Promoting Professionalism: Lessons from the Medical and Legal Professions

Recent research has observed that: “The accounting, medical and legal professions share characteristics common to peer-reviewed professions. These professions also share challenges to professionalism. All three have been criticized for declining professionalism and for choosing commercial success over serving the public interest. Although the medical and legal professions have taken steps to promote a higher level of professional conduct by their members, the accounting profession has not launched initiatives to promote professionalism.”

 

That research discusses the initiatives instigated by the legal and medical professions using the five elements of a professionalism framework. Specifically, the framework highlights the importance of growth in personal conscience, demands compliance with the ethics of duty, inspires realization of aspirational goals, requires accountability of peer professionals, and emphasizes devotion to serving the public good. It recommends that members of the accounting profession use the five elements of the professionalism framework to define, demonstrate and assess professionalism. In addition, it concludes that promoting professionalism is a means for restoring professional identity for individual accountants as well as a means for fulfilling the accounting profession's contract with society.

 

For more information, refer to Promoting Professionalism: Lessons from the Medical and Legal Professions by Laurie Swinney and Bruce Elder in Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Volume 16, 2012, pp. 93-128. Also, see previous postings on the accounting profession and professionalism.