Development of Accounting Profession in Rwanda

Abstract

This study investigates the professionalization of accounting in Rwanda. Using a historical approach, the study sifts the critical events that marked this process. The analysis is organized around key components of professionalization and professionalism including the identification triggers of professionalization, the pathway that professionalization in Rwanda went through, stakeholders involved in the process and finally the nature of professionalism that resulted in this dynamic of professionalization.  The results indicate that exogenous and endogenous factors such as economic factors, conflict prevention and resolution play an important role in spurring accounting professionalization and involved key stakeholders. In particular, the study complements previous researches in structuring the understanding of the phenomena around the above key themes, in raising the hallmark of the Rwandan professionalization such as professionalization as a strategy towards the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and as a mechanism for conflict prevention and resolution. While in other contexts it has been observed a competitive, inter and intra professional conflicts towards accessing the social closure, the Rwandan case has revealed a quasi-granted social closure by the government but in win-win situation. The study also complements the literature by coining the concept of transitional corporatism in comparison to the extant forms of corporatism to wit liberal corporatism and state corporatism.