The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3574.htm
AAAJ
22,1
146
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal
Vol. 22 No. 1, 2009
pp. 146-160
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
DOI 10.1108/09513570910923042
Economia, or a woman in a
man’s world
Michael Page
University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK, and
Laura F. Spira
Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
Abstract
Purpose – Why would a body seeking to represent its members as the prime advisers to business
choose a domestic goddess for its main visual image? The paper aims to examine recent changes to the
visual branding of a professional body by reference to its logo, and those of competing bodies, to
illustrate the importance of visual communication in establishing professional reputation. The paper
seels to trace the historical antecedents of the logo and analyse the relevance of its components to the
body’s current mission.
Design/methodology/approach – A descriptive and historical analysis is followed by a discussion
of alternative theoretical frameworks that might be used to draw conclusions about the significance of
professional badges.
Findings – Visual rebranding is expensive but may be unclear. Despite statements about
modernisation and clarification, new badges can contain as many contradictory messages as old ones,
which may be a result of inward facing viewpoints and competing internal forces within organisations,
detracting from the clarity of the intended external message.
Research limitations/implications – Money spent on rebranding may be wasted if the
organisation does not have a clear view of its market position and how it might differentiate itself.
Practical implications – Appeals to different philosophical schools may be successful in
generating insights, but those insights still need to be validated. If they can be validated, in-depth
knowledge of a body of writings may be unnecessary.
Originality/value – Little previous work has examined the visual branding of professional bodies
and discussed alternative approaches to analysis. The dialogue format makes the content more
accessible.
Keywords Accounting history, Brand image, Market position
Paper type General review
Yin and Yang are middle-aged accountants who share an interest in the role of
metaphor in accounting discourse and have regularly engaged in conversation on this
topic for some years (Page and Spira, 1999). They are both members of the Institute of
Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). We find them in the Members
and Guests room of the Victorian building, which houses that august body. Yin is idly
surfing the ICAEW web site on her laptop.
The authors are grateful to Glauco de Vita for assistance with translation and to contributors to
the alt.usage.english newsgroup, particularly Tony Cooper, for helpful comment and
encouragement.
Scene 1: The members and guests room of the Institute of Chartered Economia, or a
Accountants in England and Wales woman in a
Yin: Did you know that the Institute has been rebranded?
Yang: Ah, that must be why all the emails I get from people here have “Inspiring man’s world
Confidence” in red block capitals in the sig, as well as all the usual disclaimers. I’m still
trying to work out who is inspiring confidence and in whom, not to mention how. Or is
inspiring an adjective? Does this mean that members should be striding around 147
demonstrating that their level of confidence is so high that it is inspiring? Come to
think of it, there was a new flag outside the Institute as I came in (see Figure 1).
Yin: [pointing at her laptop] Look here. The web site[1] says:
Over the last year, the Institute has been developing its strategy. We have looked, in
particular, at how we position the ICAEW in the future to reinforce our reputation as the
world leading accountancy body. We have consulted widely with our council, members,
students and key external stakeholders about our future ambitions, about building the brand
and reputation of the Institute and how we should position ourselves to achieve our
objectives.
Yang: I don’t remember being consulted, do you? World leading? I thought it was just
England and Wales where we led. Why hasn’t the name been changed to reflect this
global ambition? I know you teach in a business school, but don’t you ever get the
teensiest bit sceptical about the way people go on about “building brands”,
“ambitions”, “reputations” and “objectives”?
Yin: The name may not have been changed, but the brand mark has. The web site
continues:
When designing our new corporate identity we wanted to ensure that the new design
reflected the values of our brand story and, while retaining the very best from our heritage,
moved us forward for the future. Our new look is both clear and modern but it is also
distinctive and reflects our ambitions in the UK and internationally.
Yang: See what I mean, what the heck is a “brand story” and how can it have “values”.
Is a brand mark the same as a logo? Can a simple graphic really carry so much
baggage?
Yin: That flag you saw on the way in was the new brand mark (reads from web
page):
You will see that the new mark is an evolution from our existing logo. It retains the Institute
Lady, Economia, but positions her for the future.
Economia represents the true values of good management. The earliest known illustration of
her is in a book, “Iconologica”[2] by Cesare Ripa, published in 1603AD .

She is depicted with items, which still have significance for us today:
– The rod, signifies command

– The rudder, the symbol of guidance

– Pair of compasses or dividers, denoting accurate measurement

The way she looks has changed, but as the symbol of the highest professional standards she
remains as important as ever.
AAAJ
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148

Figure 1.

