Taking stock and moving forward: a systematic literature review on accounting professionalisation in China, 1980–2021

PurposeThis paper aims to review the research on accounting professionalisation in China to develop insights into how the research is developing, offer a critique of the research to date and outline future research directions and opportunities.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts a methodological approach of systematic literature review, as suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003) and Denyer and Tranfield (2009), to identify, select and analyse the extant literature on the Chinese public accounting profession. In total, 68 academic works were included in the review process.FindingsThis paper finds that the extant literature has produced fruitful insights into the processes and underlying motivation of accounting professionalisation in China, demonstrating that the Chinese experience has differed, to a large extent, from the hitherto mainly Anglo-American-dominated understandings of accounting professionalisation. However, due to the lack of common theoretical vernacular and an agreed upon focus, the extant literature illustrates a fragmented and contradictory picture, making attempts to accumulate prior knowledge in the field increasingly difficult.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper focusses only on research published in English. Consequently, the scope of review has been limited as some works published in languages other than English may be excluded.Originality/valueThis paper provides one of the pioneering exercises to systematically review the research on accounting professionalisation in China. It explores significant issues arising from the analysis and provides several suggestions for furthering the research effort in this field