@article{5a3db97466f041c9a377eda85a56843a,
title = "Elmer G Beamer and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants: The pursuit of a cognitive standard for the accounting profession",
abstract = "This article investigates Elmer G Beamer{\textquoteright}s (1909–2000) activities at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) during a 30-year period beginning in the 1950s, using a theoretical lens from the sociology of professions literature. Beamer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1909 and trained as an accountant with Haskins & Sells after graduating from high school. He stayed with the same firm throughout his career and rose to the position of partner. While in public practice, Beamer gave unselfishly of his time to the profession. As a member of the AICPA, Beamer chaired the Committee on the Common Body of Knowledge of CPAs (Certified Public Accountants), Committee on Education and Experience Requirements, and the Ad Hoc Committee on Continuing Education. The goal of the three committees was to establish a common body of knowledge for accountants in public practice. Beamer{\textquoteright}s efforts resulted in the 150 credit-hour requirements for CPAs and the mandate for yearly continuing professional education for accountants to maintain an active CPA license in the United States. The article draws on archival material from the Elmer G. Beamer Papers Collection at the University of Florida. The collection contains over 500 items of Beamer{\textquoteright}s personal correspondence, committee memorandums, and writings. The article concludes with a discussion of the empirical narrative and Beamer{\textquoteright}s role in the larger context of the professionalization of the accounting discipline in the United States.",
keywords = "150 credit-hour requirement, AAA, accounting education, accounting history, AICPA, Beamer Committee, biography, continuing education requirement, CPA license, Elmer G Beamer, Haskins & Sells",
author = "Persson, {Martin E.} and Radcliffe, {Vaughan S.} and Mitch Stein",
note = "Funding Information: Beamer{\textquoteright}s three-man ad hoc committee was charged with obtaining funding and selecting the personnel for the proposed Committee on the Common Body of Knowledge of CPAs. As the name implies, the purpose of this planned committee was to define a “common body of knowledge” that all CPAs should possess. The work of the Commission, AAA Committee, and the Bailey Committee on educational standards and experience of prospective public accountants had made it abundantly apparent that the knowledge base of accounting was evolving and had never been properly defined. Carey (1970: 275) refers to this being an issue of clearly defining the principles and procedures applicable to accountants in a similar way that had already occurred in the “older professions.” The Institute was concerned that a failure to do so had led to unfortunate misconceptions among the general public, which had come to equate accounting to detailed clerical work and financial statements to summaries drawn from double-entry bookkeeping records. This misconception had then spilled over to universities, where accounting was often seen as lacking the intellectual rigor to command the same attention as other practical arts such as engineering, law, and medicine (Carey, 1970). Beamer shared in these concerns and felt that “a study of this subject is one of the Institute{\textquoteright}s most important pending projects.”19 To finance the proposed committee, the AICPA applied for a research grant from the Carnegie Foundation in August 1962.20 The Institute sought US$50,000 in financing with the understanding that it would match that amount with its own funds. The Carnegie Foundation had then become a serious actor in shaping higher education policies in the United States, having already sponsored one of the research studies (Pierson, 1959) that came to signal the quantitative turn in American business schools described in the introduction (the Ford Foundation had sponsored the other study, Gordon and Howell, 1959). It also so happened that Clifford V Heimbucher, a member of the Institute{\textquoteright}s Executive Committee and named partner of Farquhar & Heimbucher in San Francisco, was a personal acquaintance of John W Gardner, the President of the Carnegie Corporation and author of self-improvement books (Beamer expresses his admiration for Gardner (1961, 1964) and his books Excellence and Self-Renewal in later correspondence).21Arrangements were therefore made for Heimbucher to meet Beamer{\textquoteright}s ad hoc committee and Institute executive staff, and upon their instructions Heimbucher arranged for a personal audience with Gardner.22The funding application was approved two months later for two yearly installments of US$25,000 each.23 Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016, {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2016.",
year = "2018",
month = feb,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1177/1032373216668882",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "23",
pages = "71--92",
journal = "Accounting History",
issn = "1032-3732",
publisher = "SAGE Publishing",
number = "1-2",
}