Young Professionals and the Institute: Giving a Voice to the Next Generation of Accountants?

ABSTRACT

This paper offers insights into the accounting profession’s recent trend of establishing young-professionals boards. Our study uses rich fieldwork data to provide an in-depth analysis of how a committee of young accountants (the Young Profs), embedded in the Dutch professional institute, attempts to achieve relevance in professional debates. Taking two distinct perspectives, we first study how the committee’s position in the professional institute affects the development of agency, following which we assay the committee’s complex deliberation processes. We illustrate how the relationship between the professional institute and our focal committee is lopsided, in that, despite the Young Profs’ formal embeddedness and eagerness to partake in professional debates, the group is unable to use its social position as a platform for agency. We further show how the committee struggles to create shared intentionality among its diverse set of members, which likewise limits the group’s effectiveness. The study extends our understanding of the relations between early-career accountants and professional institutes; it also sheds light on the complex deliberations a committee undertakes when aspiring to attain significance in professional debates.

Keywords:

• Young professionals
• Professional institute
• Institutional embeddedness
• Board process

Introduction

In late 2018, Accountancy Europe declared that young professionals ‘are key for the future of the accountancy profession,’ stressing widespread ‘concerns on attracting and retaining talent’ (Accountancy Europe, 2018). As part of its initiative targeted at early-career professionals, the network has facilitated interaction with diverse young-professionals boards that have emerged, across Europe, both in national professional institutes (Accountancy Europe, 2018) and at the large audit firms (e.g. Deloitte, 2018). These boards are mainly intended to give a voice to the next generation of accountants, thereby creating a more open and attractive work environment. Given this growing trend for young-professionals boards across European audit practice, it is important to study how such initiatives provide early-career professionals with a platform to make their views known, and how participating individuals experience their board activities.

The present paper focuses on the Dutch accounting sector, where the Dutch professional institute (Koninklijke Nederlandse Beroepsorganisatie van Accountants, [NBA]) established the NBA Young Profs¹ in 2006 as a special interest group to allay a perceived disconnect between young accountants and the profession (internal memo, September 12, 2005). The target group of young professionals includes any accountant currently in the training process, qualified as chartered accountant for less than five years, or younger than 35 years in age. The Young Profs consists of seven early-career professionals with various backgrounds, who are supported by the NBA both administratively and in terms of their participation in professional discussions. Our setting is of particular interest because it relates to an institutional context that is characterized by extensive professional debate (Humphrey et al., 2018). Specifically, the Dutch profession has found itself in significant turmoil after the financial crisis exposed several accounting and audit scandals. On September 25, 2014, which became known as ‘Freaky Thursday’ (Piersma, 2014), the Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), being the national audit oversight body, reinforced its heavy criticism of the Dutch branches of the Big Four by releasing a report claiming that nearly half of the inspected audits were inadequate (AFM, 2014). On the same day, the profession issued a reform plan to address prevalent deficiencies in auditing (NBA, 2014). This document was to fend off regulatory intervention, foremost by introducing a range of 53 measures meant to improve audit quality by addressing the audit firms’ prevailing governance, work culture, and incentive structures. In this atmosphere of intense scrutiny and negative media attention, the audit profession has been branded with an exceedingly negative image. By clinging to their 53 measures, auditors and the professional institute have tried hard to regain control of the narrative. Fearing that people who are much needed in the profession might choose other career options, the institute became aware that it is important that the accounting profession remains attractive for young accountants (NBA, 2014, p. 36). This led the profession to become more responsive to the next generation of accountants, and to encourage their participation in debates. We argue that this research context holds considerable potential to study to what extent our focal committee of young professionals is enabled to make the views of the next generation known in professional debates.

To conceptualize our empirical material, we employ two theoretical perspectives. First, we draw on institutional theory, specifically the concepts of social position and institutional embeddedness (Battilana, 2006; Löhlein & Müßig, 2020; Seo & Creed, 2002). This literature allows us to analyze how the positioning of our focal committee in the NBA’s institutional infrastructure affects the group’s development of agency. Second, this paper is further informed by the management literature on board processes (e.g. Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005). This research stream focuses on the dynamics of board decision-making processes and draws attention to a board’s characteristics, its deliberation processes, and its effectiveness. These features affect the ways in which a group engages in reflective decision-making, and thus whether the Young Profs can work effectively to make the voices of its members heard in professional debates.

Our findings show, first, that the Young Profs has little impact on professional debates. Although its formal embedding in the NBA implies a social position that provides the group with access to important resources and support (Battilana, 2006), the Young Profs’ role seems limited to creating awareness for its concerns, rather than achieving that its members’ views are followed in concurrent debates. Second, we find that the group is composed of a diverse set of actors unable to subscribe to ‘shared mental models’ (Bailey & Peck, 2013). This reduces members’ identification with, and commitment to, the group and their tasks. These issues are aggravated by the board’s deliberations, which often feature drawn-out debates rather than coherent discussions on how to communicate its views effectively. We argue that the board’s lack of shared intentionality compromises its effectiveness. Hence, while the Young Profs may recognize opportunities for agency, it struggles to have its voice heard in professional debates.

Our study seeks to make three contributions. First, prior work on institutional change has focused on whether the actors occupy central (e.g. Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006) or peripheral field positions (e.g. Leblebici et al., 1991). Our case is an attempt to sidestep this dichotomy by involving a dyad of actors: The Young Profs’ organizational affiliation with the NBA implies an intricate tie-up that complicates actors’ efforts to engage in institutional work. On the one hand, the Young Profs comprises a group of actors whose exposure to institutional contradictions (Seo & Creed, 2002) has led them to engage in professional affairs. On the other hand, they struggle to undertake decisive action, because they crucially rely on the NBA for resources and support. Given its umbrella function, the institute imposes role expectations that the Young Profs must fulfill (Lawrence et al., 2011), namely to quietly feed the perspectives of early-career accountants to the debates. This limits the group’s ‘agency-ing’ (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020), that is, the development of the intuition and reflexivity required to craft effective strategies in the institutional arena. Our study thus shows the lopsided nature of the dyadic relationship between a dominant (NBA) and a dependent actor (Young Profs), the latter of which, despite having access to resources, struggles to achieve relevance, because this would require formulating and invoking a change strategy that would be palatable to the former.

Second, our research follows in the footsteps of recent studies examining how individual actors engage in institutional work with the objective of changing institutions (Canning & O’Dwyer, 2016; Löhlein & Müßig, 2020; Suddaby et al., 2016). Specifically, our focal actor is a group of individuals that, despite the collective interest of its members, struggles to establish shared intentionality. The drawn-out debates and complex decision-making processes involved in attempts to collaborate effectively demonstrate that the development of agency is no mean feat. It rather involves the establishment of ‘shared mental models’ (Bailey & Peck, 2013) among a diverse set of group members, which is needed to create shared intentionality and to develop and deploy change strategies (Battilana et al., 2009). Our study thus sheds further light on the challenging nature of developing agency as a precursor to actors’ institutional work (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020). Showing that exposure to institutional ambiguities is not enough to effect institutional change, this study deepens our understanding of the difficult negotiations between actors who aspire to engage in institutional actions.

Third, we connect to emerging research on young accountants’ influence on the profession (Durocher et al., 2016), where prior work has described the relationship between young accountants and the profession mostly as precarious (e.g. Anderson-Gough et al., 2000, 2001; Hamilton, 2013). In light of the audit profession’s growing need to address pervasive ‘concerns on attracting and retaining talent’ (Accountancy Europe, 2018), this study reveals how a young-professionals committee engages in professional debates; it also explores the experiences and challenges that the participating individuals face throughout the process. We argue that providing them with a platform to act is not sufficient to enable new ideas or accommodate their views. Our focal committee did not receive any training for their tasks, and hence struggled to employ effectively, as an NBA representative put it, the ‘political craft.’ As a consequence, these boards risk taking purely ceremonial roles, because they compete against other institute committees that are guided by vested interests to have their views considered in institutes’ internal contests for attention. As the Young Profs become aware of their limited influence on professional debates, they criticize the institute for its sluggish attitude and preference for the status quo. Their feelings of frustration imply a distancing process that is fueled by their board experience, suggesting that the young-professionals boards, which are intended to engage with early-career accountants, may even turn out to be counterproductive.

Theoretical Background

To conceptualize our empirical material, we analyze from two perspectives the Young Profs’ ‘willingness and ability’ (Battilana, 2006, p. 659) to influence professional discourse. First, we draw on institutional theory to assess the group’s embeddedness and its attempts to develop agency (Battilana, 2006; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Löhlein & Müßig, 2020). Second, we employ literature on board decision-making processes (e.g. Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005). This research focuses on corporate governance mechanisms in public company settings, such as boards of directors or audit committees. These boards’ tasks are markedly different from those of our focal committee, as are the quests for ‘power and influence’ that are common in these boards (Pettigrew & McNulty, 1995). Although the Young Profs is not a corporate board, this literature offers a conceptual lens that guides our attention to essential characteristics of a board, such as its composition and members’ commitment (Forbes & Milliken, 1999), its decision-making processes (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999), and its effectiveness (Gendron & Bédard, 2006; Suddaby et al., 2016). The following sections outline the two theoretical vantage points pertinent to our paper.

