Description
The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying motivations of Australian and
international students for studying accounting and entering the accounting profession.
Accounting Research Journal
Attitudes towards accounting: differences between Australian and international
students
Beverley J ackling Paul de Lange J on Phillips J ames Sewell
Article information:
To cite this document:
Beverley J ackling Paul de Lange J on Phillips J ames Sewell, (2012),"Attitudes towards accounting:
differences between Australian and international students", Accounting Research J ournal, Vol. 25 Iss 2 pp.
113 - 130
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Ilias G. Basioudis, Paul de Lange, Themin Suwardy, Paul Wells, (2012),"Accounting students' perceptions
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Attitudes towards accounting:
differences between Australian
and international students
Beverley Jackling
School of Accounting and Finance, Victoria University,
Melbourne, Australia
Paul de Lange
School of Accounting, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Jon Phillips
Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University,
Frankston, Australia, and
James Sewell
Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University,
Caul?eld East, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying motivations of Australian and
international students for studying accounting and entering the accounting profession.
Design/methodology/approach – The study reports results from a cohort of second-year
accounting students drawing on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to assess intentions and
behaviours in making decisions, particularly in relation to employment choice. The study utilises a
validated attitude to accounting scale (AAS) which measures how the accounting profession is viewed
by students generally, and more speci?cally, differences in attitudes towards accounting and the
accounting profession between Australian and international students.
Findings – The study ?nds that students have a positive attitude towards accounting as a
profession. However, there are signi?cant differences between Australian and international students’
levels of interest in accounting and attitudes towards the work of accountants.
Research limitations/implications – It is recognised that the differences in attitudes towards
accounting between Australian and international students may be linked with motivations to pursue
accounting based on personal, cultural and social in?uences. A limitation of the study is that
international students are treated as a homogeneous group.
Practical implications – The ?ndings of the study have implications for marketing accounting
education internationally; in particular, acknowledging the impact of different attitudes towards
accounting by international students.
Originality/value – The study not only addresses motivation to study accounting but also attitudes
towards the accounting profession. By applying the TRA, the study has identi?ed that government
policy may in?uence motivation of international students towards accounting and the accounting
profession.
Keywords Australia, Universities, Students, Accounting, Motivation (psychology), Attitudes,
Attitudes to accounting, Intrinsic motivation, Accountants’ work, International students
Paper type Research paper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1030-9616.htm
Attitudes
towards
accounting
113
Accounting Research Journal
Vol. 25 No. 2, 2012
pp. 113-130
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1030-9616
DOI 10.1108/10309611211287305
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Introduction
The accounting profession has been acutely aware of an increasing shortage of quality
university accounting graduates willing to choose a career in accounting (Saemann and
Crooker, 1999; Albrecht and Sack, 2000; Jackling and Calero, 2006; Cappelletto, 2010).
Research has shown that the ongoing viability of the accounting profession is
dependent upon attracting students with positive attitudes towards accounting and the
accounting profession (Byrne and Willis, 2005; Garner and Dombrowski, 1997). Some
studies have identi?ed negative perceptions of the profession as a reason for the failure
to attract students to the profession (Mladenovic, 2000; Wells and Fieger, 2006) while
others have indicated that exposure to the study of accounting has an important and
negative impact on attitudes towards accounting (Marriott and Marriott, 2003).
In recent years the demand for accountants has grown rapidly – by Department of
Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) estimates, at 12.6 per cent in
the ?ve years to 2007 (DEEWR, 2008). The perceived shortage of suitable accounting
graduates remains even in the aftermath of the global ?nancial crisis where in Australia
there are about 158,000 professional accountants. More recently, DEEWR (2011) reports
that the “[. . .] vacancylevel for accountants is veryhigh. The proportionof workers leaving
the occupation (and needing to be replaced) is 9.7 per cent [. . .] [They] claim the mix of
industries employing accountants is very favourable for employment growth prospects”.
As a consequence there have been sustained efforts by the Accounting and Finance
Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) and the Joint Accounting Bodies
( JAB)[1] in Australia to in?uence Australian government policy as a means of meeting
the demand for suitably quali?ed graduates to enter the accounting profession
(Cappelletto, 2010). The main government policy response in recent years has beento use
migrants to address the skill shortage. Since 2001, international students studying
accounting in Australia have been permitted to apply for permanent residence as long as
they do so within six months of completing their accounting major. This strategy
attracted large numbers of international accounting students and resulted in an in?ux of
Australian-trained accounting graduates taking up the option of Australian residence
via the migration policy. The lure of Australian residency led to a ?vefold increase in
accounting enrolments in the six years from4,187 in 2002 to 20,210 by 2008 (Ross, 2010).
While the number of international graduates has increased rapidly as part of
government initiatives to increase supply, only a limited number of these graduates
have articulated into meaningful positions within the accounting profession, as they
have typically failed to meet the expectations of employers (Birrell and Healy, 2008).
This dysfunctional outcome was acknowledged in an announcement by the Minister
for Immigration and Citizenship where he stated that “the ‘supply’ driven system
saw over 40,000 unsponsored visas issued to accountants over the last ?ve years, yet a
shortage of accountants persists, because many of these skilled migrants did not ?nd
work in their profession” (Evans, 2010, p. 5).
At the same time, despite the efforts of the profession, there has been more modest
growth in the numbers of Australian students electing to study accounting courses at
Australian universities. Given the rapid growth in international student enrolments
and the modest growth in numbers of Australian student enrolments it is timely to
examine differences between the attitudes of Australian and international students
towards accounting and the accounting profession, underpinning their pursuit of
accounting related employment.
