Resumo

Previous investigations indicate that the manager deals with constant alterations in the accounting work (HENDI, 2013) and that the coexistence of generations in the organizations can have repercussions in people management conflicts originated from divergences in behavior (WEEKS, WEEKS and LONG, 2017). This study advanced when analyzing how the alterations in the accounting career could be correlated to the generational conflicts at work, covering the impact of succession, mentoring, skills and others.

As a problem it was assumed: Which challenges found by the people managers facing the accounting career, under the perspective of the generations Baby Boomer, X, Y and Z? Whereas the objectives are: 1) describe the potential challenges to the people manager in the accounting career; 2) map the collective conflicts arising out of coexistence at work by professionals from different generations and; 3) to analyze the shortcomings originating from the influence of institutions on the managers of several generations.

For this task, mainly the authors of the historical-romantic theory are interested in this study, especially Mannhein (1928), conceiving the generations as a reflection of the division of society into age groups: not just in chronological terms, but also the common interpretation made by individuals of each group in relation to the historical, cultural and social facts. Regarding the division, it is used the criteria generations Baby Boomer (1946-1960), X (1961-1979), Y (1980-1989) and Z (1990 on) (COMEAU and TUNG, 2013).

It was worked for individual interviews in depth with accountants from different generational groups and that also work with people management, totaling almost 68 hours of audio, transcribed in full. Interpretation was done by means of category content analysis, with the aid of ATLAS TI®. Searching for better reliability, this step was performed individually by three researchers, and after that, there was the pairs confrontation. The divergences were eliminated by the data triangulation.

The analysis was divided into three categories: 1) Individual Challenges: they arise due to excessive demands and reduce accountant’s time in the coaching processes. 2) Collective challenges: They emerge as mentoring, when some older managers have little familiarity with the technologies and some other younger ones have skills in the profession inferior to what is expected. 3) Organizational challenges: They influence the career management when the media associate the accountant in matters related to corruption.

This study revealed that the generational conflict in the accountancy environment is exhibited as a space for the people management, once that it allows coaching and mentoring actions. Among the challenges, the lack of preparation of some professionals in the career, foster conflicts ‘for’ and ‘between’ the generations. Finally, when correlating the generational theory with the accounting challenges of the four generations managers, a gap is reduced, once that this theoretical proposition does not exist in the previous publications.

COMEAU, J. D.; TUNG, L. C. Re-defining the Concepts of Generational Labelling. Science and Technology, 3, n.3, 2013. 259-276. HENDI, Y.P. Better, faster, smarter: developing a blueprint for creating forensic accountants. Money Laundering Control, 16, n.4, 2013. 353-378. MANNHEIM, K. Le problème des générations. Paris:Natha, 1928. WEEKS, K.P.; WEEKS, M.; LONG, N. Generational perceptions at work: in-group favoritism and out-group stereotypes. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 36, n.11, 2017. 33-53.