Awarded the Outstanding Paper Award by the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2010, Professor Peggy Wallace teaches Fundamentals of Financial Accounting, Organization Theory and Human Resources Planning in the Business Administration Program.

Prof. Wallace’s article was chosen as the most impressive article from the previous year, following consultation amongst the editorial team for the journal in which it was published. Prof. Wallace’s article is entitled "Career stories of women professional accountants examining the personal narratives of career using Simone de Beauvoir's feminist existentialist philosophy as a theoretical framework" and was published in Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: an International Journal by Emerald Group Publishing Limited in the United Kingdom.

“Prof Wallace's award-winning article is a testimony to the unique nature of her ongoing program of research and scholarship,” said Asaf Zohar, director of Business Administration at Trent. “It continues to build on her work in the areas of professional careers of women in accounting, and feminist perspectives on careers and identities. She employs storied research methodologies situated within a critical hermeneutic and feminist-oriented existentialism. Her work has been heralded for its scholarly contribution to feminist studies of identity, particularly in the field of critical management studies. In addition, her work has significant practical relevance, as it offers us new ways of thinking about the management of accounting organizations, and the accounting profession. “

Further information regarding the awards for excellence can be found at the following site:
www.emeraldinsight.com/literati

The paper itself came from Prof. Wallace’s doctoral dissertation, which examined the career stories of professional women accountants using the existentialist philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir as a framework. Prof. Wallace’s qualitative research found that career paths of professional women in the accounting field did not necessarily emerge through conscious choice or decision but rather on the basis of external influences such as university program streaming or the advice and / or encouragement of third parties such as family or friends. This raises questions concerning the effect of active vs. passive decision-making in career path choice.

“You are who you are by the choices you make,” says Prof. Wallace. “Not choosing is still choosing.”

Students in Prof. Wallace’s organization theory class have the opportunity to work on interesting projects such as critiquing stereotypes in professional accounting recruitment materials. According to Prof. Wallace, a problem with career literature is that it often uses a masculine model of upward mobility to look at women’s (and men’s) careers. “If you’re not going up the ladder in a straight line, you don’t have a career according to this model,” Prof. Wallace suggests. “A career can be what you make of it and where you go; it’s not just upward.”

Dr. Wallace’s research is in the socialization and identity of professionals, particularly accountants. Prior to becoming an academic Dr. Wallace worked for 20 plus years in public accounting firms and in accounting roles in industry. She is a Chartered Accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario.