
3
0
Total negative
N (= 113)
22
26
4
10
10
8
20
30
100
52
100
36
77
[ ] refer to categories in Table 2.
than accountants in practice. References could be distinguished according to this
feature in 113 cases. References to accountants in business as beancounters
outnumbered references to accountants in practice by more than 2 to 1 (77 to 36).
Also references to accountants in business were more negative. This especially
applied to the severe negative nuance of beancounters being harmful to others and
helps to explain why Friedman and Lyne’s findings concerning the traditional image
of accountants were much more negative than Bougen’s. Bougen concentrated on
the value of the boring bookkeeper image for accountants in practice, Friedman and
Lyne interviewed accountants in business.
Conclusions
1.
The beancounter is not dead
A large number of references to beancounters across a wide range of non-fiction
publications were found. Beard contends that the traditional stereotype ceased to
define or limit the portrayal of accountants in the movies by the late 1980s. Our
results do not accord with this conclusion. At least in the printed media this sort of
negative image of accountants was common after 1989, the date of the last movie in
Beard’s sample. Only 32 of the 138 references in our dataset appeared before 1990.
Interestingly a widely broadcast clip used to “sell” the blockbuster James Bond film,
Goldeneye (1995) had M (Bond’s controller) complaining to him saying, “You don’t like
me Bond. You think I’m an accountant. You think I’m a beancounter. You think I don’t
appreciate your talents”. This was reported in Accountancy Age under the by-line,
“James Bond in Goldeneye: giving the accountancy profession a bit of a bashing”
The beancounter stereotype
443
(1996). (This would have been classified as a 4b.) We found some evidence for a
diminishing of the beancounter image, but interestingly this evidence came largely
from specialist accounting publications. There seem to be two opposing factors at
work here. Many accountants are actively trying to shake off the beancounter image.
They are exhorting their profession to shed the image, or they are celebrating the
death of that image. At the same time, the traditional beancounter image appears to
be growing among the general public. Overall, as shown in Table 1, incidence of the
label is growing.
2.
Beancounter refers to a stereotype with many quite different nuances
Recently Dimnik and Felton (2000) have carried out research on a much larger
set of movies than Beard or Smith and Briggs. They found that “the portrayal of
accountants in the movies is much richer and more complex than that described by
these previous studies” (Dimnik & Felton, 2000, p. 18)5 . We too have found a richer
and more complex constellation of images connected to the beancounter stereotype.
Six discernible nuances to the basic beancounter image of accountants were found
(Figure 2). These included the four nuances identified in the previous literature:
• boring, but honest, precise and therefore trustworthy (Bougen);
• boring, rigid and therefore either comically or tragically self-defeating (Beard);
• boring and irrelevant, they do not understand the business (Friedman & Lyne,
1997); and
• boring and harmful to others, stifling initiatives of other groups (Friedman & Lyne,
1997).
In addition two further negative nuances were found, beancounters being harmful to
the interests of organizations as a whole either because of:
• short-termism or
• a single-minded concentration on costs.
These are not unconnected images. They are nuances of the stereotype of a boring
and precise individual, or they are interpretations of consequences of someone with
these characteristics.
3.
Different nuances may be associated with different aspects of how accountants
appear to others and different media
In dealing with a client, characteristics of methodical precision can be viewed
positively and may encourage a view of accountants in practice as trustworthy. As
competitors for position within organizations, being methodical and precise may
encourage a negative view of accountants in business as rigid, thereby stifling
initiatives of others and harming the overall business by short-termism or a narrow
fixation with costs. Evidence for this distinction is provided in Table 5. The strong
444
A. L. Friedman and S. R. Lyne
Public Image of Accountants
Figure 2. Beancounter stereotype nuances.
negative nuances of the beancounter label, refer almost exclusively to accountants
in business, rather than accountants in practice6 . Furthermore, there was a strong
difference in profile by type of publication. The strongly negative nuances were
concentrated in publications which were aimed at other (competing) occupations.