Institutional Theory: Social Position and Institutional Embeddedness

Institutional theory has traditionally been concerned with how organizations and individuals are influenced by the environment in which they are embedded (Scott, 2013). As actors encounter a range of institutional pressures, they are said to align with surrounding structures. This has given rise to the paradox of embedded agency (e.g. Seo & Creed, 2002), which questions how actors that are highly conditioned by their environment can rise above these constraints to pursue institutional change. Research remains largely indeterminate about what makes actors become ‘institutional entrepreneurs’ (Battilana et al., 2009). Most recently, studies have investigated the ‘myriad, day-to-day equivocal instances of agency’ (Lawrence et al., 2011, p. 52), which is summarized in different forms of institutional work as being ‘the purposive action of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions’ (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006, p. 215).

Rather than trying to resolve the paradox of embedded agency, research has turned to analyzing the processes of developing agency (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020). The focus has thus been on actors’ willingness to act and their ability to do so as determined by their social position (Battilana, 2006), which affects their perceptions of the field and their access to resources. This position is relational, such as to an organizational hierarchy or to an informal network, where low-status actors can establish ties with dominant actors to weaken any potential resistance or gain access to resources necessary to implement divergent change (Battilana, 2006; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006). This embeddedness of actors in institutional arrangements recognizes the ‘potentially powerful constraining forces of existing social structures’ that influence actors’ thoughts and behaviors (Seo & Creed, 2002, p. 233). Yet it may also ‘provide a platform for the unfolding of entrepreneurial activities [… by] knowledgeable agents with the capacity to reflect’ (Garud et al., 2007, p. 961). This is particularly the case when actors go beyond their assigned roles to ‘engage in the institutional work necessary to transform the conditions under which they live and work’ (Lawrence et al., 2011, p. 56).

Embeddedness may therefore be an enabling factor for institutional change, as it helps individuals to become aware of ‘inconsistencies and tensions within and between social systems,’ that is, institutional contradictions (Seo & Creed, 2002, p. 223). Encountering contradictions, or perceiving ruptures in social arrangements as ‘institutional ambiguities’ (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020, p. 1), may ‘shape consciousness and action to change the present order’ (Seo & Creed, 2002, p. 225). As institutional contradictions continue to ‘permeate the individual’s experiences,’ actors’ disposition to activism increases (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020, p. 15), and they become more likely to engage in attempts to change institutional arrangements.

Translated to our setting, the literature suggests that our focal committee, the Young Profs, is positioned in the NBA to feed the institute with the views of young accountants. On the one hand, this formal position might suggest that the Young Profs’ interests become aligned with dominant practices, such that they do not seek change. Under this reading, the NBA would inhibit the Young Profs’ ‘awareness of alternatives, openness to alternatives, and […] motivation to change’ (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006, p. 29). As the institute itself does not necessarily benefit from changes to institutional arrangements, it would exert a preference for the status quo and block any change initiatives, or it would at least want to carefully manage such initiatives, so that ‘new ideas’ would be aligned with current institutional thinking. On the other hand, the advantage of the embedded social position with the NBA means that the Young Profs can pursue its ideas (Battilana, 2006). This might especially be the case if the group’s continuous exposure to institutional contradictions (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020; Seo & Creed, 2002) yields high ‘interest dissatisfaction’ (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006, p. 29). In that case, their position could translate into a platform for agency, from which they launch alternatives to current institutional arrangements. Because these theoretical conjectures suggest different outcomes, it remains an empirical question how the dyadic relation between the Young Profs and the NBA unfolds, which leads to our first research question:

RQ1: How does the Young Profs’ position in the NBA’s institutional structure affect the group’s endeavor to achieve relevance in professional debates?

Board Decision-making: Characteristics, Process, and Outcome

Our second conceptual grid examines the dynamic processes of boardroom behavior as ‘action in context’ (Maitlis, 2004, p. 1279; similarly, Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005). Focusing on aspects that affect boards’ decision-making processes, it makes a conceptual distinction between board characteristics, processes, and outcome (Forbes & Milliken, 1999). We turn to each of these aspects in the following subsections.

Board characteristics: composition and conflicts of commitment

Boards’ decision-making processes are strongly affected by the individual board members. The composition of a board encompasses the demography of members as well as the presence of knowledge and skills (Forbes & Milliken, 1999). This can be summarized under the aspect of diversity, which refers to differences in gender, age, and ethnicity, but also in terms of functional, educational, and business-sector backgrounds. On the one hand, diverse groups benefit from having access to a wider range of knowledge, skills, and resources, and have a greater array of perspectives and opinions at their availability. The presence of will and skill thus helps a board to profit from the personal qualities of board members (Pettigrew & McNulty, 1995). Board members need to have ‘the time, skills and experience’ for their work, and there need to be ‘clear board roles and responsibilities’ as well as ‘a common vision of how to achieve their goals’ (Cornforth, 2001, p. 217). In turn, diversity may also prevent a board from engaging in uniform thinking, as the need to reconcile opinions may require more-thorough assessments (Forbes & Milliken, 1999). On the other hand, diversity may complicate interactions between board members and create conflicts, because it introduces different goals, values, and norms to a group (Milliken & Martins, 1996). This may cause a group to be unaware of its members’ expertise and hence unable to capitalize on it. In turn, it may also lead to shirking and free-riding behavior (Huse et al., 2011).

Likewise, individuals occupy different roles, and may therefore face different demands among which they need to prioritize. The resulting ‘conflicts of commitment’ (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997) are resolved based on the degree of identification that members experience with a specific role, such that the importance that they ascribe to a group membership affects their behavior (Huse et al., 2011). In that sense, it is not so much diversity per se that influences a board, but rather the question of having shared mental models between members (Bailey & Peck, 2013, p. 133). The extent that individuals share ‘beliefs about the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics’ of what they do, will affect interactions at the board (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997, p. 594). In addition, strong leadership skills and good relations between board members will affect board behavior (Bailey & Peck, 2013), which is even more important given that boards meet only periodically, such that members’ ability to overcome their differences is limited (Forbes & Milliken, 1999). The composition of a board, therefore, is an important precursor to members’ interactions on the board, to which we turn next.

Board processes: effort norms and conduct

In analyzing boards’ discussions, close attention is to be paid to the power and dynamics that play out both inside and outside the boardroom (Huse et al., 2011). That is, being an effective board entails the ability of the board to work as a team and ‘to tap the available knowledge and skills and apply them to its tasks’ (Forbes & Milliken, 1999, p. 495). A group establishes certain effort norms that determine its social standards regarding the amount of effort or time each member should contribute to the completion of a task (Forbes & Milliken, 1999). As these norms describe acceptable conduct and regulate behavior, group members match their effort level to that which they perceive in other members (Forsyth, 2018). The importance of debates in the boardroom is highlighted by board members’ cognitive conflict (Forbes & Milliken, 1999). Disagreement on specific issues or tasks may trigger differences in opinion among board members about preferred courses of action. While possibly prompting a more thorough and careful deliberation process, cognitive conflict may also elicit negative feelings, and reduce members’ commitment to their tasks as well as to the group (Forbes & Milliken, 1999).

Content-wise, as well as initiating and shaping ideas, boards also engage in decision-making (Maitlis, 2004; McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999). Given the limited time that boards convene, meetings need to maximize the effectiveness of the time used. If boards only exchange information or discuss routine business, their ‘opportunities to question, probe and challenge’ relevant topics is reduced (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999, p. 68). So as to avoid that fundamental questions are only treated superficially or resolved outside the boardroom, such issues should be prioritized by a carefully planned agenda, which also lets board members prepare ahead of time and helps to structure meetings (Gendron & Bédard, 2006; McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999). Likewise, a board may discuss key strategic questions about the direction it wants to take during retreats or ‘away-days’ (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999). Such events allow members to share their thoughts in informal and more-relaxed settings, which encourages open debates, particularly when compared to more-structured board meetings that often face time constraints and discuss narrower courses of action. Members’ interactions hence determine board deliberation processes, and a group’s ability to engage in effective decision-making.

Outcome: board performance as reflective ability

The outcome of board deliberations is generally understood in terms of the ability to effectively perform tasks, which in corporate contexts entails supervision of management and review of key strategic decisions (Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005). Yet Gendron and Bédard (2006, p. 211) argue that, from the board members’ perspective, effectiveness ‘consists of an amalgamation of a more or less heterogeneous set of emotions regarding the committee’s formal duties.’ Meanings of effectiveness are socially constructed, produced through board members’ reflective interpretations of the numerous ‘small events and relatively unremarkable actions that take place within and around board meetings’ (Gendron & Bédard, 2006, p. 237). As board members tend to ‘invest significant energy’ in making sense of their roles, achieving comfort with their position ‘is not always an easy process as board members face important difficulties and doubt over certain role dimensions’ (Gendron, 2018, p. 6).

