Examining Resources in an Occupational Community: Reputation in Canadian Forensic Accounting

Occupational communities represent bounded cultures populated by people with similar work identities that transcend organizational settings. In this paper, I examine the relationship between an occupational community's culture and its ability to control strategic resources that advantage its members. Drawing on an empirical examination of the Canadian forensic accounting, I argue that reputation acts as a strategic resource, not only for individual members, but for the community as a whole. The community's practice standards and membership rules work to heighten the importance of individual practitioners' reputations, which in turn benefits client communities by conferring legitimacy on their claims, and restricts entry into forensic accounting. The role of reputation in Canadian forensic accounting serves to illuminate the importance of resources that, rather than being held in some proprietary fashion, are shared among actors who are, ostensibly, in competition with one another.