Hines suggests that 'Conceptual frameworks provide social legitimacy to the accounting profession (Deegan, 2014, p 259) Explain what Hines meant by this statement. Evaluate whether the development of the conceptual framework is a political action to ensure the survival of the accounting profession.

While accounting standard-setters have promoted the benefits of conceptual frameworks, some of which have been discussed above, a number of writers (including Hines and Solomons, as identified above) have suggested that conceptual frameworks are created primarily to provide benefits to the parties that actually develop or commission the frameworks. It has been argued that conceptual frameworks have been used as devices to help ensure the ongoing existence of the accounting profession by boosting their public standing (Dopuch & Sunder, 1980, p. 17). As Hines (1989, p. 74) suggests:

One of the main obstacles against which accountants have continually had to struggle in the professionalism quest has been the threat of an apparent absence of a formal body of accounting knowledge, and that creating the perception of possessing such knowledge has been an important part of creating and reproducing their social identity as a profession Viewing these attempts (at establishing conceptual frameworks) as claims to accounting knowledge, which are used as a political resource in reducing the threat of government intervention and competing with other groups, in order to maintain and increase professionalism and social mobility seems to explain these projects better than viewing them from a technical/functional perspective.