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Theoretical perspectives and framework
In order to investigate how best to attract students to the accounting profession, this
study uses the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to assess the intentions and behaviours
in making decisions, particularly related to occupational choice (Felton et al., 1995).
This theory is modelled on a social psychological framework which has been proven
useful in explaining many types of behaviour. The TRA has been reported as being
successful in explaining humans’ intentions and behaviour in a range of decision
situations (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). More speci?cally the TRA has been employed to
address variables affecting career choice, particularly in accounting (Felton et al., 1995).
The TRA assumes that individuals consider the implications of their actions and
behave in accordance with their beliefs about the outcomes of their actions and their
evaluation of those outcomes. The TRA predicts that students’ intentions to pursue a
career should be strongly related to their attitudes toward that career.
This paper utilises the TRA to examine actions that can be interpreted as intentions
to try to perform a certain behaviour, in this instance, the behaviour of becoming an
accountant. According to the TRA, intentions are a function of two basic determinants:
one personal in nature (i.e. attitude toward the behaviour) and the second the person’s
perception of social pressure to perform or not to perform the behaviour (i.e. subjective
norms). The TRA as an underpinning framework provides a means of identifying key
variables in attitudes toward the choice of an accounting career. As suggested by
Felton et al. (1995) theories of this type are also useful in formulating an integrative
framework that can be applied for future research around factors in?uencing choice of
accounting as a career.
Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) (TRA) framework is applied to investigate differences
between Australian and international students’ intentions and actions to become an
accountant. Their framework is shown in Figure 1.
This study extends the TRA literature in an accounting context. For example,
Felton et al. (1995) focussed upon the attitudes component when utilising the TRA in
an accounting context. This restrictive application of the theory has been based on the
view “that subjective norms are de?ned by reference to the perceived approval or
Figure 1.
Theoretical framework of
reasoned action to become
an accountant
Intentions to
become an
accountant
Behaviour–
become a
professional
accountant
Attitudes
toward
accounting
Subjective
Norms/
Reference
groups
Box 1
Box 2
Box 3 Box 4
Source: Adapted from Ajzen and Fishbein (1980)
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disapproval of behaviour by important others”, and therefore were not considered to
be important in their study (Felton et al., 1995). Similarly it can be noted that prior
studies such as Silverstone and Williams (1979) and Paolillo and Estes (1982) have
found reference groups have had limited in?uence on career choice in accounting.
Prior studies by Tan and Laswad (2006) and Jackling and Keneley (2009),
incorporated international student cohorts in New Zealand and Australia, respectively,
and their ?ndings provide some support for the importance of reference groups in
in?uencing choice of accounting as a ?eld of study.
To further inform this area of interest, the present study considers that parents
and peers may have an important in?uence on career choice, particularly parents of
international students studying in Australia. It focuses on differences in attitudes and
subjective norms between the two cohorts of students: Australian and international
students studying accounting in an Australian setting.
Prior literature and hypotheses development
The following section explores the two factors under investigation (attitudes towards
accounting and subjective norms/reference groups) from which the hypotheses are
developed.
Attitudes towards accounting
Prior studies have indicated that attitudes towards accounting are determined by
a number of different factors ( Jackling and Keneley, 2009; Marriott and Marriott, 2003;
Felton et al., 1995). Among these factors are the four to be tested in this study,
speci?cally: intrinsic motivation; perceptions of the work of accountants; the prestige
of the profession; and reference groups. The following review of the literature examines
each of these four factors in the context of the accounting discipline.
Intrinsic motivation. Extensive research has shown that the source of motivation
can have a dramatic effect upon the learning experience and performance of students
(Lin et al., 2003; Ryan and Deci, 2000a; Vallerand and Bissonnette, 1992). Intrinsic
motivation exists where students are motivated by the enjoyment derived from the
activityrather thananyextrinsic rewardsuchas ?nancial gain(Lin et al., 2003; Ryanand
Deci, 2000a; Vallerand and Bissonnette, 1992). Evidence suggests that students who
are intrinsically interested in their studies are more likely to engage with the content
in such a way that they achieve high quality learning outcomes (Entwistle and
Ramsden, 1983).
There is a wealth of research suggesting that students who are intrinsically
motivated are likely to display con?dence and interest, resulting in enhanced
performance, persistence and creativity (Deci and Ryan, 1991; Ryan and Deci, 2000b;
Sheldon et al., 1997) as well as high self-esteem (Deci and Ryan, 1991). Lin et al. (2003)
found that there was a positive relationship between the level of intrinsic interest[2]
shown by college students and the grades they achieved. In terms of the possible
relationship between intrinsic motivation and intention to become an accountant the
work of van der Linden (1987) shows that high levels of intrinsic interest are important
for students in terms of their attitude towards accounting as a career choice. Intrinsic
motivation has also been shown to have a strong effect upon performance and
career success (Deci and Ryan, 1991; Sheldon et al., 1997; Taylor and Brown, 1988).
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While the bene?ts of intrinsic motivation are well established for students, similar
bene?ts have also been observed in the accounting profession. For example,
an experiment by Becker (1997) found that auditors who displayed higher levels of
intrinsic motivation formed better audit judgements.
Whilst the intrinsic motivation of both students and professionals has been
established as a predictor of their performance, it should also be acknowledged that
cultural differences play an important role in the level of one’s intrinsic motivation.
