Ghislaine Garmilis. Should accounting professionals be disciplined ?. MSCAF ’09 : 1st Mediterranean Critical Studies in Accounting and Finance Conference, Jul 2009, Hammamet, Tunisia.

The purpose of this article is to get an understanding of the role of the disciplinary process in theaccounting profession quest for legitimacy. As a legal system, the disciplinary mechanism islegitimate if the punishments severity is in proportion with the gravity of the crimes judged. Ourresearch focuses on punishment quality and studies data from the disciplinary proceedings of Frenchand American professional organizations. Using both a typology developed through the study of academic literature, and methodologies fromresearch in criminology, we built a misconduct index. This one is an essential step in the study ofthe link between crimes and sanctions. Five propositions emerge from our empirical study. Theyhelp conclude that professional organizations try to meet the expectations from their economic andfinancial environment. The importance of the disciplinary mechanism in the quest for legitimacy isespecially highlighted in times of financial scandals, and in countries highly state-regulated.