For this reason we have chosen to retain her as one of the bastions of the brand allowing a
clear link between our heritage and our ambitions for the future.
Yang: So it was a logo and now it’s a mark? Were there really chartered accountants in
1603? In what way is she positioned for the future? That long dress looks a bit
old-fashioned.
 Yin: Doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that such a male-dominated profession as Economia, or a
accountancy was in those days should have adopted a female representation? woman in a
Yang (reading over her shoulder): It would appear that you are not the first to ask a
similar question man’s world
The identity of “The Institute Lady” and the meaning of the coat of arms surrounding her is
raised from time to time by curious members – and understandably so, as it can seem hard to
imagine what connection the matronly figure with a ship’s rudder has to the Institute of 149
Chartered Accountants.
Yin: Yes, it has always struck me as odd that she has a rudder with her, although it is
quite hard to make out in the new image. I always think of her standing on the shore
waving bye bye to a ship and calling out, “I’ve got your rudder, boys!”
Yang: There’s a bit more explanation here – it tells us about the design of the
Institute Coat of Arms and includes a description of Economia taken from Ripa’s book:
The author describes Economia as: “A matron of serious aspect crowned with olive and
holding a compass in her left hand, a rod in her right. Behind her is a rudder. Every family has
need of its own particular laws, so she is shown holding a rod signifying command. The
rudder is the symbol of guidance. The garland of olive shows that the good economist must
necessarily maintain peace in her house. The compass teaches how each economist should
measure her powers and so estimate by means of reckoning what she has to spend”.
We seem to have lost the olives.
Yin: And the scales, which are part of the coat of arms and appeared in the last
version of the logo.
Yang: I can see why, in 1881, the Institute wanted a coat of arms; it’s what
everybody did in those days. But why did they light on Economia to be our mascot? It’s
not as if there were many women in the profession in those days. I don’t seem to recall
Economia as an ancient goddess from classical studies. When did she come into being?
[At this point their conversation is interrupted by a summons to a meeting.]

Scene 2: The Old Council Chamber at the Institute: a couple of weeks later
Yang: Hello again. Have you found out any more about Economia since we last met? I
know how you academics like to ferret about down obscure byways.
Yin: It’s called research. I can’t find anything about her before she appeared in
Ripa’s book, despite the fact that he claimed to have based his figures on ancient
statuary.
Yang: He probably needed to fill up some space and made her up. Authors do that
you know. The book was probably the 1603 equivalent of a stocking filler.
Yin: It seems to have been a popular book. It went into several editions and was
very influential throughout Europe in providing sources for artists. There is some
debate among Renaissance scholars about the relationships and differences between
emblems, devices, badges and imprese but one authority says that:
The emblem books, or collections of emblems, were primarily anthologies of moral symbols
presented in visual and verbal terms (Hill, 1970).
Yang: The Victorians were rather keen on allegorical representations, weren’t they?
Have you looked closely at the outside of this building? There is a very impressive
frieze with figures representing “craft”, “industry”, “agriculture” and so on. And given
AAAJ the historical influences on accounting practice, it’s not really surprising that our
22,1 predecessors would have turned to an Italian source, I suppose.
Yin: Ripa’s book was widely copied and embellished. I’ve found four different
pictures of her. She seems a very respectable figure for the nineteenth century
accountant to have chosen. No bare breasts or anything.
Yang: Although there is a sculpted version of Economia displaying her charms over the
150 main entrance to this building. On the other hand, the stern governess has always had a bit
of attraction for the middle class, privately educated British male. Look at all those cards
you used to see in phone boxes. You and I are both old enough to remember phone boxes.
Yin: Yes, but I didn’t read the cards in them with the attention to detail that you
seem to have done. The descriptions that accompany the pictures explain the
symbolism (see Figure 2).
This one, where she is leaning rather nonchalantly on the rudder, is described in
very similar terms to the Institute web site version:
This venerable dame is crowned with olive, has a pair of compasses in her left hand, a small
wand in her right and the rudder of a ship by her side. The stick denotes the rule a master has
over his house; the rudder the care a father ought to have over his children; the olive garland the
pains he is to take in maintaining peace in his family; the rudder, prudence and moderation.
That comes from an English edition of Ripa’s book published in – er – MDCCIX . . .
Yang: 1709 in real money.
Yin: Don’t you think it’s interesting that the venerable dame seems to be surrounded
by symbols of explicitly male household rule?