Prior research by Auyeung and Sands (1997) found that students from Hong Kong and
Taiwan are more likely than their Australian counterparts, to be drawn towards
studying accounting because of extrinsic reasons such as the perceptions held about
the profession’s prestige, social status and earning potential. More recently, Jackling
and Keneley (2009) found that intrinsic interest was likely to in?uence choice of
accounting major if the student was an Australian student, rather than an international
student. This ?nding was attributed in part to the motivation for international students
to study accounting in Australia given government initiatives designed to enhance the
opportunity for permanent residence status on completion of accounting studies.
Overall, prior literature suggests that Australian students would tend to be more
in?uenced by intrinsic interest to pursue a career in accounting than international
students studying in Australia, given that the international students may be in?uenced
by factors other than intrinsic interest. Therefore, the ?rst hypothesis tested will be:
H1. Australian students are more likely to be intrinsically motivated towards
accounting than international students.
The work of accountants. The work of accountants has been stereotyped by the media
and popular culture as being dull, number-crunching work with little personal
interaction (Cory, 1992; Friedman and Lyne, 2001; Hunt et al., 2004). Accounting is
often perceived to involve mathematics and attention to detail over communication and
interpersonal skills (Hunt et al., 2004).
It is well known that students’ attitudes towards accounting are heavily in?uenced
by their perceptions of accounting (Adams et al., 1994; Mouldin et al., 2000; Tan and
Laswad, 2006). The stereotypical negative perception of the work of accountants has
concerned researchers as these perceptions can deter students fromstudying accounting
and pursuing a career in accounting (Cohen and Hanno, 1993; Fisher and Murphy, 1995;
Mladenovic, 2000; Smith and Briggs, 1999). However, other studies have found that even
though accountants may be viewed as having a dull image, anticipated job satisfaction
is a consideration of accounting students when they choose to study accounting
(Auyeung and Sands, 1997; Paolillo and Estes, 1982; Tan and Laswad, 2006).
In terms of possible differences between Australian and international students
attitudes towards the work of accountants, prior studies suggest that international
students have less positive views of their work role. McDowall and Jackling (2010)
compared attitudes towards accounting for international students with the prior work
of Marriott and Marriott (2003) in the UK. This comparison showed that overall
international students in the Australian sample had less positive attitudes toward
accounting than those in the UKstudy (Marriott and Marriott, 2003). The reason for the
difference was in part attributed to differences in motivation for studying accounting
in Australia compared with the UK.
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Based on these earlier ?ndings the second hypothesis aims to determine whether
there is a difference between Australian and international students in terms of
attitudes towards the work of accountants. Thus:
H2. International students are less likely to have positive attitudes towards the
work of accountants than Australian students.
Prestige of the accounting profession. The prestige of the accounting profession has been
identi?ed by several researchers as impacting on the desirability of studying accounting
and pursuing accounting as a career (Auyeung and Sands, 1997; Felton et al., 1994;
Marriott and Marriott, 2003; Paolillo and Estes, 1982; Tan and Laswad, 2006). Paolillo and
Estes (1982) found that professional prestige and respect were strong incentives for
accounting students to pursue a career in accounting, when compared with other
professions such as medicine, law and engineering. This study was replicated by Wells
and Fieger (2006) who examined perceptions from high school teachers’ in Australia and
New Zealand. They, in effect, con?rmed the results from earlier studies, which suggest
that the perceived prestige of the accounting profession tends to outweigh the negative
stereotypes. A limitation of these prior studies is that they tended to treat their student
cohorts as a homogenous group. To address these limitations, this study will test if there
are differences between Australian and international students’ perceptions of the
accounting profession’s status and prestige. Therefore, the third hypothesis tested will be:
H3. There is no difference between Australian and international students’
perceptions of the accounting profession’s prestige.
Subjective norms/reference groups
As outlined in the TRA, in making career choices, students may be in?uenced by
various reference groups. For example, prior studies have evidenced that parents
in?uence students’ attitudes towards choice of accounting majors (Inman et al., 1989;
Mouldin et al., 2000). However, overall the empirical evidence shows mixed results in
terms of other reference groups such as the in?uence of friends, career counsellors and
teachers. For example, Gul et al. (1989) found that teachers did not have a signi?cant
role in students’ choice of majors studied at university. In contrast, Geiger and Ogilby
(2000) and Mouldin et al. (2000) suggest that teachers have an important in?uence on
students’ decisions to pursue an accounting quali?cation.
Tan and Laswad (2006) found that international students, in comparison to
New Zealand students, had signi?cantly higher motivations to comply with the opinions
of others, particularly parents and career counsellors in their selection of major. Likewise
Auyeung and Sands (1997) found that parental, teacher, and peer in?uence had a greater
impact on Hong Kong and Taiwanese students than upon Australian students. More
recently Jackling and Keneley (2009) using a cohort of Australian and international
students found that there was a greater likelihood that international students would be
in?uenced in their decision to major in accounting by “reference groups” than Australian
students. Anecdotal evidence suggests that parents of international students would be
more likely to encourage the completion of an overseas quali?cation that not only led to
a professional quali?cation (accountant) but also had the dual bene?t of permanent
residency in Australia. The current study endeavours to build on the prior literature by
examining whether there are differences between Australian and international students
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in terms of the possible differences in the in?uence of reference groups, family, and
peers, in pursuing accounting as a career. Therefore, H4 is as follows:
H4. International students are more likely than Australian students to be
in?uenced by reference groups to pursue a career in accounting.
