An exploration of the espoused organizational cultures of public accounting firms

A study measures and describes the "espoused" organizational cultures of 11 chartered accounting firms. Cluster analysis is used to classify each accounting firm's espoused organizational culture into one of 4 ideal culture types - elite, leadership, meritocratic or collegial. The analysis indicated that there are only limited differences in the organizational cultures espoused externally by accounting firms, regardless of the size of the practice. However, the results also indicate that messages or signals projected to outside parties through external documents are significantly different to the messages and signals conveyed to staff members. The findings suggest that public accounting firms have a uniform organizational culture but are heterogeneous with respect to internal value sets. This result supports the need for further research into this distinctive cultural split in interpreting the behavior of accounting firms.