professional accountants. SST occurs when individuals with certain attributes are recruited and
assimilated in a profession Blank 1984. The management literature indicates that individuals
with attributes similar to superiors in organizations, who exert control over the promotion process
e.g., partners in accounting firms, often get promoted at the expense of those not so similar cf.,
Colarelli et al. 1987; Fisher et al. 1987. A number of studies that document the P-scores of
professional accountants at various ranks see Table 1 report low P-scores in some cases, par-