Figure 2.
But if you look back to the explanation of Economia that we first looked at on the web Economia, or a
site, (which first appeared in an article in The Accountant in 1948 by the Institute’s woman in a
librarian) you’ll see it returns to the feminine pronoun (Gordon, 1948).
Yang: Far more politically correct. The lady herself seems to have evolved
man’s world
somewhat. She seems to have got more attractive over the years. In the old version of
the logo (see Figure 3) she bore a passing resemblance to Nigella Lawson[3], which was
an improvement on Ripa’s lady, but now she has slimmed down and gone blonde. 151
Yang: Have you noticed where we are and the decorations? (gazes upwards) I
always marvel at the decoration in here. Not only are we treated to Economia on the
notepaper but another bevy of stern Victorian matrons on the walls. There they are:
Justice, Prudence, Wisdom and Truth, originally gazing down on the meetings of the
old chartered accountants and, presumably, informing their deliberations.
I don’t know about you, but I find it a bit desperate; a young profession trying just a
bit too hard to appear ancient and respectable whereas most of them were liquidators
who picked over the bones of defunct companies for a living. Perhaps they took it all
terribly seriously, but I can’t help looking at in terms of “inverse truth”. There is a
fascinating tendency for people to emphasise exactly the opposite of what is going on.
Take all those job adverts for “dynamic self-starting team players to work in a vibrant
forward-looking environment” when what they are looking for is some drudge who
doesn’t mind reconciling supplier accounts five days a week from now until eternity.
But I digress, maybe this is the “post modern irony” I hear so much about. If the people
who buy these corporate makeovers aren’t seeing it in that spirit, the people who sell
them probably do so with their tongues inserted just a little way into their cheeks.
Yin: The choices that professions make about how to identify themselves and lay
claim to symbols of legitimacy are interesting. This has been analysed in respect of the
US medical profession by Fiol and O’Connor (2005), who considered the white coat as a
symbol.
Yang: I thought their symbol was the stick with snakes round it?

Figure 3.
The Institute’s old logo
AAAJ Yin: There is some debate about whether the appropriate symbol should be that or the
22,1 staff of Aesculapius, which has only one snake. The latter is favoured by those who
know the origins of the two symbols, since Aesculapius was a surgeon whereas the
caduceus, apparently, has its source in the activities of alchemists whose ideals might
be deemed less lofty. (Hinek and Backstein, 2004) Indeed the caduceus is now often
associated with commerce, which explains its appearance in the coat of arms of another
152 accountancy body, the ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants).
Yang: Ah, the benefits of a classical education! But are logos that important?
Yin: As Warren (2005) points out, the visual is probably the most important way we
make sense of the world and the main metaphors explaining even accounting processes
are visual – accountability is a process of making things visible and transparent.
Warren also suggests that making an image may tell us more about the person that
makes the image than about what the image depicts. My point is that logos and brands
may be reinterpreted over time, both by the groups which choose them, and which may
want to redefine themselves, and also by the audiences they are attempting to
influence, who may have quite a different interpretation.
Yang: I see what you mean. There has been a lot of fuss about the decision to
remove Britannia, another formidable lady if ever there was one, from the 50 pence
piece. How much did this Institute makeover cost?
Yin: They paid the consultants[4], £65,000, plus there are some ongoing costs, I
think.
Yang: See what I mean, it’s a con trick. My kid could have redesigned the logo for a
tenner and it wouldn’t have looked any worse.
Yin: I have some sympathy with what you say, but on the other hand impressions
count. I’ll obviously have to do some reading about this.