Data and method
Sample selection
The participants in this study were second year undergraduate students who were
undertaking an accounting major having enrolled in a Bachelor of Business degree at a
university in Melbourne, Australia that is accredited by the JAB. Self report data were
collected by administering a questionnaire to students during their ?nal lecture in semester
2 of 2008. The 280 students present were invited to participate in the study by completing
the questionnaire. After eliminating incomplete responses to the questionnaire, a total of
225 usable responses provided data to inform this study. To ensure the study did not fall
victim to non-response bias, a comparison of the broader student pro?le descriptors of
second year business students at the university when compared with respondents’
demographics suggested the sample was indicative of the known “typical” population.
Measurement of variables
As the main objective of the study was to test students’ intentions to become an
accountant, the ?rst section of the questionnaire utilised an updated version of the
accounting attitude scale (AAS) developed by Nelson (1990). Prior US studies found a
reliability coef?cient alpha of 0.80 or above (Graves et al., 1992; Nelson and Deines,
1995; Nelson and Vendrzyk, 1996) for the AAS.
The AAS consists of ?fteen items that seek to assess student perceptions of: the role
of accountants, whether students enjoy accounting, the prestige of the accounting
profession and the in?uence of parents and peers in selecting accounting as a career.
Sample statements included: “I would enjoy being an accountant” and “accountants are
number-crunchers: they seldom work with people”. Respondents were asked to
indicate their perceptions based on a series of statements using a seven-point Likert
scale anchored to 1 – “strongly disagree” and 7 – “strongly agree”.
The second sectionof the questionnaire included three categorical questions relatingto
respondent demographics: age, gender, and country of permanent residence. A sample of
respondent characteristics (Table I) reveals a majority of the respondents were female
136 (representing 59.4 per cent of the sample) while 40.6 per cent were male. Of the 225
usable responses 48 per cent were Australianstudents while 52per cent were international
students. Investigation of the country of residence showed that the majority of
international students were from China (34 per cent) with signi?cant numbers also from
Malaysia and Hong Kong. In terms of age groupings, as would be anticipated, the vast
majority of the sample (88 per cent) was in the age group 18-24 years.
Results
Table II shows the mean scores for each of the variables addressing attitudes towards
the accounting profession as well as an overall average attitude towards accounting
score. The AAS measure of attitude to the profession includes some items that need to
be reversed in the scale. In addition, as in previous studies using the AAS, all items
were re-keyed to a scale of 0-10. Items in Table II marked whave been reversed coded
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Frequency
Percentage
Gender
Male 90 40.0
Female 135 60.0
Total 225 100.0
Nationality
Australian 108 48.0
International 117 52.0
Total 225 100.0
Country of origin: international only
China 41 35.0
Malaysia 16 13.7
Hong Kong 8 6.8
Other 52 44.5
Total 117 100.0
Age groupings
18-24 198 88
25-29 14 6
30-34 7 3
$35 6 3
Total 225 100
Table I.
Demographic
composition of the sample
Descriptive statistics
Statement Overall mean (SD) Australian mean (SD) International mean (SD)
n 225 108 117
Interact with people 7.28 (2.03) 7.44 (2.17) 7.13 (1.88)
Respected profession 6.97 (2.15) 7.24 (2.05) 6.71 (2.20)
* * *
Family view 6.91 (2.53) 6.93 (2.33) 6.89 (2.71)
Boring
w
6.55 (3.01) 7.30 (2.83) 5.86 (3.02)
*
Fixed rules
w
6.56 (2.42) 7.05 (2.20) 6.12 (2.52)
*
Peers view 6.50 (2.27) 6.48 (2.37) 6.51 (2.18)
Profession prestige 6.44 (2.08) 6.61 (2.04) 6.27 (2.12)
Number crunchers
w
6.35 (2.47) 7.11 (2.41) 5.64 (2.33)
*
Enjoy 6.28 (2.60) 6.72 (2.45) 5.88 (2.68)
* *
Like accounting 6.20 (2.64) 6.76 (2.49) 5.69 (2.69)
*
Work alone
w
5.76 (2.63) 6.35 (2.53) 5.21 (2.60)
*
No satisfaction
w
5.74 (2.58) 6.37 (2.65) 5.15 (2.37)
*
Par med. law 5.73 (2.48) 5.37 (2.56) 6.07 (2.36)
* *
Interesting 5.47 (2.67) 6.00 (2.41) 4.97 (2.81)
*
Rule memory
w
4.96 (2.67) 5.72 (2.39) 4.26 (2.74)
*
Average AAS 6.24 (2.48) 6.63 (2.48) 5.89 (2.29)
Notes: Differences between Australian and international students signi?cant at
*
1 per cent
( p , 0.01),
* *
5 per cent ( p , 0.05),
* * *
10 per cent ( p , 0.10); items marked with an w on all tables
have been reversed keyed, which means that the higher the score the less the respondents agree with
the negative statement and hence the more positive their attitude towards accounting
Table II.
Mean scores for AAS
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so that the higher the score the lower level of agreement with the negative statement,
hence the more positive the attitude.
The results shown in Table II indicate the overall responses, plus mean scores for
Australian and international students. Tests for signi?cance of difference between the
two groups were undertaken using Mann-Whitney U Tests. Overall, respondents
perceived that accountants interact with many people (mean 7.28), that accounting is a
respected profession (mean 6.97), and their family would like them to become an
accountant (mean 6.91). The scores on items more closely associated with intrinsic
interest in accounting, “I would enjoy being an accountant” and “I like accounting” were
rated lower by this cohort of students when compared with the items in Nelson and
Vendrzyk (1996) study where scores ranged from 7.225 to 7.56 out of a possible score of
10. Similarly, Marriott and Marriott’s (2003) study had scores above eight on four of the
statements: including “the accounting profession is well respected”; “I wouldenjoy being
an accountant”; “accountants are not boring people”; “I like accounting”. However,
it should be acknowledged that in their study the scores were for students at the
commencement of their studies whereas the results reported in the present study are for
students in their second year of study.
