<p> The inadequate number of accountants graduating to fill the demand of accounting professionals and academia has been documented as a problem within the field of accounting. Attrition among students in programs is prevalent and little has been done to understand the challenges confronting the accounting academic community as well as the accounting profession as a whole. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to better understand the perceptions and reasons accounting professionals and educators made the career path choice they did and what they perceived would encourage students to enter the field of accounting. The data source for this qualitative case study was interviews. A convenience sample size of 10 accounting professionals (certified public accountants) and 10 accounting professors with doctorate degrees were recruited. A force field analysis was used as the overarching theoretical framework to understand the driving and restraining factors that led accounting professionals and professors to select their career path. Content analysis was used to determine the emergent themes of the study. The findings in this study were organized into the following 10 themes: (a) job stability, (b) opportunity to impact the lives of others, (c) love of challenges, (d) the lucrative nature of the field of accounting, (e) respectability of the profession, (f) better understanding, (g) change in perceptions, (h) higher quality professors, (i) stronger community outreach, and (j) more application and less theory. The first five themes aligned with research question one regarding the participants’ career path choice and the later five themes with research question two with respect to what the participants believed would encourage others to choose a career in accounting. Considering both sub groups, professional accountants and accounting professors, view the solutions to the dilemma of the shortage in the field of accounting differently, in the future it would be of value to conduct a similar study on the national level, followed by the international level, based on this epidemic being of global magnitude.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10182893 |
| Date | 22 December 2016 |
| Creators | Jones, Dana |
| Publisher | Northcentral University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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