Being aware of the fragile and challenging nature of board members’ tasks, we suggest that notions of effectiveness are to be understood based on the objective that a board pursues and the tasks it undertakes. Because our focal committee attempts to achieve relevance in professional debates, we argue that the Young Profs’ effectiveness is best understood through the institutional theory notion of ‘reflexivity’ (Suddaby et al., 2016). Based on the reflective ability to evaluate social practices, reflexivity entails the ‘general awareness of the constraints and opportunities created by the norms, values, beliefs and expectations of the social structures that surround them’ (Suddaby et al., 2016, p. 229). It thus focuses on the agentic ability to recognize and reflect on existing practices, so as to ‘rise above the cognitive constraints’ of surrounding institutions (Suddaby et al., 2016, p. 226). To be sure, this notion is not to erect a benchmark of upending professional structures. It rather posits that an effective Young Profs board is capable of drawing the profession’s attention to institutional contradictions and to the board’s own interests when such contradictions are resolved.

This notion of reflexivity attributes agency to boards that have their voices heard when alternative institutional arrangements are debated (Battilana et al., 2009). Therefore, an essential role is played by actors’ ideas for change, which need to be communicated effectively to seek cooperation with others (Battilana et al., 2009). Such a vision for change can effectively be crafted based on framing or rhetorical strategies (Snow & Benford, 1988; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005) to elaborate on the problems it seeks to solve, how proposed solutions improve current arrangements, and why the vision should be supported (Rao et al., 2000). By doing so, actors are able to gain the attention of others and use this visibility to create momentum for their ideas for revised institutional arrangements.

In sum, we look at board decision-making processes to understand how the composition of the Young Profs board and its deliberations affect the group’s reflexivity. We argue that being able to collaborate effectively in their board processes will help the Young Profs members to reflect on their objectives and explicate their ideas for alternative institutional arrangements in a vision for change, which, to enhance their likelihood of being heard, can be invoked in professional debates. This leads us to our second research question:

RQ2: How do the Young Profs work together to contribute effectively to professional debates?

Research Methods

Data Collection

Given our research interest in how a committee of young accountants is embedded in the professional institute and collaborates to contribute to professional debates, we considered ethnography to be the most appropriate research approach (Creswell, 2007; Guénin-Paracini et al., 2014; Kornberger et al., 2011). It enables researchers to focus on the lived realities of individuals by gathering evidence during observations of meetings, informal encounters, and other events (Creswell, 2007). Notably, we limited ourselves to ethnographic observations, rather than participating in our focal group’s activities (e.g. Morales & Lambert, 2013), so as ‘to use the culture of the setting (the socially acquired and shared knowledge available to the participants or members of the setting) to account for the observed patterns of human activity’ (Van Maanen, 1979, p. 539).

We conducted our empirical research from June 2016 to June 2017. As preamble to our fieldwork, we conducted desk research based on information provided by the Young Profs and the NBA, such as prior meeting agendas and minutes as well as background documents and content from their websites. Likewise, we frequently visited the website accountant.nl (https://www.accountant.nl), which is an important platform for professional debate hosted by the NBA. We also attended an initial event of the group and conducted an interview with NBA staff. Our observations of board meetings extended from September 2016 to June 2017. This period also included the group’s annual strategy day, at which the board evaluated its functioning, strategy, and future activities, and was supported by a representative from the NBA.² Finally, we attended another of the group’s events. Throughout our observation period, each author took extensive field notes, which were shared with the other two authors that constitute the research team. Our fieldwork yielded a grand total of 32 h and 10 min of observations (average of 2.5 h per meeting), 115 pages of typed observation notes, and 439 pages of supporting information (see Table 1).

Table 1. Overview of observations.

Meetings	In hours [hours: minutes]	No. of pages of notes (typed)	No. of pages of supporting documentation (prepared by NBA Secretary)
Board meetings
August 10, 2016	–	–	44
September 14, 2016	3:10	9	22
October 5, 2016	2:10	11	15
November 9, 2016	3:00	13	74
December 14, 2016	3:10	14	124
January 11, 2017	2:15	10	17
February 8, 2017	2:15	17	36
March 15, 2017	2:10	6	11
April 12, 2017	3:00	12	19
May 10, 2017	–	–	19
June 14, 2017	2:30	8	55
Total	23:40	100	436
Strategy day
November 16, 2016	3:00	7	3
Events
June 9, 2016	3:00	3	–
November 17, 2016	2:30	5	–
Total	5:30	8	–
Grand total	32:10	115	439

Notes: We did not attend the August 2016 and May 2017 meetings, but obtained the agenda and meeting minutes from the secretary.

Board meetings generally started at 18:30 h, and board members mostly arrived directly from work. Meetings were held at a business school located in the center of the country. The board members mostly sat at an oval conference table, with the chairman located in the middle and next to, or opposite, him was the secretary of the NBA. During our observations, we did have a seat at the table, but stayed in the role of observers rather than participating in the meetings in any form. The group members quickly became familiar with us as we adapted to their meeting and work rhythm. Following the meetings, we occasionally had informal chats with board members, during which they also shared further information about themselves.

As is the case with any fieldwork, we developed a close relationship with our research subjects in the period of investigation and immersed in the group’s activities (Creswell, 2007). This contributed to a mutual feeling of trust, which facilitated data collection, but it may also have affected our observations. We mitigated this issue by using data from multiple sources as well as by triangulating our findings (Guénin-Paracini et al., 2014). Towards the end of our fieldwork, we noted that committee members were so accustomed to our presence that they asked us for our opinions. As this presented a risk that we would ‘“go native” and […] be compromised in the study’ (Creswell, 2007, p. 96), we ended our observations soon thereafter.

During the period of our study, we also conducted semi-structured interviews with all board members, mainly to access their individual views on the group and their motivation to become active in the profession. We also wanted to get insights into their backgrounds and ambitions, work-life balance, and relations with their respective employers. In total, we conducted nine interviews with an average length of 48 min (see Table 2). To preserve the individuals’ anonymity, we use pseudonyms to refer to board members and NBA staff.

Table 2. Overview of interviews.

Interview	Name	Professional group	Interview date	Length [minutes]
1a	Erik	NBA	August 2016	65
1b	Wouter	NBA
2	Julia	Public accountancy	November 2016	38
3	Ralph	Public accountancy	December 2016	44
4	Jessica	Internal/government auditing	January 2017	47
5	Pieter	Public accountancy	February 2017	66
6	Rob	Public accountancy	February 2017	50
7	Jeroen	Internal/government auditing	March 2017	45
8	Gerda	Accountant in Business (AIB)	April 2017	36
9	Fred	Public accountancy	September 2017	41

Notes: First interview was administered as a joint interview. One board member rotated out of the Young Profs at the end of 2016, to be replaced by a new member in January 2017. We use pseudonyms to protect the identities of the individuals.

Data Analysis

Analysis of our empirical material proceeded through the following stages, as is characteristic for qualitative research (Creswell, 2007; Guénin-Paracini et al., 2014; Kornberger et al., 2011; Van Maanen, 1979). Throughout the research process, we analyzed our observation notes and interview transcripts to identify emerging themes and issues. We did so separately and as a research team, so as to enhance our sense-making of the empirical data. Initially, we were drawn to the Young Profs’ discussion of institutional change (Battilana et al., 2009), but soon realized that the group mostly engaged in a discourse of change without following up with decisive actions or being able to explicate the envisioned change. This impression was confirmed both when presenting our initial findings to the group and in our further analysis of the empirical material. Eventually, our focus gravitated to an analysis of how the group is embedded in the NBA and how group members interact on the board when directing the activities of the Young Profs. Drawing on institutional theory (Battilana, 2006; Seo & Creed, 2002) and board process literature (Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005), we went back to the empirical data to analyze our material through these theoretical lenses. Going back and forth between our data, interpretations, and theory, each of the three authors distinguished relevant themes independently, before engaging in joint discussions and an in-depth analysis of our material, which led to the paper’s current theoretical and empirical exposition. Once drafting this paper, we had follow-up conversations with NBA staff and Young Profs members to clarify certain issues and obtain further information. This, along with a presentation of our findings at a board meeting, were part of regular member checks to obtain reactions of study participants to our analysis and findings, which is ‘the most crucial technique for establishing credibility’ in qualitative research (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 314; Pratt et al., 2020). In presenting our data, we have chosen excerpts from the interviews (denoted as ‘I#, name’) and observation notes (‘ON, date’) that are representative of and that illustrate our findings.

All board meetings and interviews were conducted in the Dutch language, which was also used for most documents and information. Observation notes were composed in Dutch and in English. Two of the authors are Dutch native speakers, and the third is amply versed in the language to attend the meetings and interviews, and to analyze the related information. While translation added an interpretive layer to our research (Evans, 2018), our frequent interactions and cross-checks of translations have made us sufficiently confident that we have mitigated any such language effect as far as possible.

Empirical Narrative

The following sections present our empirical material on the activities of the Young Profs from two perspectives. First, we explore the group’s positioning in the NBA and to what extent this affects its members’ development of agency. Second, we analyze how the Young Profs is constituted, deliberates activities, and strives to become an effective and reflexive board.