Of interest to the present study was the ?nding that students viewed accounting as
requiring a great deal of rule-memorising (mean 4.96). Additionally, respondents were
likely to perceive that accountants worked alone (mean 5.76). The overall score for
attitudes towards accounting (average AAS) was lower than in previous accounting
studies (e.g. Marriott and Marriott (2003) average AAS 7.5) and this may to some
extent be in?uenced by the diversity of students in the sample. To further explore
differences between Australian and international students in the sample, we used
factor analysis to reduce the 15 items in the AAS to a set of independent factors
suitable for inclusion in the logistic regression analysis where the dependent variable
was residency: Australian or elsewhere.
Factor analysis
Factor analysis with principal components extraction was used to reduce the number of
variables to a set of independent factors. The “varimax” rotation method was used in the
principal component analysis to ensure that the factors are orthogonal to each other, thus
making them suitable for use in logistic regression. The suitability of the data for factor
analysis was assessed and two variables (“boring people” and “prestige”) were identi?ed
with loadings of more than 0.40 for at least two components denoting that each has a
complex structure. Consequently, these two variables were omitted in the reported
factor analysis shown in Table III (Field, 2009). In addition, a cut off score of 0.46 was
employed to ensure that only variables that signi?cantly loaded into a component
were included in the factor analysis. As a result, the variable “no satisfaction” was
removed and a principal component analysis was run with 12 of the 15 original
variables.
The Kayer-Meyer-Oklin value for the principal components analysis is 0.786 being
above the recommended 0.6 (Kaiser, 1970, 1974) and the Bartlett’s test of Sphericity
(Bartlett, 1954) is statistically signi?cant (x
2
¼ 821.57, df ¼ 78, p , 0.01) indicating
that the correlation matrices of these items were factorable. Table III shows the four
components extracted from the analysis explaining a total of 60.6 per cent of the
variance, together with the variable loadings[3].
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The ?rst three factors contain components of attitudes towards accounting as
identi?ed in the adaptation of the TRA shown in Figure 1. The ?rst factor measures
perceptions of accounting as a discipline and is labelled “intrinsic interest”. The items
that loaded heavily on this factor include: “accounting is interesting” with a factor
loading of 0.840, “I like accounting” with a factor loading of 0.807, and “I would enjoy
being an accountant” with a factor loading of 0.799. The “intrinsic interest” factor
explains 19.8 per cent of the variance between items surveyed. This grouping is
consistent with the components of intrinsic interest present in the literature reviewed
earlier.
The second factor measures the perceptions of the work that accountants do and is
labelled “accountants’ work”. The items that loaded on this factor include: “accountants
are number-crunchers: they seldom work with people” with a factor loading of 0.781,
“accountants work alone more than they work with people” with a factor loading of
0.762, and “accounting is a lot of ?xed rules: it doesn’t involve conceptual skills or
judgement” with a factor loading of 0.744. The “accountants’ work” factor explains
19.6 per cent of the variance between items surveyed.
The third factor measures how the accounting professional status is perceived and is
labelled “professional prestige”. The items that loaded on this factor were “accounting is
Component
Intrinsic
interest
Accountants’
work
Professional
prestige
Reference
groups
Accounting is interesting 0.840 – – –
I would enjoy being an accountant 0.799 – – –
I like accounting 0.807 – – –
Accountants are number crunchers;
they seldom work with people
w
– 0.781 – –
Accountants work alone more than
they work with people
w
– 0.762 – –
Accounting is a lot of ?xed rules; it
doesn’t involve conceptual skills or
judgment
w
– 0.744 – –
Professionally-quali?es accountants
interact with lots of people – 0.509 – –
Accounting is just a lot of rule
memorizing
w
– 0.470 – –
Accounting is a profession, on a par
with medicine and law – – 0.813 –
The accounting profession is well
respected – – 0.688 –
My family would like me to be an
accountant – – – 0.849
Cronbach alpha 0.844 0.714 0.462 0.438
Eigenvalue 3.546 2.196 1.152 0.984
Percentage of variance 19.782 19.589 11.264 9.967
Cumulative (%) 19.782 39.370 50.634 60.602
Notes: Extraction method, principal component analysis; rotation method, varimax with Kaiser
normalisation; rotation converged in six iterations
Table III.
Rotated component
matrix: attitudes towards
accounting and
accountants
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a profession, on a par with medicine and law” (0.813) and “the accounting profession is
well-respected” with a factor loading of 0.688.
These three factors ?t within the theoretical framework of the TRA as outlined in
Box 1 of Figure 1, attitudes towards accounting.
The ?nal factor is titled “reference groups” and included two items “my family
would like me to be an accountant” with a loading of 0.849 and “my peers would think
I made a good career decision if I became an accountant” with an item loading of 0.594.
This factor ?ts within the theoretical framework of the TRA as outlined in Box 2 of
Figure 1, subjective norms/reference groups.
Analysis of the responses that led to the identi?cation of the four factors supports
the structure of the model shown in Figure 1.
