1st Edition
Conceptions of Professionalism Meaningful Standards in Financial Planning
In Conceptions of Professionalism, Ken Bruce and Abdullahi Ahmed present the results of research into understanding what professionalism means to individuals who are CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERâ�€�¢ professionals and how they conceive of acting professionally. Financial planning is establishing itself as a relatively new, emerging profession and an understanding of how its members experience professionalism provides insights that will help those responsible across the international financial planning community to establish relevant, accurate and meaningful professional standards for financial planners. The authors employ the relatively new research methodology of phenomenography, which enables them to describe the qualitatively different ways in which people understand or experience a phenomenon. This particularly lends itself to the study of a concept such as professionalism. This study gives voice to the financial planners represented in the research and will inform standard setting bodies seeking to understand professionalism through the eyes of the professionals themselves. What the research reveals about the concept of professionalism itself will be of value to those whose interests lie beyond the world of financial planning, and the application of the methodology used in the study will inform researchers contemplating phenomenographical studies elsewhere.
Biography
Ken Bruce is the Higher Education Academic Coordinator for Ozford College of Business in Melbourne and is an Adjunct Associate Professor with the School of Commerce and Law at Central Queensland University. He has degrees in Accounting and Education, and an MBA and PhD. He was formerly the head of education and certification at the Financial Planning Association of Australia. He is a Certified Public Accountant. Abdullahi D. Ahmed is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at the Flinders Business School, where he teaches advanced courses in finance, financial planning and international macroeconomic policy. Previously, he was the head of finance and economics programmes at the School of Commerce and Law, Central Queensland University and he was a research fellow and econometrician at the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University. He has taught a number of postgraduate courses including financial econometrics, advanced econometrics and research methodology.
’The latest global financial crisis has put the focus on the emerging professional group of financial planners. This book has undertaken a study which attempts to understand how those financial planners who hold the internationally recognised CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERâ„¢ designation think about being professional. It does this by interestingly applying the qualitative methodology of phenomenography which in this book gives voice to CFP professionals from America, Hong Kong and Australia. The book identifies the qualitatively limited number of ways professionalism is experienced by this group of professionals in each of those countries and then discusses the similarities and differences in conceptions of professionalism. Cultural factors largely explain the differences in how professionalism is experienced across borders and so this book provides some useful insights to the financial planning standards and certifying bodies, regulators and financial planning practitioners.’ Hayat Khan, La Trobe University, Australia ’This book makes an original contribution in the field of financial planning literature as well as in the epistemology of professionalism. Professional financial planners, standard setters and corporate regulators, financial planners’ associations and present and potential clients of financial planners will find this book interesting reading.’ Sheikh F. Rahman, Central Queensland University, Australia
