Professional and Bureaucratic Organization in the Public Accounting Firm.

Abstract This article focuses on a study which analyzed an organizational disagreement in merged organizational structure in the public accounting firms. The growth of the public accounting profession has been at a time in history characterized by phenomenal changes in organizational structures. Within the theoretical modes of professional and bureaucratic organization there are common and mutually exclusive characteristics. The impact of these characteristics within the firm may confront the individual accountant with divergent organizational orientations. Large public accounting firms appear to be unique since no other currently known profession has been able to develop professionally through the widespread use of nationally or regionally organized offices. Maintaining a large organization, whatever the purpose, through chains of delegated authority and responsibility reflects an organizational complexity which, at some point, emerges into a pattern identified as bureaucracy.