Scene 3: The restaurant of the Tate Modern Gallery on Bankside

Yang: Splendid view from up here. Thank you for suggesting it for a spot of lunch.
Yin: Well I thought, as we were discussing the importance of the visual last time we
met, a good view would help us carry on the conversation.
Yang: [eyeing the menu and realising that the lunch will be reasonably priced] My
treat, I think it’s my turn to buy lunch this time. What have you found out?
Yin: Well you may not have noticed while you have been busy embracing your
employer’s “cost leadership strategy”, or institutionalised cheese-paring as some might
call it, but some of the most successful organisations of recent times have got that way
by selling products that have design and flair rather than merely being utilitarian.
Think of the iPod. We might call it the triumph of form over function.
Yang: I’m not totally locked in the nineteenth century, you know. I have got a
teenage daughter who, like the rest of her friends, seems more interested in the label
than what it is sewn onto.
Yin: Anyway, it seems, as I’ve always assumed, that heraldic shields date back to
pre-literate times when knights would identify themselves with the designs on their
shields, a bit like footballers and other sportspersons have their names on their shirts.
In our post-literate times organisations’ logos seem to serve the same function – have
you noticed how companies have been renaming themselves with either initials or
meaningless words?
 Yang: I’ve been doing a bit of reading too. In the dim dark days of long ago (1960 to Economia, or a
be precise) when marketing was becoming more professionalised, the American
Marketing Association defined a brand purely in terms of the visual. Its online
woman in a
dictionary still uses the same approach. man’s world
A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service
as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may
identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, 153
the preferred term is trade name.
Quite a lot of people, including brand consultants, extend the idea of brands to
encompass a lot more, but at the end of the day, the way in which an organisation
communicates with its consumers is largely through visual media – print advertising,
web sites and so on. That’s particularly true for the Institute of Chartered Accountants,
which doesn’t go in for television advertising a great deal. What that comes down to is
saying that if brands are “more than a logo”, and some associated rules about typefaces
and so on, then the logo is still going to be the way in which they communicate with the
consumers. de Chernantony and Dall’olmo Reilly (1997) – I’ll use the convention you
academics love of referring to stuff I’ve read by authors’ names and date of publication
– point out that there is no reason to believe that the recipients of the message take the
meaning intended by the originators.
Ying: One of the thoughts that occurred to me was “Who are the consumers?”. Who
are the Institute trying to impress? Professional organisations work at several levels.
Ostensibly they are associations representing their members to the outside world by
providing some kind of assurance of quality – setting admissions criteria and
disciplining cowboys and making collective views known to government and other
bodies. A lot of the smaller firms use the Institute logo on their headed notepaper to
emphasise to clients that they are Chartered Accountants to differentiate themselves
from their competitors, many of whom have no substantial accountancy qualifications.
On the other hand, once a professional association becomes a substantial
organisation in its own right, like the Institute is, then it relates to its membership as
consumers and, in a big association, the internal organisation of the business and
competition between its different departments can become important in determining
its outward facing communication.
Yang: I suppose that is why brand consultants have grown into a thriving
profession. In an organisation with clear lines of authority, a designer can knock up a
selection of logos and the board can choose the one it likes, but when you have complex
power relationships it is important to be able to demonstrate that you have taken the
best decisions possible, so you employ a brand consultant at vast expense. It is another
of these pleasing ironies that the Institute’s logo was first adopted when it was a young
profession, and now it has employed a firm from another young profession to redesign
its logo. You might almost say that the defining characteristic of a profession is that its
members provide answers to questions for which there are no objectively correct
answers. It’s not objectively true that financial statements provide a true and fair view,
neither is there an objectively best logo for the Institute. If you are contemplating a
change in the logo, you know that you are going to be criticised, so you have to be able
to explain the change was conducted with all due process and managed by experts.
Coming back to what people mean by brands, de Chernantony and Dall’olmo Reilly
(1997) – love those names – found that managers and customers had quite different
AAAJ perceptions of what brands are. Many managers are internally focussed and make brand
22,1 decisions for internal reasons, whereas most customers just use the image to pick the
right package off the shelves. When asked what a brand should convey, managers often
talk about “quality, excellence, integrity and value for money” (p. 97) without realising all
their competitors are trying to do the same thing. Brand consultants, it seems, try to get
organisations to focus on what differentiates them, but managers find this hard to do.
154 Yin: I’m not so sure that all of this is as modern as some brand consultants would
have us think. What we think of as a “logo” was certainly much more complex in the
past. The emblems or imprese used by knights in tournaments have been analysed by
Young (1988) and were quite complex in their symbolism and the mottoes could
contain political messages, especially in Elizabethan times.
If we go back to the Institute coat of arms that was embellished in 1981 to celebrate
its centenary, we can see some detailed changes (see Figure 4):
A Crest and Supporters have been added to the Shield of Arms of the Institute, granted in
1881.

[. . .]

The Shield is now ensigned by a Helm with Mantling, on which is a Crest, whose main feature
is a tower with portals. Twin turrets rise from the tower, and set between them is a heraldic
star. The tower suggests a corporate body, well established on a solid foundation of accuracy
and care. The twin turrets are an allusion to the double-entry system of bookkeeping. The
radiated star symbolises the application of electronics to methods of calculation and the speed
of communication of data.