In Table 4, categories 4a to 4e represented 46% of beancounter references in
these publications, compared with 18% in accounting journals and 23% in general
publications. Beancounters were more often regarded negatively, but as narrow and
self-harming in accounting publications (categories 3a to 3c representing 60% in
accounting publications compared with 18% in other occupation publications and
23% in general publications). General business and publications aimed at the general
public stood out for their use of the term beancounter as a simple synonym for
accountants.
4.
The beancounter stereotype is mostly associated with negative nuances
Accountants as beancounters were thought of positively only in 13 cases, while
beancounters were considered bad for themselves in 41 cases, and bad for other
groups and for business as a whole in 43 cases. Interestingly these cases occurred
in a slightly lower proportion in accounting publications. Contrary to Bougen’s
hypothesis, accountants do not appear to value the traditional beancounter image,
even accountants in public practice. The extreme negative nuances of the image
of accountants found in our data may be more of a danger to accountants’
“social mobility project” (Armstrong, 1985, 1987) than the image of incompetence
and corruption concerning Bougen. One can imagine the problem of incompetent
and corrupt accountants being “solved” by better training and stricter professional
governance. Such measures have been attempted through recent changes in
professional training. However, these measures cannot guarantee that these
The beancounter stereotype
445
overwhelming negative nuances, which imply beancounters have a narrow view
with little understanding of business, will be overcome. The solution seems to be to
make accountants more aware of business issues, to make them more like business
specialists. This view has been expressed by accountancy firms and accountancy
institutions for many years (see also Brock et al., 1999). However, there is a clear
danger this strategy could make their positions at the apex of the global function of
capital vulnerable to competitors with general business backgrounds or with other
techniques (Friedman & Lyne, 1997).
5.
The most negative nuances have been developed in relation to accountants in
business
Table 5 demonstrates that there is a higher percentage of negative nuances in relation to accountants in business, in contrast to accountants in practice (52% to 30%)
and that all the references to the most negative nuance refer to accountants in
business. This may be partially explained by the time period of the study which
included the early 1990s. In a period of recession accountants, particularly those
in business, may be blamed for the cost-cutting that frequently leads to job losses.
The nuances of the beancounter that indicate “harm to the business” and “failure
to understand the business” will have more currency at times of recession and
redundancy. Whatever the cause, this result has consequences for the generation
of the stereotype that is discussed in the following section. It may appear counterintuitive, but the general public has far more contact with accountants in business
than with accountants in public practice. Most people in employment have contact
with accountants at their work place; either directly or by reputation, and they in
turn influence others with their perception of a very negative beancounter. Whereas
accountants in practice deal with a much smaller group of clients. Thus it can be
argued that, purely on the basis of numbers of people involved, these negative
nuances of the beancounter stereotype in the business context are more influential
in the development of the overall beancounter stereotype.
A Speculation on the Rise of the Beancounter Stereotype and its Future
Our evidence shows that widespread use of the beancounter label is a relatively
recent phenomenon. However, the stereotype itself, with its varied nuances, is
long-standing. Bougen cites examples of the methodical and painstaking nuance
of the stereotype in The Accountant of 1948. Argyris (1952) discussed the pressure
accountants put on operational managers through budgets. Hopwood (1974)
described accounting systems in terms almost identical to the beancounter definition
without using that label.
In the past other words were used for the stereotype. In Executive Suite an
academy award winning movie released in 1954, the villain, a financial controller,
is accused of “flyspecking”. The earliest reference to beancounters in our sample,
April 1979, referred to the beancounter “syndrome” as being closely related to
“nit-picking” and “flyspecking” (Journal of Applied Management). Simon (1955)
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notes controllers being accused of working with “wooden money”. If the activities
of accountants and their relations with other occupations have not changed
substantially, and if they have always had an image (at least among certain groups)
which matches facets of the complex stereotype which is now labelled beancounter,
why has the label grown in popularity in the past 20 years? Also in a third of the
sample, beancounter was used as a neutral synonym for accountant. How can this
be explained? To answer these questions we tentatively propose a general four-stage
logical time model of stereotypes and stereotype labels (See Figure 3).
1. Arguably the image of the accountant originally was of someone narrowly and
methodically concerned with producing numbers. Presumably this reflected
an easily discernible characteristic of the bookkeeping activity of accountants,
as well as their interaction with other groups and their personal manner, which
would have been observed and expressed initially by people with direct contact
with accountants.
2. The second stage is marked by two developments. First, characteristics of
accountants become focused on particular labels. These labels come to be
recognized by people without direct contact with accountants, through word
of mouth. At this stage the image and its labels are transmitted primarily
through local media such as trade journals or company journals. While it may
be possible to discern a public image, at this stage that image is confined to
groups with personal connections to accountants. Together these groups form
only a minor subset of the public (defined as the majority of people in a certain
area). Second, the labels acquire further nuances as they come to be used by
more and more diverse people who observe different aspects of the position
and tasks of accountants and who relate to them in different ways. New labels
may also arise at this stage.
3. At the third stage the term is taken up in less specialized media. The stereotype
becomes more tightly focused on fewer labels, possibly a single label, but at
the same time this label becomes laden with more diverse nuances.
4. Finally, after the term has penetrated the broadest forms of media it becomes
so diluted that, for those who have no strong feelings about the target group, it
simply becomes a synonym for the group7 .
For example, the term Tory for the Conservative Party in Britain, originally was
a specific pejorative, but has come to be a mere synonym. This helps to explain
the many cases in the sample where beancounter was merely a synonym for
accountant. It also helps to explain the much higher incidence of this use of the
label, in general publications compared with specialist publications for accountants
or other occupations.
Certain contingent factors must be added to this simple logical history model. The
logical history represents a complex set of emergent properties (Bhaskar, 1978)
associated with labels used for stereotypes and the processes of stereotyping.
These properties will not emerge automatically. Contingent factors may hasten
or delay the next stage and may also cut the pattern off. The model pattern is
The beancounter stereotype
447
Figure 3. A general four-stage logical time model of stereotypes.
a latent trajectory which becomes “real” (but not yet “actual”) once people are
labelled by others. One important contingent factor for this stereotype is the rise
in position and power of accountants in organizational hierarchies. Beancounting
may be viewed as an insignificant, even laughable, activity where accountants are
low in the hierarchy. Dullards may count beans, and low-level beancounters may not
be regarded as powerful or dangerous individuals, but the effects of this activity will
be viewed as anything but dull if an elite of accountants occupy a lofty position in the
corporate hierarchy.
A second set of contingent factors are those which affect the intensity of intergroup
conflict. The realistic conflict theory of stereotypes and its social identity theory
modification, lead us to expect negative nuances of stereotypes to dominate in
times of heightened intergroup competition for scarce physical and social resources.
The logical-time process for the accountant stereotype would be pushed along
from stage one to two when companies tighten budgets or lay off people. These
contingent factors would push the process further along, to stage three, if intergroup
448
A. L. Friedman and S. R. Lyne
conflict spreads beyond local groups. The early 1990s was a period of downsizing,
particularly among management layers of organizations. Accountants were often
seen as the bearers, if not the perpetrators, of these painful policies. In such times
publications aimed at occupations competing with accountants would emphasize
more negative nuances of the accountant stereotype, and also those negative
nuances would extend to the general media. This helps to explain the timing of
the rise of the beancounter stereotype (Table 1).
For the future, we may speculate that characteristics of this third stage will become
more intense as the widely nuanced beancounter label becomes more widespread
in general media such as popular films. This would last for a long time if we have
indeed seen a sea-change in the pattern of economic development from Fordism
to post-Fordism (Amin, 1994). The breaking up of large companies is part of
this sea-change and this may fuel intergroup competition and resentment towards
accountants in future. The backlash may even lead to a change in accountants’
positions in hierarchies.