The Young Profs and the NBA: Social Position and Institutional Embeddedness

The Dutch NBA was created in 2013 following the merger of the Royal Dutch Institute of Chartered Accountants (Royal NIVRA) and the Dutch Association of Accountants (NOvAA). Since then, the institute includes three main member groups: public accountants working in audit firms, internal and government auditors, and accountants in business (AIB).³ Being the professional home of all these member groups, the NBA needs to balance a range of diverging interests. This becomes most evident in the body’s board, which at the time of investigation consisted of representatives from all these groups, totaling 13 board members. As a result, the NBA had been riven by internal conflicts ever since the merger.

The professional institute hosts several special interest groups, among which is the Young Profs. These do not have formal voting rights, but represent specific member groups and hence receive administrative support, suggesting a certain degree of embeddedness that comes with this position (Battilana, 2006). The Young Profs consists of seven members whose backgrounds correspond to the NBA’s three member groups (see Table 2). Board members serve for a term of three years, to be extended once, provided they still meet the criteria to be a member of the Young Profs. Following NBA requirements, at least 30% of all board members need to be women: In the period of investigation, the group included two female members in 2016 and three in 2017. As we could witness (ON, September 14, 2016; ON, November 9, 2016), this diversity, in terms of gender and professional group, but also of whether the candidate is a trainee or a qualified accountant, was a key aspect in selecting new board members. Any vacancies are formally advertised and filled by making use of a selection committee of two or three board members. This committee evaluates and interviews applicants, most of whom come from the network of active young professionals that attends the group’s events. The resulting shortlist of candidates is shared with the remaining board, reporting, among other things, on how the different candidates ‘add to and fit with the current board; want and are able to actively contribute to the Young Profs’ activities and the development of the profession’ (ON, November 9, 2016). By majority vote, the Young Profs then select a candidate who, to paraphrase ‘Fred’ (I9), is aware that decisions currently taken would affect the profession for the next 20 years, and who would want to influence these developments to which young accountants would be most exposed. Although the NBA still had to approve the process and appoint the Young Profs’ preferred candidate, this seemed a formality only, as the recruitment was effectively delegated to the group.

When established in 2006, the Young Profs was intended to mitigate a perceived disconnect between young accountants and the profession (internal memo, September 12, 2005):

We were missing the connection with the new generation, [that is,] those who will practice the profession in the next decades. And essentially, we said [that] we wanted to focus more on them: We want to make people enthusiastic [about the profession]. They join the NBA because they register with us […] and then most of them leave again. Then they go to their own organization and start working there. [We saw that] the connection with the professional institute was minimal. We wanted to do something about that. (I1b, ‘Wouter’)

Accordingly, their initial objectives were to offer the next generation of accountants a networking platform in the Netherlands and internationally, to get this group actively involved in professional debates, and to strengthen relations with the NBA (internal memo, September 12, 2005). Toward that end, the Young Profs regularly organize events, such as company visits and workshops, to connect with other young accountants. They are also encouraged to express themselves in professional debates – via formal contributions to the NBA’s ongoing projects, which are mostly about the implementation of the 53 measures (NBA, 2014) – or by way of opinion pieces on accountant.nl, such as pleas for more firm support (‘Too little support for NBA Young Profs,’ accountant.nl, 2015a) or recounting day-to-day work experiences (‘Mama is a very expensive calculator,’ accountant.nl, 2015b). The Young Profs also hosts working groups in which active members collaborate on upcoming events or contributions to debates.

The Young Profs focuses on three main areas, which were set up, in 2013, when the NBA encouraged the group to shift its focus from mainly social events to partaking in professional debates:⁴

[The Young Profs] tried to get engaged in everything. That doesn’t work. So we said, “As Young Profs, we’re going to focus on a number of topics: [professional] education, innovation, and culture.” [First,] education is incredibly important for this group. They have just completed [their training] or are in the middle of it. [Second,] innovation: Standing still implies decline. That is the credo that they have. [Third,] culture. I just gave an example [of] the manager who says: “Just let go of this [issue], it’s nothing.” […] Also, you have a career and a private life. How do you deal with that? And more importantly, what is the culture in the firms? If you see something, do you dare to mention it to your manager? These are the topics where they said: “We want to focus on these.” (I1a, ‘Erik’)

Board members are assigned to one of the three areas, where they are supposed to be the first point of contact and to devote most of their attention. Yet, as will be discussed below, our fieldwork showed that these areas were often only loosely drawn on by the Young Profs and, notably, were not used to structure board meetings. Instead, their activities and meetings often related to a range of concurrent issues, mostly resulting from the NBA’s implementation of its 53 measures or AFM pronouncements regarding the profession’s (lack of) progress, albeit from the perspective of young professionals. Hence, rather than pursuing their own objectives, the Young Profs’ agenda was largely determined by the NBA seemingly fulfilling its prescribed institutional role (Lawrence et al., 2011).

As the group is part of the NBA’s architecture, the institute provides financial support as well as a platform from which to act. Crucially, it also assigned a secretary, Erik, who assisted the Young Profs by preparing monthly gatherings, but also by organizing events and, with the help of others at the NBA, by editing newsletter and social media communications. Besides connecting the Young Profs and the NBA, Erik also acted as a sounding board. For example, when arranging a meeting with the NBA’s public accountancy committee, he insisted that the Young Profs have a clear objective for such a meeting, as that group had no interest in discussing young-professional issues such as work pressure (ON, December 14, 2016). He seemed fully aware of his delicate role in terms of connecting the Young Profs and the NBA:

During the board meetings, I leave them to their discussions as much as possible. [Only if] I think, “Hey, this is going in the wrong direction,” I make my opinion known, which is after all infused by the thinking of the NBA. But at the end of the day, it is their call. (I1a, Erik)

Erik advocated providing only limited guidance and instead saw his main role as an amplifier, because the group continuously met ‘institutional contradictions’ (Seo & Creed, 2002):

[The Young Profs] always have [to strike] a balance [in terms of realizing]: “I’m of course in the middle of my career, I’m at a firm that is very important for my own future, [but where] I’m encountering […] partners saying: ‘Yes, we always do it like this with this client. […] Just let go of this, I’m taking care of it and I will talk to the client about it.’ And then it goes directly into the trash bin.” That’s what all of them say, but our ambition is to get this out as frankly as possible. And point fingers at things, where they say: “This is not going well in the profession.” (I1a, Erik)

Our observations confirmed that Erik’s interventions were generally in the spirit of support. This was also evidenced by the close contact that he kept with the group’s chairman (e.g. ON, September 14, 2016; interviews), not only to prepare meetings and discuss ongoing issues, but also to feed the group’s views to the NBA. Erik’s detailed knowledge of the institute paired with his eager support for the group thus seemed to facilitate, and at times promote, the Young Profs’ activities, thereby helping ‘agency-ing’ (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020).⁵

Despite this essential backing by Erik, the Young Profs members had ‘mixed feelings’ (I5, ‘Pieter’) about their relationship with the NBA, which they thought was ‘difficult’ (I2, ‘Julia’). While the institute wanted them to ‘dare to speak up’ (I8, ‘Gerda’), they were also ‘afraid’ to be too assertive, because they were part of the NBA (I6, ‘Rob’). As such, they neither perceived ‘pressure’ from the institute nor that the group was being viewed as a figurehead only, but that the Young Profs needed to determine its own agenda, so as to provide ‘solicited and unsolicited’ input to the NBA’s projects (I2, Julia). While the institute was curious about their views, the onus was on the group to become active (I5, Pieter), possibly because the NBA found it difficult to keep track of all of its committees (I2, Julia). As it then came down to building relations with people, some in the NBA, foremost the directors, ‘know quite well how to find us’ (I5, Pieter) and often invited the Young Profs to speak up, while others, especially those involved in committee work, seemed oblivious to the group. While they felt that they were ‘not forgotten when it mattered’ (I5, Pieter), in the course of our fieldwork, the Young Profs was overlooked in the appointment process for the standing committee on professional education (ON, December 14, 2016) and the workgroup for the future of the profession (see below), both of which had direct bearing on the group’s key topics.

