Changing legitimacy narratives about professional ethics and independence in the 1930\u27s Journal of Accountancy

The 1930s in the U.S. were marked by an economic crisis, governmental regulatory response, and a significant audit failure. This paper examines the profession\u27s struggle for legitimacy during these times through its choice of narratives regarding professional ethics and independence as revealed in the national professional organization\u27s monthly, the Journal of Accountancy. Initially ethics is a state-of-mind or narrative of character was used but transitioned to a more objectively determinable narrative of technique as the decade progressed. To counter governmental regulation, the profession attempted to shift the independence discourse away from regulation of accountants to regulation of client companies