Logistic regression analysis
The four composite variables derived from the principal components analysis (intrinsic
interest, accountants’ work, professional prestige and reference groups) are
incorporated in a logistic regression model to determine differences in perceptions of
these variables by international and Australian students. The model allows for the
prediction of the likelihood that international students perceive the role of accountants
primarily as number-crunchers; that international students have intrinsic interest in
accounting; whether the accounting profession is perceived to have a high degree of
professional prestige and whether parents and peers in?uenced intentions to pursue
accounting as a career. The dependent variable is “country of permanent residence”
which took the value “0” for Australian students and “1” for international students:
logit p ð Þ ¼ b
0
þ b
1
Intrinsic interest þ b
2
Accountants’ work
þ b
3
Professional prestige þ b
4
Reference groups þ [
where logit(p) is the logit to be estimated by the right hand side variables, while the bs
are the parameters of these variables.
Regression results
The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether there are differences between
Australianstudents andinternational students interms of their level of intrinsic interest in
accounting(H1), their perceptions of the work accountants perform(H2), their perceptions
of the accounting profession (H3) and the in?uence of reference groups (H4). Table IV
shows the ?nal model regressionresults including the logistic regressioncoef?cient, Wald
test, degrees of freedom, level of signi?cance, and odds ratio for the variables in the
Predictor b SE b Wald x
2
P Odds ratio
Intrinsic interest 20.470 0.150 9.862 0.002 0.625
Accountants’ work 20.690 0.161 18.383 0.000 0.502
Professional prestige 0.216 0.150 2.052 0.152 1.241
Reference groups 0.097 0.149 0.426 0.514 1.102
Constant 0.074 0.143 0.266 0.606 1.077
Notes: Dependent variable coded (1) for international students and (0) for Australian students;
n ¼ 225
Table IV.
Logistic regression:
predicting attitudes of
Australian and
international students’
attitudes towards
accounting and
accountants
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equation (Exp(b)). The value under Exp(b) is the predicted change in odds for a unit
increase inone independent variable, holdingother variables constant. The ?nal columnin
the table, percentage probability (P) expresses the odds in terms of probabilities.
The model x
2
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2
¼ 33.723, df ¼ 4, p , 0.01) indicating
the model performs well. The overall percentage prediction accuracy of the model is
64.5 per cent. Given that the aimof the study using the TRAis to determine the difference
in responses of Australian students compared to international students, this model is
considered acceptable. The results of the logistic regression test used a 0.5 per cent
criterion of statistical signi?cance.
The following section of the paper outlines the ?ndings commencing with a discussion
of the results for the composite variables tested in the logistic regression analysis.
Intrinsic motivation
There is a statistically signi?cant difference between Australian and international
students for the variable “intrinsic interest”, and the negative coef?cient con?rms that
Australian students are more likely to have an intrinsic interest in accounting than
international students (x
2
¼ 9.862, p , 0.01), thus providing support for (H1). This
?nding is consistent with the previous work of Jackling and Keneley (2009) and
Auyeung and Sands (1997) who found that Australian students tend to have positive
attitudes towards accounting (an attribute of intrinsic motivation), more so than
international students who are studying accounting in Australia.
Accountants’ work
Support is also found for (H2) with the statistically signi?cant negative coef?cient for
Accountants’ Work, indicating that an international student is more likely than an
Australian student to perceive the work of accountants as monotonous, repetitive and
involving number-crunching (x
2
¼ 9.862, p , 0.01). This result is somewhat disturbing
given that the content and emphasis of accounting courses has undergone considerable
change in recent years (Howieson, 2003). These changes mean there is nowsigni?cantly
less emphasis on rule memorisation in curriculum and a greater emphasis on critical
thinking and problem solving to more adequately prepare students for the work
environment. More recently accounting education literature has emphasised the bene?ts
of focussing on critical thinking and problem solving skills in developing graduates for
the global accounting environment (Hancock et al., 2009; Howieson, 2003).
The difference between Australian and international students in terms of perceived
attitude towards the work of accountants, may in part be explained by the difference in
year of entry to university studies. International students in the main enter university at
the second year level having gained exemption from ?rst year university studies, having
completed their ?rst year accounting studies within a Technical and Further Education
(TAFE) environment in Australia. The TAFE sector offers courses at vocational and
para-professional level (e.g. diploma, certi?cate, etc.) and has a focus on developing
de?ned levels of competency required by industry and employers[4]. The approaches to
teaching and assessment in TAFE differ substantially from the university environment
where the focus in university is on a much broader role of advancing knowledge and
promoting scholarship. First year programs inuniversities inAustralia have movedaway
from teaching procedural tasks to a more conceptual and analytical form of teaching and
assessment (Hall et al., 2004; English et al., 2004). Therefore, the differences in attitudes
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related to the work of accountants between Australian and international students may
re?ect the formation and perhaps reinforcement of stereotypical attitudes towards the
profession by international students given that they mainly enter university study at the
secondyear level, havingcompletedaccountingstudies at TAFE. Althoughstudents were
not requested to identify their entry pathway in the questionnaire, this would be an
important addition to future studies addressing differences in attitudes towards
accounting between Australian and international students.
Professional prestige
There is no statistically signi?cant difference between Australian and international
students for the variable “professional prestige”; thus (H3) is supported. It would appear
that accounting students, regardless of their background residence, believe that accounting
is a prestigious profession as measured by the factor derived from the AAS instrument.