The April 2017 board meeting gave further testimony to the group’s awkward relations with the institute. This meeting was attended by an NBA board member, who acted as the Young Profs’ liaison on the institute’s board. In observing the meeting, we noted the more formal atmosphere in the room, which ‘literally lasted from the moment when [the board member] entered the room until the moment she left’ (ON, April 12, 2017). Some of the more active members of the Young Profs were unusually quiet, and discussions were often targeted at the guest to obtain her views, approval, or comments. In talking about the relationship between the Young Profs and the NBA, the two parties agreed that more-frequent communication would be beneficial, so as to bolster the group’s position in the institute (Battilana, 2006). Yet, importantly, the group also received some resistance from the NBA board member. On the one hand, the group should not ‘overestimate the [NBA] board. It is at the grassroots that change really happens, rather than us taking a hammer and changing things’ (ON, April 12, 2017). As such, the Young Profs should not worry about being part of every discussion, but rather try to change things at the firms. On the other hand, when the Young Profs asked her for more support from the NBA, which they could invoke at the firms, she was reluctant to endorse them:

This is a difficult issue and the NBA depends on goodwill [from the firms]. Everyone thinks that it’s important, but there is not enough time [for everything]. I don’t have a solution for this. The NBA board cannot simply send a letter [that requires firms to let people join institute activities]. We rely on the firms’ goodwill. (ON, April 12, 2017)

After the board member had left, it was especially these comments that did not go down well with the Young Profs, whose members were generally positive about the visit (ON, April 12, 2017), although some saw the remarks as ‘an easy way out’ for the NBA (Julia) that came close to abandoning the group. The resulting ‘disappointment’ (Gerda; Pieter) demonstrated the perceived lack of interest from the NBA, as the group members knew how NBA board meetings went:

The committees are always discussed at the end [that is, as the last item on the agenda], and the Young Profs is the last committee. As the board never has much time for meetings, they never really talk about us. (Pieter)

A critical test of the group’s relations with the institute occurred in one of the NBA’s reform projects. In April 2016, the institute issued a proposal to simplify its board structure from 13 to seven members (NBA, 2016). A new member council would decrease the number of committees that fed views to the board. This proposal triggered strong reactions, especially from small- and medium-sized auditors, who feared the plan would lead to ‘tunnel vision’ at the NBA, as it would ‘foremost increase the power of the [NBA’s] chairman, [whose] agenda is determined by the Big Four’ (accountant.nl, 2016a). The Young Profs members also saw their influence wane and, in a May 2016 letter to the NBA, voiced their concerns that ‘today’s proposal increases the distance between the NBA board and the Young Profs even further.’ This contrasted with their close relationship up to 2014, when one of the Young Profs members had been on the NBA’s board. In the letter, they further argued that the new board would create an ‘undesirable situation’ that abandoned the ‘unique character of the Young Profs, [which] as a commission represents […] the future generation of accountants.’ The group hence feared a diminished social position would jeopardize their agency even further (Battilana, 2006).

In August, the NBA responded to the comments it had received by issuing a revised reform proposal. In view of this document, the Young Profs approached the NBA chairman to make known the group’s ‘disappointment [at not finding] any response to the concerns that we expressed about our position [in the reformed board]’ (letter dated August 31, 2016). They proposed a meeting with the NBA chairman, which took place shortly after the letter was sent. In the subsequent board meeting, Pieter reported that the NBA chairman had expressed strong support for the Young Profs, assuring its members that ‘they would continue to have a place at the NBA’ (ON, September 14, 2016). Also, the NBA was aware that it had received numerous complaints from a range of parties that feared being underrepresented in the new structure. The NBA chairman, in revealing his role expectations (Lawrence et al., 2011), advised the group not to take the same line as the other parties but to provide more-constructive input.

At their annual retreat (‘strategy day’) in November 2016, the Young Profs engaged in a review of its course of action (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999), including with regard to the NBA’s governance reform project. Feeling uncomfortable with the position assigned to them by the NBA proposal, the group members reflectively wondered whether ‘we have done as much as we could’ (ON, November 16, 2016). In the subsequent void, the idea was floated to send in an amendment to the NBA’s general meeting on December 19, 2016, to demand that the Young Profs receives a permanent seat on the new member council. The NBA representative, ‘Ben,’ who moderated the group’s discussions that day, emphasized that ‘this is the political craft’ that was needed in the profession, and that the group members had to decide whether they wanted to take such action.

A final decision in favor of the amendment was not taken at the strategy day, but soon thereafter. Rallying other accountants behind the Young Profs’ cause, both at its events and online (‘Young Profs want to determine their own future,’ accountant.nl, 2016b), the group was able to collect the 100 signatures necessary to submit its amendment. Yet, as it turned out, the effort did not pay off. Mostly due to the resistance from small- and medium-sized audit firms, the NBA cancelled its general meeting (accountant.nl, 2016c). Under the line that ‘structure follows strategy,’ the NBA vowed to first develop a strategy before amending its governance.

The Young Profs had thus exerted its effort in vain. More importantly though, the politicking of its members was not received well by the NBA chairman, who in subsequent discussions with the Young Profs expressed disapproval of the activism of its members (ON, December 14, 2016). This anecdote demonstrates that the Young Profs faces a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, being exposed to institutional contradictions (Seo & Creed, 2002), the members may aspire to undertake institutional actions. Their engagement in Young Profs activities opens up opportunities for agency, which are being met by the NBA’s repeated invitations to speak out, as well as by the institute’s support of Young Profs activities. On the other hand, being embedded in the NBA’s governance structure also means that they need to know the ‘rules of the game’ to profit from their social position (Battilana, 2006; Battilana et al., 2009). Specifically, this entails meeting role expectations (Lawrence et al., 2011), which the NBA seemingly understands as quietly feeding the perspectives of early-career accountants to the debates. Yet taking this role does not often yield clear outcomes, which has frustrated the group. As such, the Young Profs needs to work hard to raise awareness for its cause, which involves much experimenting, as the group members lack intuition about how to enhance their visibility. Their ensuing struggle to achieve relevance implies that, despite being part of the NBA, they lack the institutional embeddedness that can provide a platform for agency (Garud et al., 2007). As we will see next, this is also due to the ways in which the board members work together and deliberate their actions.

The Deliberations of the Young Profs Board

We next turn to an analysis of the Young Profs board and of the decision-making of its members. We focus on the board’s composition and how members identify with the group, board deliberations, and the group’s reflective ability (Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Gendron & Bédard, 2006; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005).

Board process: the Young Profs’ composition and conflicts of commitment

As alluded to above, the Young Profs is composed of a diverse group of individuals, in terms of both their professional and personal backgrounds, as well as that their average age is 34 and ranges from 27 to 49 years.⁶ This diversity is partly imposed, as the group needs to represent the NBA’s three member groups. While variety may ensure that different perspectives are considered (Huse et al., 2011), it also reduces the risk of overly uniform thinking, provided that board members’ different abilities are sufficiently integrated (Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Pettigrew & McNulty, 1995). Likewise, it requires strong group identification to ensure high dedication to one’s tasks (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997). Indeed, being a member of the Young Profs seemed a quite salient attribute to board members, as testified by the NBA secretary:

When I work for other NBA committees, I think to myself: “[Those committee members] only talk for their own interests and not for the sake of the entire profession.” I do not find that during board meetings of the Young Profs. I find that very unique. (I1a, Erik)

Our fieldwork confirmed that the board members’ overarching goal was congruent, namely that they want to have an impact on professional debates, especially when it comes to young professionals’ issues. Numerous times, we heard the credo: ‘We are the future!’ (ON, November 16, 2016), which the ‘old boys up there’ (I8, Gerda) needed to realize. The more-vocal members saw their activities as a calling to keep the profession attractive for the next generation, restore the public’s trust in accounting, and reinstate a focus on the public interest (I8, Gerda; I2, Julia). In turn, other board members were more reserved and found it difficult to state their ambitions beyond expressing a general liking for the profession (I3, ‘Ralph’).

More fundamentally, we also noted that the degree of identification (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997) with the Young Profs varied. Some board members seemed to experience a deep sense of gratification from their activities as a Young Prof. For example, one board member interrupted her maternity leave for the group’s monthly meetings, and another indicated that the board gave him a higher sense of fulfillment than work:

Sometimes I doubt whether I enjoy my job, but I do know that the Young Profs gives me much satisfaction. (I5, Pieter)

By contrast, other members felt differently, as they would occasionally arrive late or skip a meeting for a game of soccer. They admitted to having to balance different role demands, which they experienced as challenging:

I enjoy many things. I enjoy the Young Profs. I enjoy my work, different jobs. I play a bit of indoor soccer. And I have a family at home. These are already four things, and then also my professional training. These are many different things, where you need to, let’s say, keep the ball in the air, and now and then you have to let a ball drop to the ground, leave it there for a bit, and then pick it up again. (I6, Rob)

Such ‘conflicts of commitment’ (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997) were aggravated by the fact that board members often ‘get little time [for Young Profs’ activities] from their firms [or] are preoccupied with making a career, or are preoccupied with positioning themselves in their firms’ (I5, Pieter). For example, when considering applying for another function at the NBA, one board member was stopped by his firm without any explanation. The members of the Young Profs thus tend to prioritize the needs of their firms, both to meet work demands and so as not to imperil career goals. In their December 2016 meeting, one board member recounted that he had a long discussion with his boss about activities outside of work, and his boss wanted him to get more involved again, so do less for the Young Profs, for example. This presented a dilemma for him, although he quickly agreed that he would do less for the Young Profs (ON, December 14, 2016). A somewhat ironic example was an opinion piece on work–life balance that two of the Young Profs members were to write. This article was repeatedly delayed and eventually cancelled, because the two board members did not find the time to complete it (ON, November 9, 2016; ON, December 14, 2016).⁷ This was partly perceived as shirking by the other board members, who felt frustrated by this display of lacking commitment:

And I notice that, because certain people do not function on a board, or function to a lesser extent, [things] automatically rest on fewer shoulders. And it gets heavier for these fewer shoulders, and things do not work out. So, actually, you do need the entire team of your board—with commitment—to function [and succeed at] what we want to achieve. (I7, ‘Jeroen’)

Importantly, there is no formal training or coaching program for the Young Profs board members. Accordingly, many board members were somewhat apprehensive about their roles, expressing the need for a mentor who could provide guidance or with whom they could share personal experiences (ON, November 16, 2016). While some Young Profs members had limited contact with people from the NBA for such purposes, they also admitted to at times being unsure of appropriate actions (I5, Pieter). Because the Young Profs was, for most, their first experience as board members, they had yet to find out how to enact such a role. In sum, while all board members identify with their roles as Young Profs, some faced strong ‘conflicts of commitments’ (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997). Prioritizing other activities meant that they were unable to devote sufficient time to their tasks (Cornforth, 2001), which to some degree strained relations between board members (Bailey & Peck, 2013). This implied that the board as a whole struggled to collaborate effectively, as will be shown in the next section.