On the other hand, our data provides evidence for a movement to stage four. A
higher proportion of American cases compared with the other countries cited used
beancounter as a simple synonym for accountants8 . Arguably Americans are more
“creative” (or more “blasphemous”) with the English language and are more open
to picking up jargon. Also the dominance of American-based media, which is likely
to intensify with globalization of communications, would lead us to believe that the
usage of the term which dominates there will become more widespread.
Are accountants concerned with the beancounter stereotype? Bougen suggested
that there may be benefits to this stereotype, but there is other evidence that suggests
accountants are not happy with the connotations of this stereotype. Friedman and
Lyne (1999) report various examples of accountants protesting they are not, or no
longer are, beancounters. The recent changes to the exam structures of the main UK
accounting bodies emphasize business and analytical approaches, and are clearly
attempting to distance modern accountants from beancounters. A similar picture
can be seen in the recruiting literature of large accounting firms and commercial
companies seeking management trainees in finance. Concern that the primary
stereotype can have a generally negative effect on recruitment into the profession
has recently been reiterated by Smith and Briggs (1999). The evidence of this study
supports this concern. We provide evidence that a strong negative beancounter
stereotype exists, and for a theory that predicts that once such a negative stereotype
is established, it will persist.
Appendix
Cases of two interpretations
Two interpretations were included in the classification because in these articles two
different interpretations were given of beancounters. For example an article in the
Financial Times (January, 1995) was titled “Bean-counter with a score of pluses
and minuses” and referred to the person reviewed as “single-minded, frank and
The beancounter stereotype
449
hard working, though critics argue that he has insufficient understanding of the
advertising industry”. This was classified as both a 1 and a 4a in Table 2. Four
further cases specifically referred to the opinions of critics and then went on to
give a different judgement of the accountants criticised. Another case referred to
mixed blessings (Forbes, September, 1989). In an article in the National Underwriter
(December, 1992) titled “Beware the bean counters!” the following was classified as
both a 1 and a 4d:
For the short-term these belt-tightening exercises are paying dividends. . . . But in the long
term, a relentless bottom-line mentality can also undermine the expense side of the balance
sheet and not enough on new product and market development, sales and customer
service, a number of industry leaders have warned.
The other example of two clear interpretations was a reference to beancounters
as normally bad, but in certain cases (i.e. the recession) they were good. “The ‘B’
word: the tag of ‘beancounter’ may not be so awfully bad when the handwriting on
the wall is scribbled in red ink.” (Automotive News, June, 1990). This was classed as
1 and 4c.
Notes
1. Beancounter was also used to describe the traditional stereotype in Bougen (1994, p. 14).
2. The same complication arises when we consider “publics” distinguished by area, nationality or
language groups. The traditional stereotype of the accountant as boring and precise seems to be
common throughout the English-speaking world, though data from all the studies cited above have
come only from the USA and the UK. Different nuances may be more widespread in different countries
or regions of the English-speaking world (see final section).
3. Other aspects might include; general appearance, dress, language, mannerisms or the tools they
use. One aspect of accountants’ dress associated with their traditional public image of being boring
and precise are green eyeshades.
4. The articles in which these references were found were read many times by both authors. Rather
than forcing them arbitrarily into a category, they were left out of the analysis of nuances.
5. One of the four stereotypes Dimnik and Felton (2000, p. 15) identify “The Subservient Accountant” is
very similar to the beancounter stereotype.
6. Negative views of accountants in business may derive from their perceived role as rule-enforcers or
police acting on behalf of top management or shareholders.
7. It may acquire an affectionate connotation like the common diminutives or elaborations of names
acquired (or assumed to have been acquired) in childhood (“Dickie” Attenborough). Repeated in
adult life, they indicate closeness and nostalgia towards the labelled individual.
8. The split between non-specialist and specialist publications among the American publications was
precisely the same as for non-American publications (46% to 54%). However, in the American
publications beancounters was a neutral synonym for accountants in 37% of cases compared with
only 16% in non-American publications.
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