WOMEN IN ACCOUNTING

Who Gets the Credit? Why Attribution Deserves a Closer Look

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The Matilda Effect offers a lens for understanding how recognition shapes advancement in accounting firms.

Where does your firm stack up?

By Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
Accounting MOVE Project

The accounting profession has spent years grappling with a persistent and uncomfortable reality: women enter the field in strong numbers, perform at a high level, and yet remain underrepresented in leadership.

That gap has been measured repeatedly through industry research, like the Accounting MOVE Project. The harder question is why it keeps showing up. The answer may lie in something more fundamental than policy or pipeline: how work is recognized, attributed, and ultimately rewarded,

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That’s where the Matilda Effect comes in.

The Matilda Effect is about attribution, not participation.
First defined by historian Margaret Rossiter in Social Studies of Science, the Matilda Effect describes the systematic tendency for women’s contributions to be overlooked — or credited to men.

When contributions are not accurately recognized, firms are not just creating internal inequities; they are undermining leadership development, pushing experienced professionals out the door, and losing people who can easily take their talent elsewhere.

It is not simply about exclusion from opportunity. It is about who gets recognized as the source of ideas, innovation, and results. Participation without recognition does not build careers, particularly in a profession where visibility drives opportunity.

History shows the pattern clearly.
Long before anyone had a name for it, the Matilda Effect was quietly reshaping the scientific record.

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Change Fails in Silence | MOVE Like This

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Firms that treat communication as strategy—not admin—move faster, scale smarter, and keep trust intact.

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Not Your Headcount

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

On this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk explores a deceptively simple question with Alice Grey Harrison, founder of AGH Consulting: Why do so many firm transformations stall—not because of strategy, but because of communication?

With more than 30 years of experience in strategic communications and change management within the accounting profession, Harrison has seen firms navigate mergers, private equity investments, leadership transitions, system implementations, and cultural shifts.

The difference between momentum and misery, she argues, is rarely technical. It’s human.

MORE MOVE

Her core insight is that culture becomes a growth engine only when people understand how their work connects to the firm’s mission, vision, and values. That clarity unlocks what she calls “discretionary energy”—the extra effort people put in when they believe in the firm’s direction. READ MORE →

Savage: Use Your License as a Megaphone | ARC – SLC

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Small acts of involvement add up to big wins for the profession and the public.

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Is your firm truly ready for tax season—or just hoping to survive it? Join this 90-minute webinar featuring an Accounting ARC Live panel with thought leaders who know what it takes to optimize performance under pressure. 

Accounting ARC – Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal
Center for Accounting Transformation

Advocacy often appears on television as protest marches, campaign rallies, or contentious debates. But in a recent Accounting ARC – Student-Led Conversations episode, host Arpan Grewal and guest ZeNai Savage, CPA, recast advocacy as something more grounded and accessible: a series of everyday decisions about when to speak up, who to invite in, and how to use professional skills for public good.

MORE Accounting ARC: Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure | CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success | Students Challenge Accounting’s Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes |More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan | What Career Advice Gets Wrong for Gen Z – And How to Fix It | Your Identity is Not a Liability | Burnout, Be Gone: Accounting Needs a Boundary Breakthrough

Savage is not a typical accountant. She is the founder of The Savage Advantage, a consulting firm that provides outsourced controller work, budget development, governance support, and board training to nonprofits and civic organizations. She also writes and speaks through Blurred Lines, a personal platform built on the belief that people do not have to separate their faith, professional life, and community service into neat compartments.

For Grewal, a Gen Z student leader, Savage’s path offers a concrete example of how young professionals can blend technical careers with civic engagement.

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Kwaiser: The Real Reason People Stay—or Leave | MOVE Like This

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Culture isn’t an initiative—it’s a strategy that drives retention and results.

Originally published Oct. 13, 2025
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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk talks with Stacie Kwaiser, CPA and CEO of Rehmann, about the firm’s nearly three-decade journey toward building a culture where people stay, grow, and lead.

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Kwaiser began her career in public accounting at Coopers & Lybrand before joining Rehmann, a firm that now employs more than 1,100 professionals across 22 offices. She rose through the audit practice and into firmwide leadership roles, ultimately becoming CEO in 2023. Along the way, she experienced—and helped shape—Rehmann’s evolution into one of the profession’s most recognized firms for women and equity leadership.
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