Board process: the Young Profs’ effort norms and board conduct

Studying boards’ decision-making processes as ‘action in context’ (Maitlis, 2004, p. 1279; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005) entails a focus on the ability of a board to work as a team (Huse et al., 2011). We have argued so far that the members of the Young Profs may well agree on their common goal of letting the young generation’s voice be heard, but that their effort levels vary. This meant that they were not always collaborating as a team and that effort norms were not communicated clearly and/or embraced to the same degree (Forbes & Milliken, 1999). An underlying reason for this diverging commitment was the latent disagreement as to the means of achieving their goals. While some variation in attitudes is not uncommon among board members (Gendron, 2018), the resulting misalignment reduced some members’ involvement along with the group’s effectiveness (Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Forsyth, 2018).

Many of the Young Profs’ activities revolved around contributing to ongoing NBA projects, such as by writing letters or opinion pieces. While this approach seemingly met the NBA’s role expectations, some of the Young Profs members revealed their disagreement with that route. They opined that, if the group wanted to be taken seriously, a bolder approach was needed to ‘shake things up’ (I9, Fred), because the entire profession was only muddling along:

We’re always a bit too dovish. We don’t want to create an uproar. […] [And that is the case throughout the NBA] that everyone pats each other on the back, from the board to all committees. […] No one gets up for what they believe in. […] If you want to have good leadership [in the NBA], you also need to be able to criticize each other—openly, honestly, and transparently. (I9, Fred)

The Young Profs members were allegedly mimicking what they saw as adequate behavior in the institute, and thus struggled to get attention:

Anyone who sits at the table decides. If we want to decide, we have to make sure that we are invited to the table. […] you can always send notes, letters, or something, but this does not always work, because you do not sit at the table. […] Once the decisions are made, people have already forgotten that someone sent a letter at some point. (I9, Fred)

This frustration with the Young Profs’ way of working led this board member to retreat somewhat from his tasks. Importantly, he shared this view only with us in the interview, and we otherwise never saw him speak up that vehemently or voicing his concerns about the Young Profs’ activities. These differences in attitudes, or dispositions to activism (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020), seemed unknown to the board and were never addressed or resolved, thus hindering the Young Profs’ development of shared intentionality.

Our fieldwork included ample evidence of debates inspired by concurrent professional debates, rather than being structured in line with the Young Profs’ proclaimed areas of interest. The group’s overly broad spectrum of activities failed to prioritize important issues (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999), risking a loss of focus and an inability to follow up on key activities in a timely manner. Notably though, the group’s monthly meetings were meticulously planned and prepared by the NBA secretary, who compiled agenda papers and distributed them ahead of the meetings (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999). The agenda was based on recurring themes, such as an update from the chairman, the group’s calendar of events, and current activities. Meetings were held on Wednesday evenings, starting at 18:30 h. As board members arrived directly from work, they took advantage of a small dinner that was provided, and regularly continued to work behind their laptops until the meeting started. Notably, there was limited small talk, and the group continued its deliberations without interruption or breaks until the meetings ended somewhere between 21:00 and 22:30. Although the agenda was an important means to structure their interactions, the time allocated to each item was often not observed. This resulted in drawn-out discussions of certain items, which were often a diverse set of announcements or the group’s upcoming events, all of which could be considered procedural issues that limit the time available for addressing fundamental questions (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999). Indeed, board meetings frequently involved an exchange of information or focused on establishing consensus about specific board actions. Substantive issues were then cut short, postponed, or resolved outside the meetings. To the extent that major decisions were taken in the boardroom, these often seemed ambitious and were regularly not followed up by the group.

This ‘logic’ of action can be exemplified by the group’s discussion of an ongoing issue in the profession. In October 2016, the ‘Monitoring Commissie Accountancy’ (MCA) issued its first report on the profession’s progress to implement the 53 measures targeted at improving audit quality (MCA, 2016). This report was discussed extensively in the profession and in the business press, and the Young Profs intended to follow suit. The agenda to its December 2016 meeting hence asked a central question: ‘Which issues [of the report] are relevant for the Young Profs?’ This approach suggested a focus on the key matters in the MCA report that were related to the group’s three areas of interest, where they could decide on suitable follow-up actions. It quickly turned out, however, that not everyone had read the report ahead of the meeting, even though it had been included in the agenda papers (ON, December 14, 2016). The group therefore discussed some broad lines only, to be followed up on in the next meeting. Most of the discussion that did take place revolved around an alleged generational disconnect:

The old guard apparently did something wrong, and young professionals now need to live with the consequences. (ON, December 14, 2016)

The group also unanimously criticized the profession’s presumption that, once the 53 measures were adopted, all problems would be solved. As the debate was gaining heat, discussions trailed off to issues beyond the report, such that Erik at some point suggested to make an inventory of key issues that affected the Young Profs, and think about what they wanted to do about them. Yet rather than prioritizing specific courses of action in line with the meeting’s time constraints (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999), Jeroen suggested a brainstorming round to share their initial views of the report. This was pursued and each board member raised different issues, without reaching any consensus about the path to be taken as the Young Profs. The group’s discussion considerably exceeded the 45 min allocated to this item, such that the group’s chairman at some point postponed further debate to their January meeting. Confirming the drawn-out nature of their deliberations, the meeting minutes noted that it had become ‘clear that the report requires much more discussion.’ They also highlighted the need for the Young Profs to reach out to the MCA, which would be discussed at their next meeting.

Yet, by January, other issues had come to the fore, and the MCA report was discussed only toward the end of the meeting (ON, January 11, 2017). Rather than continuing their intense discussions from December, their main objective was now to reflect on what they could reasonably do. Erik stressed that the MCA was a monitoring commission, so the Young Profs members could point out that the commission never engaged with them about their concerns as young professionals. To Pieter’s question whether this should be all, Erik emphatically replied: ‘Yes!’ Further questions were put aside by his insisting that sending a letter was the appropriate reaction. Pieter finally agreed that they would worry about further steps once they got a response. This meeting thus stood in stark contrast to the previous one, in which they debated fundamental issues from the report, albeit in an unstructured way. Such questions were now shelved, possibly to avoid another lengthy discussion, to focus on other matters, or because the decision about their course of action had been taken outside the boardroom.

In another turn of events, the February meeting saw Pieter arguing that they minimized their role if they only protested that the MCA had not talked to them (ON, February 8, 2017). Erik had apparently heard from the MCA that they regretted not having talked to the Young Profs, such that a corresponding letter would be obsolete. It was then decided that two board members should pick up the report to identify where the group could provide substantive input to the MCA. After a short hiatus, the topic re-surfaced in the April meeting (ON, April 12, 2017), when the original plan of feeding back their views to the MCA was not even mentioned, but a new idea floated. The early-career networks of the large audit firms had been in touch with the group with a view to exchanging ideas. Pieter and Jeroen thus proposed to hold a joint meeting with these groups and MCA representatives to discuss the views of young accountants. This was eventually followed through in June, much to the satisfaction of all parties involved.

In summary, this episode reveals the often ad hoc nature of the group’s deliberations. Rather than devoting sufficient time to debate and decisively resolving important issues (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999), the Young Profs’ deliberations are passionate but drawn out and unstructured. Even though both secretary and chairman often attempt to focus discussions, the group seems unable to follow up on its debates, either because new issues arise in the meantime or because they find it difficult to pursue a clear action plan, given other commitments (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997). The group may thus be reduced to a discussion forum, which minimizes its effectiveness as a board, as we will see next.

Board process: the Young Profs’ reflective ability

This section analyzes the Young Profs members’ ability to reflectively interpret their own activities and objectives (Gendron & Bédard, 2006), as understood through their awareness of the opportunities and constraints of surrounding social structures; that is, their reflexivity (Suddaby et al., 2016). We focus on a major project that occupied the group for several months, namely the drafting of vision documents that discussed how the group envisaged the future of the Dutch profession, and which, if appropriately framed, could present an effective argument for change (Battilana et al., 2009; Snow & Benford, 1988; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005).

