The Governance of Chartered Accounting Associations: does gender matter? The case of Italy. ABSTRACT

Both international literature findings and recent surveys suggest that the under-representation of women in senior roles in the accounting profession continues to be a challenge because it has traditionally been dominated by established male power structures. Starting from this premise the purpose of this work is to analyse the degree of representativeness of women in the accounting profession in Italy, paying particular attention to both their presence within the National Order of Public Chartered Accountants and the governance bodies at a 18 local and national level. Drawing from a critical analysis of the surveys issued by the Italian Order and the Italian Foundation of Chartered Accountants we addressed the attention on the gender equality issues, as well as the professional equality initiatives developed in the latest years. Findings show a significant gender gap in the governance of the national accountancy profession, allowing us to suggest a research agenda aimed at further enhancing this research stream both in practice and theory and pointing out the possible actions to enhance women’s representativeness and gender balance.