In the Helm is a lion’s mask, an ornamental feature of Helms in the 19th century and matching
the scroll work of the original Shield. A lion and dragon are the Supporters. Each has been
garlanded with olive, a wreath of which is about the temples of Economia. Each Supporter
has a key of gold fastened to a chain and a blue ring, the key being a symbol of security. The
ward of the key held by the lion of England is shaped as an “E”, and the key held by the
dragon of Wales has its ward in the form of a “W”.

Figure 4.
The Institute’s Coat of
Arms
 Red, blue and gold, being the major colours (or tinctures) used, appear again in the Economia, or a
“compartment”, the base on which the Supporters stand, which is designed to resemble a
chequerboard, originally an aid to monetary calculation. The compartment is made of exactly woman in a
100 squares, thus noting emblematically the Institute’s centenary[5]. man’s world
But much of this symbolism is now lost in the evolution of the brand mark.
Yang: But however hard the designer of an “achievement”, as I have now learned it is
called, explains what the different parts of the design are supposed to mean, it doesn’t 155
stop the viewer from imposing their own interpretation on it. Wasn’t that Derrida’s
whole point about deconstruction? It is fruitless to analyse a text in order to try to
discover what an author meant. The text exists in its own right and the reader puts
their own interpretation on a logo. Barthes said much the same thing when he talked
about the “Death of the Author”.
Returning to the new Institute “badge”, for, technically, I think that is what it has
become, don’t you find it odd that it is now only half a shield? Doesn’t that cause you to
wonder what is in the other half. Is it like one of those Swiss chalets that are supposed
to forecast the weather – the woman comes out if it is going to fine but the man comes
out if it is going to rain? It’s all to do with the dampness in the air untwisting a strand
of horse hair, I think. But I could be wrong.
Yin: I think you might find another French Sociologist Philosopher, Baudrillard,
might be more useful for your purpose than Derrida. Baudrillard, along with some
others like Saussure and Barthes, was interested in the function of signs and symbols
in creating people’s understandings of meanings in society. In particular, he thought
that meaning was created by the interrelationships of signs. Belova (2006) applies a
Barthian approach to visual rather than written texts. She emphasises the importance
of the viewer in constructing the meaning of signs. The Institute logo seems to me to be
a pretty good example of a sign, particularly one that is communicated through mass
media, which was another pre-occupation of Baudrillard’s.
Yang: Hm, I’m not so sure about going into the depths of French Philosophy really.
I’ve tried reading some of it and it is hard going, even in English translation.
Yin: Coming from an academic this may sound like heresy, but actually it may not
be necessary to read this stuff in great depth. It may be adequate to rely on simplified
accounts of philosophers’ thinking.
Yang: Surely not! I thought you academics were supposed to read very deeply in the
scholastic tradition in order to derive your insights and that in some way the depths of
your scholarship validated them.
Yin: To a certain extent I agree with you – the more one can read the better, but it is
also a question of belief and of investment of time. Some academics have ideologies;
they are committed to some system of belief, a variant of Marxism, say, and it follows
that they see the world through the lens provided by that system of belief. If you are
“labour process theorist” you are pretty much bound to come to the conclusion that
management is commodifying labour.
Most ideologies have a body of authoritative writing, a “sacred canon”; for Marxists
the works of Marx and Engels would be included in the canon, for example. True
believers work by teasing out insights from the writing. This process of exegesis
demands in depth reading of everything in the sacred canon. This is actually quite useful,
even if you don’t share the ideology, because when you read the work of these people you
know where they are coming from and you can interpret the work accordingly.
AAAJ Other people have invested immense amounts of time in studying the work of
particular schools of philosopher and know, and are under the impression they
22,1 understand, what these schools are saying. The investment in philosophical
scholarship is used to generate articles about different aspects of, say, accounting
phenomena. This comes to pretty much the same thing as having an ideology.
Beyond a certain point diminishing returns set in, because there is no guarantee, or
156 even very great likelihood, that the ideology or school of philosophy has a greater claim
to being right than anyone else. Accordingly, unless one is already committed to the
viewpoint of the ideology or philosophers, one needs to evaluate the validity of the
insights they generate independently.
I’m afraid I take a rather utilitarian view of these things. It is usually the headline
thoughts of different writers that are useful in generating new insights. An