This project was initiated at the Young Profs’ strategy day on November 16, 2016. As part of discussing the group’s future activities, the NBA representative prompted the Young Profs members to develop broader goals for their future activities.⁸ Yet, rather than pushing them to engage in such a project, Ben repeatedly returned to the topic, so as to elicit their reflective thinking (Gendron & Bédard, 2006). For example, he asked board members: ‘What would you be happy with if you looked back on 2017 in one year’s time?’ (ON, November 16, 2016). Likewise, he emphasized that they should think about ‘how we can make [our envisioned] change fun.’ At a later stage, he further stressed that they ‘should always think about not just giving your opinions or reacting to something, but indicating demands, such as by saying: “We want that … ”.’ In the spirit of Snow and Benford (1988), they should not simply criticize existing institutional arrangements, but clearly propose their favored alternatives.

The Young Profs members agreed that they needed broader goals for their activities, but were overwhelmed by such ambitious thinking (‘Silence. People seem to find this difficult to discuss.’ ON, November 16, 2016). They quickly returned to general statements about the profession, such as the expected role of automation and IT in accounting, without being able to articulate a clear outcome for which they wanted to strive. As part of the debate, Ben also prompted the group to review their three areas of interest. However, the group swiftly determined that these were success factors, and so should be maintained. This attachment to past decisions rendered subsequent discussions of broader goals difficult. Rather than taking this as a cue to revisit their areas of interest, the board members took these structures for granted, thus constraining their reflective thinking (Gendron & Bédard, 2006). Given their extensive discussions, the Young Profs members deferred the debate to a subsequent meeting, where they would discuss yet-to-be-drafted vision documents for their three areas. Both Ben and Pieter emphasized to do this swiftly, as the documents should subsequently enable a consistent message in professional debates, thereby attracting other actors to endorse the view of the Young Profs (Battilana et al., 2009).

In its December 2016 meeting, the group discussed a first draft of an education vision, which Julia had developed based on an earlier version from 2013 (ON, December 14, 2016). Board members seemed enthusiastic and suggested only minor changes, such as to include their vision of professional training in 2030. Pieter quickly asked board members to email their ideas to Julia, so the two of them could finalize the document. Notably, the education vision was the only draft document that the group received. The Young Profs member supposed to work on the innovation document had not found the time to do so, while the member responsible for the culture document had not attended the strategy day and had not been informed about the task. Indeed, the drafting of these two documents dragged on for several months and increasingly led to frustrations, because the group had to retreat from their initial goal of finalizing the visions swiftly and effectively using them in their communications.

In the January meeting, Fred responded to Pieter’s question about the vision, stating only that ‘it is being drafted,’ without wanting to discuss this drafting in more detail (ON, January 11, 2017). Pieter emphasized that they had aimed for their current meeting, and so as to avoid further delay Fred should share his current draft by email, so they could discuss it, albeit outside the boardroom, which tends to compromise decision-making (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999). In turn, the January meeting saw a brief discussion of a document on innovation. Rob had listed a small number of items in a Word file, which was shared with the others on the morning of the meeting. In presenting his document, Rob displayed considerable insecurity, possibly due to working on it at the last minute, or, as he suggested, because he first wanted input from fellow board members, especially the chairman (ON, January 11, 2017). The other members were not impressed, and a discussion drew out on how detailed their visions should be. Again, board members seemed uncertain about what exactly to include in the document, as shown by one of them consulting the Wikipedia definition of ‘innovation.’ As discussions did not seem an effective use of the board’s time, both Pieter and Erik repeatedly tried to structure the debate, eventually pushing for a prompt completion of the drafting. When Rob said he wanted to think about the group’s input, Erik ironically asked, ‘Until when?’ whereas Pieter stressed they should have an update soon, to be shared by email.

In the February meeting, a complete set of draft documents was available to the group, with the one on education being near-final (ON, February 8, 2017). The innovation vision had eventually been drafted based on Rob’s original input, which had been expanded by Pieter and further edited by a friend. The one on culture received the most criticism as having been drafted by two board members in isolation, such that fellow Young Profs members only now had a chance to contribute. The group realized that they had assigned the two delayed visions to the most junior board members, who struggled to articulate key goals in line with their fellows’ thinking. Other Young Profs members had to get involved to draft the visions outside the board meetings, such that the documents showcased the thinking of these board members, rather than the supposed authors. Indeed, discussions at the board meetings quickly turned to questions of style and format, whereas substantive issues were resolved by phone or email, on a bilateral and ad hoc basis. What was initially meant as a key interaction, to reflect on the Young Profs’ future, was seized by senior board members who were frustrated by the delay. Yet appropriating the writing process meant that they excluded other members from the decision-making (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999), albeit in the spirit of timely progress. This transformed the drafting into a pragmatic exercise, focused on completing the documents, rather than a visionary framing that showed the group’s reflexivity (Battilana et al., 2009).

The vision documents were eventually published on the Young Profs’ website in July 2017, after having gone through some further editing. These procedural issues were taken care of by the secretary, who also pushed for publication of the documents. In addition, on accountant.nl he arranged for an interview with board members that explained key themes, such as professional cohesion, innovation, and a public interest focus (Dekker, 2017). The visions ended up being one page each and containing a diverse set of detailed issues, albeit without an apparent slogan that immediately catches the eye, even though this had been one of Ben’s key points (ON, November 16, 2016) and was raised in the group’s discussions (ON, February 8, 2017). One might question how much of a young-professionals vision for change the board thus displayed, or whether members indeed attempted ‘to create new rules and a new order’ (Fligstein, 2001, p. 118). The group’s interactions also showed little awareness of the potential significance of a well-crafted vision (Battilana et al., 2009). The ultimately pragmatic process implied that the group drew on available thinking that reiterated the status quo, as shown by the attempt to include concurrent discussions, such as on auditing’s structural problems as raised by the MCA (2016). Given the entire process, one suspects that the documents were written in view of the NBA’s project and to subsequently be made available on their website, rather than to engage in an opportunity for reflective thinking (Gendron & Bédard, 2006; Suddaby et al., 2016). Indeed, the Young Profs repeatedly argued that the visions were ‘not set in stone’ (ON, January 11, 2017) and should not define specific goals (ON, February 8, 2017), suggesting an attitude of moving on, rather than one of invoking its members’ visions in their future activities.

Discussion and Conclusions

Based on fieldwork on the activities of the Young Profs, this paper has examined a committee of the Dutch professional institute that is intended to give a voice to early-career professionals in a context that is characterized by extensive professional debate (Humphrey et al., 2018). The current section returns to our research questions to assess how the group’s position in the NBA affects its endeavors to achieve relevance in the professional arena, as well as to what extent the board members work together to contribute effectively to professional debates.

With regard to our first question, we saw that the Young Profs occupies a unique social position in the NBA, which we suggest works in two ways. On the one hand, the group’s members seem eager to suggest alternatives to current institutional arrangements, so as to use their social position as a platform for agency (Battilana, 2006; Garud et al., 2007). On the other hand, their positioning exposes the Young Profs members to influence from the NBA, and they need to know the ‘rules of the game’ to profit from their social position (Battilana, 2006; Battilana et al., 2009). Being the dominant actor in this lopsided relation, the institute has a preference to stay in control of the change process and, to manage any change initiatives, it projects role expectations on the Young Profs (Lawrence et al., 2011). As such, the NBA has encouraged the group to define focal areas for their board work and to contribute to different institute initiatives, such as the vision project. While this prompting is partly in the spirit of support, it may limit members’ initiative to develop and deploy own change strategies. As the governance reform project showed most clearly, the institute also seems to expect the group to quietly communicate the perspectives of early-career accountants to the NBA without disturbing the institutional status quo.

Our study thus involves a unique dyad of actors that escapes the dichotomy inherent in prior research that has focused on actors’ positions in the field (e.g. Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Leblebici et al., 1991). As such, the Young Profs’ organizational affiliation with the NBA implies an intricate tie-up: The institute has vowed to open up to the next generation of accountants (NBA, 2014) and, being the umbrella of all professionals, needs to consider views emanating from one of its committees. The Young Profs, in turn, crucially relies on the NBA for resources and to amplify their messages. Indeed, the institute is the main supporter of the group, a fact which has helped to institutionalize the Young Profs but only goes some way in terms of establishing it as a serious actor in the professional field.

As the group remains passionate about filling its role with purpose, it strongly relies on individual actors in the NBA for support and advice on suitable actions. Chief among these is the group’s secretary, who acts as an important liaison in the NBA to help the Young Profs navigate the professional field. While being eager to stimulate the group’s effectiveness, Erik needs to balance his role with other duties he has taken in the institute, where he also works for other committees and needs to adhere to official NBA thinking. Yet his passion clearly lies with the Young Profs, with which he identifies, as implied by his occasional use of ‘we’ and ‘us’ when referring to the group (I1a, Erik). He also provides essential guidance to board members as to appropriate actions, and he furthers their interests in the NBA. More than once, he influenced the group’s debates by steering them in what he considered the right direction, re-focusing them on what is relevant for the group, and informing the board about concurrent NBA thinking. While this support often helped the Young Profs to better understand the institute, we argue that it does not compensate for the group’s lack of intuition to choose suitable actions. This is likely enhanced by the absence of any board training that could prepare the Young Profs for its tasks. Given this scarcity of guidance, official endorsements of the group appeared rather shallow to board members. Being left to themselves, they often discussed potential actions aimlessly or experimented with ways to raise their profile, always remaining apprehensive of the NBA’s reaction. As a result, their impact on ongoing professional debates seems limited. That is, despite having access to resources, they face many hurdles in the process of their ‘agency-ing’ (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020) and struggle to develop the reflexivity required to formulate and invoke change strategies that are palatable to the NBA. The Young Profs thus risks becoming a ‘symbol’ of representation only, rather than a platform that gives a voice to the next generation of accountants.

