This research has been prompted by the popular imagery of the “action hero ” CFO (see Samson, 1988; Tully, 1995) and the growing expectations that CFOs will shed their “bean counter image ” (Baker, 1994). Yet individual CFOs must grapple both with the meaning and realisation of such nascent positional expectations in their day-to-day work. This research examines the ways in which one individual in a leading Australian retailing organisation became its CFO. This research provides three accounts of the CFO in action. The first account narrates the ways in which the CFO constituted his position. The second account outlines the ways in which the CFO organised the finance function. The third account is concerned with the emerging domain of the CFO’s work. These accounts were informed by a form of grounded theory (Strauss, 1987). The CFO is characterised in this research as a sentient individual who both yields to and rewrites the organisational context in which he works. It is in the process of rewriting the organisational expectations embedded in the position of CFO that the “action hero ” arguably emerges in practice.

Abstract not found