Using meaning-oriented content analysis, we apply our typology to Big Four auditors’ public-inquiry evidence. Drawing upon the prior literature, we develop a typology for examining how Big Four auditors impression-manage on a ‘frontstage’. By extending Goffman to a contemporary auditing context, we mobilize less-researched aspects of his dramaturgical framework. We use impression management theory to make sense of this evidence. To examine how Big Four auditors react to public scrutiny, we explore their evidence at a public inquiry on the Irish banking crisis. We conclude by examining the implications of this research for analysing stereotyping and the way the stereotype of the accountant has been developing in recent years. This accords with the range of ways the word beancounter has been used as a stereotype of accountants in a database of newspapers and magazines published between January 1970 and June 1995. In order to explore further the different nuances of the beancounter stereotype, we develop a general model of stereotype generation. These nuances can be affected by the nature of the relationship different groups have with the stereotyped group. Stereotypes may be generated from different sources, transmitted through varied media and associated with a range of subtly different nuances. Evidence is provided from a literature search on “beancounter' that this traditional stereotype is not disappearing, but that it is multifaceted, incorporating several very different nuances. Recently the stereotype has been confirmed as applicable in the past, but some have suggested that this long standing stereotype is disappearing. The image of the beancounter who is single-mindedly preoccupied with precision and form, methodical and conservative, and a boring joyless character has, until recently, been widely recognized as the clear stereotype of the accountant.

Zeanaiu beancounter 4