Our second research question examined how the Young Profs members collaborate with a view to engaging in effective board deliberations. While prior research has mainly studied individual actors’ engagement in institutional work (Canning & O’Dwyer, 2016; Löhlein & Müßig, 2020; Suddaby et al., 2016), we explored how a group of individuals attempts to establish shared intentionality to have an impact on professional debates. Board process literature guided us to examine the group’s characteristics, its deliberations, and its reflexivity (Forbes & Milliken, 1999; Gendron & Bédard, 2006; Pye & Pettigrew, 2005; Suddaby et al., 2016). We have argued that the Young Profs consists of a diverse group in terms of backgrounds, gender, and age. This has largely been imposed by the NBA, to ensure appropriate representation of early-career accountants. Generally, diversity is considered beneficial, provided that it allows a group to access a wider range of skills and all members unite behind a common goal (Cornforth, 2001; Pettigrew & McNulty, 1995). Yet, while the Young Profs members have a collective interest, some feel more closely attached to the group, while others prioritize work-related issues. This may be due to career concerns, pressing work demands, or the different motivations of board members to sit on the committee. Some freely admitted that the Young Profs was an opportunity to gain board experience that they wanted to profit from for subsequent engagements. Such career motivations were expressed by one of the more active board members as well as one of the more passive ones, suggesting it may not be a proxy for actors’ effort levels. In any case, such ‘conflicts of commitment’ (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997) may result from the different values that diversity introduces to a group (Milliken & Martins, 1996). Indeed, responsibilities were not always honored at the board, and some members regularly took over the tasks of others.

These issues were amplified in the group’s deliberations. Despite having an appropriate agenda that structured the group’s meetings (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999), this was not in line with their three areas of interest. Mostly following ongoing professional debates, discussions were often drawn out or ineffective, as the board members found it difficult to unite behind positions and decisively pursue certain courses of action. As a result, there seemed to be no consensus on how to achieve their goals. Some board members were content with providing formal input to professional debates, whereas others envisioned a more activist role, by employing a ‘street-fighter mentality’ (I9, Fred). By the time the Young Profs members resolved their disagreements, the professional debate had often shifted to new issues that had arisen, which crowded out topics that the group had previously and extensively debated. More than once these lengthy decision-making processes compromised the group’s actions, such as in the case of the vision project, which were transformed into pragmatic exercises seemingly pursued only with the purpose of participating in a debate. Importantly, differences of opinion reduce individuals’ commitment to their tasks (Forbes & Milliken, 1999), and complicate board deliberations or reduce their ability to work as a team (Huse et al., 2011). It also meant that decision-making was often deferred to outside the boardroom, which reduced the bearing some members had on ensuing decisions (McNulty & Pettigrew, 1999). The resulting actions taken, or input provided, often remained at the level of creating awareness for the group’s concerns, rather than achieving that its members’ viewpoints were followed in debates. Therefore, our study demonstrates that developing agency, as a precursor to actors’ institutional work, is not an easy task, and goes beyond recognizing institutional contradictions (Löhlein & Müßig, 2020; Seo & Creed, 2002). It involves difficult negotiations by the involved actors to establish ‘shared mental models’ (Bailey & Peck, 2013), which are needed to develop shared intentionality about institutional actions. In the case of the Young Profs, we argue that the group may recognize opportunities for agency, but due to its complex board deliberations is unable to exert the reflexivity that is constitutive of an effective board (Gendron, 2018; Gendron & Bédard, 2006; Suddaby et al., 2016).

It also seems that the group did not understand how to deploy the ‘political craft,’ as Ben put it. While they were quite outspoken when discussing professional issues in their meetings, this seemed to be confined to the safe environment of their boardroom. When it came to defending their stakes in the public arena, they admitted to feelings of insecurity: ‘[The first time I attended an NBA committee meeting], I was thinking, “I really do not dare to say anything here”’ (I2, Julia). This anxiety and inexperience prevented the Young Profs from being more assertive and from developing suitable strategic actions (Fligstein, 2001). While they hesitated to campaign for their goals, they were overwhelmed by the politicking of others. The group thus relied on the guidance from trusted individuals in the NBA, which largely seemed to be due to goodwill, rather than its impact on professional debates.

We acknowledge that being an effective board (Gendron, 2018; Gendron & Bédard, 2006) and exerting reflexivity (Suddaby et al., 2016) are formidable tasks for any group of individuals that work together (Pye & Pettigrew, 2005). It may, therefore, be too much to expect from a board of young accountants that is thrown into the professional arena, where it competes with other actors with more experience, not only as professionals but also in terms of the politicking involved. As a result, rather than to exert any reflexivity, a main objective of the Young Profs may thus be to establish a forum for debate for young accountants (Accountancy Europe, 2018), so as to mitigate the precarious relations between early-career professionals and the institute (Anderson-Gough et al., 2000, 2001; Hamilton, 2013). Based on the experiences of the participating young professionals, we argue that providing young-professionals boards with only a platform to act, without concomitantly appreciating their views, risks reducing board members’ enthusiasm for professional affairs. As the Young Profs members did not receive any training or preparation for their tasks, they struggled to be visible in debates, both because they lacked the intuition on how to feed their views to others in the professional arena and because they were often taking a back seat to others’ politicking. Besides reducing their impact, this also jeopardizes board members’ idealism. In interviews, several members of the Young Profs expressed negative views of the professional institute’s sluggish attitude and preference for the status quo. Their feelings of frustration suggest that participating in one of the emerging initiatives may even fuel young professionals’ distancing processes from the profession, and thus turn out to be counterproductive.

Our study suggests several opportunities for further research. First, given the emergence of committees of young accountants across Europe (Accountancy Europe, 2018), the experiences of other early-career professionals may be different from our findings. Future research might, therefore, study the engagement of young accountants in other national professional institutes as well as in the large audit firms. An essential question would relate to how participation in such activities affects young professionals’ attitudes toward the profession. Second, we suggest that future research could examine the management and governance of professional institutes, with a view to studying the internal decision-making processes. Such a study would provide important insights into how professional institutes manage change projects or seek to maintain the professional status quo, and how they enhance or limit attempts at developing agency by different professional actors. Likewise, we surmise that the relations between different professional committees offer opportunities to study how these committees compete for the attention of decision-makers, as well as to analyze the politicking that permeates such professional bodies.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments provided by Kirstin Becker, Rob Blomme, Mary Canning, Yves Gendron (discussant), Sebastian Hoffmann, Ivo De Loo, Lukas Löhlein and Raluca Sandu (discussant) as well as by participants of the 2018 European Accounting Association Annual Congress, the 2018 Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference, and the 2018 Workshop on the Politics of Accounting. We further thank the special issue editors Bertrand Malsch and Brendan O’Dwyer as well as the two reviewers for their constructive comments and support throughout the review process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Hereafter, we refer to the group as ‘Young Profs.’ For other early-career accountants, we use the terms ‘young professionals’ or ‘young accountants’ interchangeably.

2 This session was preceded by an evaluation of individual board members, which we were not invited to attend.

3 This group entails individuals that have qualified as accountants, but left public accountancy.

4 This shift predates our period of investigation and our empirical material does not allow us to explore this further, but we might conjecture that this revised focus also changed the group’s institutional role and attracted more vocal board members, both of which likely strained the committee’s relation with the NBA.

5 Similar backing came from the Young Profs’ founder (I1b, Wouter), who aimed to ensure that relevant committees approached the Young Profs, and who promoted its activities on accountant.nl, which he administered.

6 The two eldest board members were eligible Young Profs because they had qualified as chartered accountants less than five years ago. They differed somewhat in terms of their views of their own age. ‘Ralph’ does not think that he is a Young Prof: ‘I have said this once in the group and they think differently about it.’ In turn, ‘Jessica’ considered such views too ‘narrow-minded’ and denied that she had such feelings about her age.

7 We do not have any evidence that their employers may have urged them not to write such an article. In fact, prior opinion pieces by the Young Profs also griped about the topic, with provocative headings such as ‘Milked out and ready for slaughter’ and ‘Sleeping is a choice.’

8 In 2016, the NBA appointed a workgroup to ‘develop a new and distinct vision for the future of the accounting profession and the future of the professional institute’ (NBA, 2016, p. 4), which in December 2016 published the pamphlet ‘A Profession with a Future.’ This committee largely worked behind closed doors, such that the Young Profs were not fully aware of ongoing discussions and the pending pamphlet, although the NBA representative likely was, and hence encouraged the group to participate in this project.