Taking a Calculating Look at Their Numbers : A group of women accountants has quantified the lack of female executives to rekindle debates and talks on the issue.

The glass ceiling--the term often used to describe the barrier that blocks women from top management--is nothing new to accountants Joan Deniken and Dolores Lara. They have experienced a few barriers of their own.

But, numbers are their stock in trade, and they decided to try to quantify just how bad the problem is in Orange County.

They and other members of the local chapter of the American Society of Women Accountants surveyed the top 25 accounting firms in Orange County--where 212 partners ply their trade--to find out just how many women managed local offices and how many were partners in their firms.

Their findings were predictable. No woman had reached the level of managing partner, and only 10 women were partners.

The lack of women in top corporate posts is not a new complaint, but the local group wants to use its findings as a focal point for the society’s national convention in Newport Beach this October. About 400 women accountants are expected to attend.

Simply quantifying the problem, Deniken and Lara said, should help to rekindle debate and discussion over the causes, effects and solutions to the lack of women executives.

For support, they plan to bring in the works of Felice N. Schwartz, president of Catalyst, a nonprofit research group. She wrote on the subject in the March-April issue of the Harvard Business Review.

“The glass ceiling is not a physical barrier erected by nefarious CEOs. Rather, it is an attitudinal hurdle consisting of largely unconscious stereotypes and preconceptions,” Schwartz wrote. And she advised women to “make men aware of negative behavior.”

Deniken, a certified public accountant with Prudential Insurance Co. in Laguna Hills, argues that sheer numbers will eventually improve the situation. Women are earning 55% of all undergraduate accounting degrees, she said.

“It can have a bottom-line effect on a firm if it is not judging people solely on the basis of whose talents bring the best quality to the firm,” she said. “Many companies are throwing aside half their pool of talent.”

Men and women accountants generally start out equally. They join a Big Six firm to get the minimum two years of experience needed to fulfill one of the requirements toward becoming certified public accountants. They also have to pass the CPA exam.

After three to five years at an accounting firm, the typical career path leads to the post of senior accountant or middle manager at a large business or to controller at a smaller company.

From the start, men and women follow divergent paths, said Lara, president of the society’s local chapter.

“Women feel frustration at the lack of opportunity,” she said. “Immediately, when they walk in the door, they see who is getting the best jobs, who has lunch with the managing partner. Many of the older men patronize women, talk to them differently.”

Family issues also weigh more heavily on women, Lara said.

“Even at the two-year level, many of the women have family stresses,” she said. “Top management still thinks in terms of a person working 400 hours of overtime a year to make partner.”

Deniken and Lara also think that there is another area ripe for a statistical survey. They suspect that more women than men end up starting their own companies because the women do not believe they can ascend the corporate ladder. Other women consciously seek out smaller businesses that provide flexible family policies.

But today, larger firms are beginning to hire part-time accountants, and women who want to work part time as they raise children have more opportunities to join those firms.

“Many companies are taking advantage of this pool of talent,” Lara said. “If the person works 40 hours during tax season and 20 hours during the rest of the year, many companies find that cost-effective.”

Various chapters nationwide of the women accountants society are working on such issues as flexible family policies.

The national group, which has 7,000 members, was started in 1938 because women accountants were being hired to write audit reports but were not given the chance to conduct those financial examinations. The society was founded to counter such prejudice.

In Orange County, the 50-member chapter is serving a dual purpose. First, women who join can work on their leadership skills within the group by heading committees. Second, the group encourages older women to work with younger ones to bring them along.

“One of the greatest things we teach is to empower other women to take risks” that will get them noticed at work, said Lara, president of Hemingway Personnel in Newport Beach, an executive search firm.