Reference groups
No statistically signi?cant difference is found between Australian and international
students for the variable “reference groups”; thus (H4) is not supported. Although
collectively are were no differences between the two cohorts in terms of the perceived
in?uence of reference groups, it would appear from the factor loadings that parents
exerted the most in?uence on career choice for both Australian and international
accounting students followed by their peers. Overall, the results for this part of the study
are not consistent with previous studies that have identi?ed the in?uence of reference
groups in the choice of accounting major ( Jackling and Keneley, 2009; Tan and Laswad,
2006). The difference in the result for this study may in part be attributable to the
difference in the variables used to test for the in?uence of reference groups. The results
however appear to be more consistent with the work of Felton et al. (1995) where only the
attitudes component of the TRAwas employed. Similarly, the ?ndings support previous
research of Silverstone and Williams (1979) and Paolillo and Estes (1982) who suggest
that reference groups do not in?uence career choice in accounting.
Discussion and conclusions
In a climate of high demand for quality accounting graduates, this study used the TRA
as a basis to examine the differences between Australian and international students in
in?uences on attitudes towards accounting and the accounting profession. The basic
premise of the TRA model is that attitudes in?uence intention, which ultimately results
in behaviour, i.e. becoming an accountant.
Some commonalities are found between Australian and international students. For
example, there is no difference in the viewof the prestige of the accounting profession, nor
is there any signi?cant difference in the role of reference groups. In contrast, the study
identi?es differences in the attitudes towards accounting between Australian and
international students. In particular, Australian students appear to have more sustainable
positive attitudes towards accounting that are likely to strengthen their resolve to become
an accountant Similarly, there are signi?cant differences between Australian and
international students in attitudes towards the work of accountants and intrinsic interest.
It could therefore be argued that international students who have less positive attitudes
may be less likely to intend to become an accountant. Prior studies have concluded that
international students have a greater focus on obtaining permanent residence in Australia
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than perhaps becoming an accountant (Birrell et al., 2007). This conclusion is
supported by a more negative attitude towards the work of accountants, expressed
by international students, and their less positive attitudes linked to intrinsic interests,
when compared with Australian students.
It is posited however, that there may be additional constraints on international
students to ful?l their intentions to become an accountant. Failure to achieve this
planned behaviour has been attributed to the lack of an appropriate skill set of
international graduate accountants (Birrell and Healy, 2008).
Prior research has clearly demonstrated that the ongoing viability of the accounting
profession is dependent upon attracting students with positive attitudes towards
accounting and the accounting profession (Byrne and Willis, 2005; Garner and
Dombrowski, 1997). The ?ndings of this study indicate that the attitudes towards
accounting are different for international students compared to their Australian peers
and this may be an important constraint in their capacity to gain employment as an
accountant and thus address the skill shortage. A combination of an increase in the
number of places available to Australian students in accountancy programs in
Australian universities and better recruitment of genuinely interested international
students may well be a means of addressing the skill shortage in the Australian
accounting profession in the longer term.
Results also showthat international students are more likely than Australian students
to perceive the role of accountants as number-crunching andfollowing ?xed rules. Further
evidence demonstrated that despite more stereotypical images of the work of accountants,
there is no signi?cant differences between Australian and international students in
perceptions of the prestige of the profession. Discussion of these forces consistent with the
TRA served to demonstrate that these constraints may represent a strong barrier to the
individual’s capacity to follow through with their intention to become an accountant.
A limitation of the ?ndings of this study is that international students are not a
homogeneous group. Within this comparison category, students in this study were
drawn from twenty countries, although 34 per cent of the international cohort was from
China. An extension of this project could therefore be to extend the study to a range of
universities throughout Australia thereby incorporating a larger sample from both
Australia and the Asia-Paci?c region.
Additionally, the ?ndings of this research result from the conduct of the study within
one university at one point in time. Furthermore, the study indicates students’
attitudes towards accounting part way through their university studies of accounting.
A longitudinal study of Australian and international students over the duration of their
undergraduate accounting studies, including identi?cation of differing entry pathways,
would be a worthwhile extension of the present study. An important conclusion to be
drawn from the study is the need to undertake further research that addresses not only
attitudes towards accounting but also address external forces that impact on planned
behaviour of accounting students to become an accountant. The theory of planned
behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 2007) as an extension of the TRA has the potential to address a
broader range of aspects of career choice when applied to accounting in an Australian
context. Of particular interest infurther studies wouldbe the incorporationof the construct
“perceived behaviour control” as part of the TPB which is not only linked to attitudes
but also highlights the possibility of realistic constraints to pursuing planned behaviour
(e.g. a career in accounting).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia
and NewZealand (AFAANZ) for their generosity in providing ?nancial assistance for this
research. The authors would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the
editor Natalie Gallery, for their invaluable feedbackwhichhas helpedtoimprove the paper.
Notes
1. The JAB in Australia are: CPA Australia; Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia
and the Institute of Public Accountants.
2. The literature suggests that an individuals’ motivation is a product of many factors one of
which is intrinsic interest in the subject matter or task. For the purposes of our analysis and
discussion we accept the link between intrinsic interest and motivation (Lin et al., 2003).
3. According to the Kaiser criterion (eigen values) three factors obtained values of over 1 while the
scree plot identi?ed two factors to extract with many data points clustered near the bend. As
Costello and Osborne (2005) point out, when this occurs one can manually set the number of
factors and run multiple factor analyses: once at the scree level (two factors); one at the Kaiser
criteria (three factors); and then at numbers above and below those. In this case, three factor
analyses were performed at two-four factors, respectively. Costello and Osborne (2005) add that
the factor with the “cleanest” factor structure has the best ?t to the data and should be chosen.
4. TAFE institutions in Australia are equivalent to community colleges in the USA and Canada
and further education colleges in the UK.
