Qingmei Xue

2021 Hopin Virtual Events Platform

Abstract: While oral history still has a marginal role in accounting literature in general, it has not been applied at all in relation to the history of Chinese accounting. Within a broader research on accounting change in China, this paper uses oral history to investigate patterns of career of accountants in China, since the establishment of the People’s Republic. We interviewed 21 retired accountants, ageing from 65 to 92 at the time of the interview, asking them to share their professional experience in open and unstructured interviews. A reconstruction of individual experiences is provided, with interesting insights emerging from the narratives of our interviewees. In contrast to the focus on influential informants in current literature, we investigate Chinese accounting changes as they emerge from the collective memory of normal accountants. Taking a pluralist perspective, we collect non-archival data to illustrate the education and common elements in accounting professional career development. The view from below underlines the limitation of the top down linear relation of the state and the profession theorization about accounting change in China (affecting both the accounting and ideology and the hegemony interpretation). The findings contribute to our understanding of accounting changes in China and its social and economic impacts on the profession.