archaeologist friend was astonished that Michel Foucault had become an influential
writer in certain strands of thought in Accounting but, when it was pointed out, he
agreed the insight that “People in power define what counts as knowledge” does have
quite a lot of application in the field of accounting.
Appeal to in-depth knowledge of the work of “great men” may provide scholastic
satisfaction and some kind of assurance of consistency, but it doesn’t validate. Choose
a different great man – or woman for that matter – and you will generate a different
insight. It is not necessarily the case that they are right, it is just they may help one to
have new insights into the world and we need to exercise our critical judgement about
whether they have taken us anywhere.
Yang: If we go back to Derrida, then – I think he emphasised the importance of
contradictions within “texts”. Our Economia is full of contradictions.
Ripa describes her as “venerable” – “Worthy of being venerated, revered, or highly
respected and esteemed, on account of character or position” (OED) but the new badge
has her as a cross between Ursula Andress in “She” and Jessica Rabbit. The rod she is
holding is supposed to symbolise firm governance but she is holding it not as a stick to
beat someone with but in an odd sort of stabbing grip. The rudder is conspicuously not
working because it has been taken off the boat and the compass is also being held in a
way that suggests that she doesn’t know what to do with it. At a larger scale, the
Institute’s message is definitely that Chartered Accountants are fully rounded business
professionals but we are offered, literally, a Domestic Goddess.
Yin: I’ll grant you that as a contradiction. The word “economy” derives from the
ancient Greek word meaning “one who manages a household”, a “steward” if you like.
Both of these things might have been appropriate in 1881 but now the message of
accountants is that they give advice and undertake financial management for large
organisations. Stewardship is now regarded as rather old fashioned and fuddy duddy,
especially in financial reporting. The IASB (International Accounting Standards
Board) is trying to delete stewardship, as a separate objective, from its conceptual
framework by saying it is all part of decision-making, really.
Strangely enough “economy” has a second interpretation derived from an
importation into mediaeval Latin from contemporary Greek meaning a religious
indulgence. “Economia” itself is used to mean a kind of remission from strict practice in
the Greek Orthodox church, or at least that is what Wikipedia tells me.
Yang: I think this is enough deconstruction of the new badge to tell us that
underneath what appears to be a simple redesign of the logo lurk dark currents. What
about Baudrillard? Where would he take us?
 Yin: Well, if one accepts that the sign of itself doesn’t tell the whole story but that it Economia, or a
can only be interpreted in relation to other signs, a good place to start looking would be woman in a
at the logos of the other accountancy bodies. The English and Scottish Institutes of
Chartered Accountants are pretty much friends – their members practise together and man’s world
take similar routes to qualification whereas there is considerable rivalry between the
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the ICAEW. ICAEW members
always used to look down on the ACCA which was regarded as an easier qualification 157
to get and to an extent that was true of CIMA (the Chartered Institute of Management
Accountants) whose origins were in the “Cost and Works Accountants”, who probably
wore blue collars and had dirt under their finger nails (see Figure 5).
It’s instantly apparent that the two bodies of chartered accountants are projecting
similar messages of being well established with traditional values. Whereas the ACCA
and CIMA use text-only logos in clean, modern fonts as if to say, “We are the
organisations fitted for the modern world”. CIMA even has a change of font in the
middle in the style associated with internet companies.
Yang: Do you recall that the ACCA changed its name to the “Chartered Association
of Certified Accountants” when it was awarded a royal charter as if to emphasise “We
are chartered accountants, too”. Unfortunately no one noticed that the acronym would
become “CACA”, which one dictionary defines as “A childish term for excrement”.
Accordingly it was very soon decreed that the approved initialism was to be ACCA
and the organisation subsequently changed its name again to become the Association
of Chartered Certified Accountants – an interesting example of the sign determining
the substance, I think.
Yin: Indeed. And if you look back at the evolution of the ICAEW badge, which has
been steadily “modernised”, this could be symbolic recognition of the immense strides
that ACCA and CIMA have made in competition with ICAEW, in particular. The
members of the ACCA and CIMA can earn just as much as the members of ICAS and
ICAEW, perhaps more for jobs in industry. I suspect, if you control for parental
occupation and education, the ACCA and CIMA qualifications now stand at a bit of a
premium. ACCA has been very successful in growing its overseas membership,
something ICAEW is just waking up to, and a text-based logo has the advantage that it

