The rationale of routinization of work: The case of CIMA in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The question of how a management accounting professionalising project in a postcolonial context has gained recognition and, in turn, access to work, has encouraged tracing the history of a development in Sri Lanka. This has produced an analysis illustrating that it was a mode of routinized practices which created a recognisable and accessible professional space in work settings for qualified CIMA professionals to prosper. Using the ideas of sociology of professions advanced by Abbott (1988) and recent advances in pragmatic sociology (Boltanski and Thevenot, 2006), the paper argues that such routinized practices have been debated, compromised and justified as a ‘Common Good’ to be appreciated by any work setting. It is this ‘Common Good’ which appears to be institutionalised work performance operating outside the regulatory realm of the accounting profession, and which has made contributions to the economy.