Figure 5.
Other accountancy
bodies’ logos
AAAJ isn’t carrying the cultural, perhaps even imperial, baggage that a shield harking back
22,1 to the history of militarism in mediaeval Europe might be construed as having.
Yang: Have you taken a look at the logos and crests of other such bodies around the
world? The Jamaican Institute chose pineapples and a crocodile as their symbols. What
might we make of that?
Yin: A rather nasty cocktail? Closer to home, the insignia of the Institute’s District
158 Societies all differ slightly. Not all of them include Economia and even those that do
depict her slightly differently in terms of stance and colour of clothing. The firms of
accountants also sometimes get smitten with rebranding fever.
The most recent is Grant Thornton who spent “significantly less than a million
pounds” on changing a difficult-to-interpret blob to a meaningless swirl – sometimes
known as the “plughole”, down which it is hoped the firm won’t descend[6].
Similarly Deloitte and Touche decided to rebrand under the name “Deloitte” in 2003.
Admittedly in some circles they had become known as “toilet and douche” so there
may have been some pressure to change, as well as a complex history of merger. But
whose idea was it to distinguish the firm with a big green full stop?[7]. And why has
Ernst and Young chosen to distinguish itself with a barcode that turns into a yellow
flash?[8].
It seems to me that “rebranding” is something senior management of organisations
get the periodic urge to do when they are not otherwise engaged in other activities of
dubious value, such as rewriting the mission statement or updating the corporate
strategy. Vast amounts of money are spent on the exercises, but in the case of
rebranding, usually what it comes down to is redesigning the notepaper.
Yang: We could get rather carried away with all this interpretation, though. Who
was it who said “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?” Groucho Marx?
Yin: That’s usually attributed to Sigmund Freud. Some scholars in the field of
psychoanalysis doubt whether he did actually say it but others have explored its
possible meanings, which, given that the saying seems intuitively to undermine any
search for meaning, is a sort of hermeneutic irony. And pursuing the tobacco theme,
there is Magritte’s pipe (see Figure 6).

Figure 6.
Magritte’s pipe
Yang: Ah, yes, of course, it isn’t actually a pipe; it’s a painting of a pipe. I’ve found this Economia, or a
fascinating. Who would have thought a little thing like redesigning the logo would woman in a
have prompted such an interesting conversation. It all goes to show the power of
pictures, I doubt whether a change in the mission statements of the organisations man’s world
would have provoked us to think in this way.
Didn’t Marshall McLuhan say something in the Gutenberg Galaxy about becoming
“sharply aware of the uncritical acceptance of visual models and metaphors by many 159
past centuries”?
Waiter, can we have the bill? Shall we have a look at the exhibits while we are here?
Now where did I put my gloves?

Notes
1. The paper contains extensive quotations from the ICAEW web site, www.icaew.co.uk/
2. This is a misprint on the ICAEW web page: the correct title is “Iconologia”.
3. Nigella Lawson is a TV Chef well known for flirting with the camera, toying with her hair
and licking her fingers sensuously. Her large TV audience includes many men of a certain
age, some of whom have noticed that her programmes are about cooking.
4. The consultants were Dragon Brands. Their own logo is simplicity itself – a very narrow red
lozenge in front of the firm’s name in lower case italics.
5. Extract from The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, “President’s
Statement” Report and Accounts 1982
6. See, for example, www.buyusa.gov/uae/en/39.jpg for the old logo and www.buyusa.gov/uae/
en/39.jpg for the new one.
7. See, for example, www.whartonchina.com/spring/images/deloitte.jpg
8. See, for example, www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/International/Home (needs Flash Player).

References
Belova, O. (2006), “Speaking for themselves? Problematizing the production of meaning in visual
artefacts”, Culture and Organisation, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 37-49.
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Beyond Mere Symbolism, Routledge, New York, NY.
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AAAJ Young, A.R. (1988) in Daly, P.M. (Ed.), The English Tournament Imprese in: The English Emblem
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22,1
Further reading
Lewis, R. (2008), “Why rebranding isn’t barmy (electronic version)”, Accounting Web, available
at: www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id ¼ 179836&d ¼ 526&h ¼ 524&f ¼ 525
160 (retrieved 24 July).
Winer, J.A. and Anderson, J.W. (2001), Sigmund Freud and His Impact on the Modern World,
Routledge, New York, NY.

Corresponding author
Laura F. Spira can be contacted at: lfspira@brookes.ac.uk

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