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About the authors
Beverley Jackling is presently the Director of the Financial Education and Research Unit (FERU)
in the School of Accounting and Finance, Victoria University, Australia. Her primary research
interests have included the education aspects of business and accounting education and her
research has been informed by strongly established links with professional accounting bodies
nationally and internationally.
Professor Paul de Lange (B.Ed., Grad Dip Acc., M.Bus Acc., PhD, CPA, IPA) is currently
a Professor and Deputy Head Research in the Department of Accounting at RMIT University,
Australia. He has published over 30 refereed publications and is a regular speaker at numerous
international and national conferences. He is an associate editor of Accounting Education:
an International Journal and has won over $700,000 in competitive research grants in the last four
years. He has an international reputation and gave a plenary address at the 2007 British Accounting
Association SIG on Accounting Education. He has participated as an expert reviewer for Otago
University on their external review. Since 2006 he has been an elected member of the AFAANZ
Boardof Directors andinthis capacityhas beenco-chair of the conference technical committee. He is
currently President elect of AFAANZ and will assume the Presidency in July 2013. His track record
in research grants and publications shows he is a “teamplayer” and research mentor. Paul de Lange
is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Jon Phillips (B.Bus (Acc.), B.BusCom (Hons), ASA) is currently an Assistant Lecturer in the
Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University, Australia and his area of research
includes the accounting profession, taxation and accounting education. He has been the recipient
of a number of competitive external research grants and has published in a number of Australian
and international journals. He has presented numerous conference papers locally and
internationally, including the AAA and AFAANZ.
James Sewell has a Bachelor of Business Accounting and has completed several years in
industry. Having now decided to pursue an academic career, he is currently employed as an
Assistant Lecturer inthe Department of Accounting andFinance at Monash University, Australia.
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This article has been cited by:
1. Badingatus Solikhah. 2014. An Application of Theory of Planned Behavior towards CPA Career in
Indonesia. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 164, 397-402. [CrossRef]
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doc_727847604.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying motivations of Australian and
international students for studying accounting and entering the accounting profession.
Accounting Research Journal
Attitudes towards accounting: differences between Australian and international
students
Beverley J ackling Paul de Lange J on Phillips J ames Sewell
Article information:
To cite this document:
Beverley J ackling Paul de Lange J on Phillips J ames Sewell, (2012),"Attitudes towards accounting:
differences between Australian and international students", Accounting Research J ournal, Vol. 25 Iss 2 pp.
113 - 130
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Attitudes towards accounting:
differences between Australian
and international students
Beverley Jackling
School of Accounting and Finance, Victoria University,
Melbourne, Australia
Paul de Lange
School of Accounting, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Jon Phillips
Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University,
Frankston, Australia, and
James Sewell
Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University,
Caul?eld East, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying motivations of Australian and
international students for studying accounting and entering the accounting profession.
Design/methodology/approach – The study reports results from a cohort of second-year
accounting students drawing on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to assess intentions and
behaviours in making decisions, particularly in relation to employment choice. The study utilises a
validated attitude to accounting scale (AAS) which measures how the accounting profession is viewed
by students generally, and more speci?cally, differences in attitudes towards accounting and the
accounting profession between Australian and international students.
Findings – The study ?nds that students have a positive attitude towards accounting as a
profession. However, there are signi?cant differences between Australian and international students’
levels of interest in accounting and attitudes towards the work of accountants.
Research limitations/implications – It is recognised that the differences in attitudes towards
accounting between Australian and international students may be linked with motivations to pursue
accounting based on personal, cultural and social in?uences. A limitation of the study is that
international students are treated as a homogeneous group.
Practical implications – The ?ndings of the study have implications for marketing accounting
education internationally; in particular, acknowledging the impact of different attitudes towards
accounting by international students.
Originality/value – The study not only addresses motivation to study accounting but also attitudes
towards the accounting profession. By applying the TRA, the study has identi?ed that government
policy may in?uence motivation of international students towards accounting and the accounting
profession.
Keywords Australia, Universities, Students, Accounting, Motivation (psychology), Attitudes,
Attitudes to accounting, Intrinsic motivation, Accountants’ work, International students
Paper type Research paper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1030-9616.htm
Attitudes
towards
accounting
113
Accounting Research Journal
Vol. 25 No. 2, 2012
pp. 113-130
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1030-9616
DOI 10.1108/10309611211287305
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Introduction
The accounting profession has been acutely aware of an increasing shortage of quality
university accounting graduates willing to choose a career in accounting (Saemann and
Crooker, 1999; Albrecht and Sack, 2000; Jackling and Calero, 2006; Cappelletto, 2010).
Research has shown that the ongoing viability of the accounting profession is
dependent upon attracting students with positive attitudes towards accounting and the
accounting profession (Byrne and Willis, 2005; Garner and Dombrowski, 1997). Some
studies have identi?ed negative perceptions of the profession as a reason for the failure
to attract students to the profession (Mladenovic, 2000; Wells and Fieger, 2006) while
others have indicated that exposure to the study of accounting has an important and
negative impact on attitudes towards accounting (Marriott and Marriott, 2003).
In recent years the demand for accountants has grown rapidly – by Department of
Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) estimates, at 12.6 per cent in
the ?ve years to 2007 (DEEWR, 2008). The perceived shortage of suitable accounting
graduates remains even in the aftermath of the global ?nancial crisis where in Australia
there are about 158,000 professional accountants. More recently, DEEWR (2011) reports
that the “[. . .] vacancylevel for accountants is veryhigh. The proportionof workers leaving
the occupation (and needing to be replaced) is 9.7 per cent [. . .] [They] claim the mix of
industries employing accountants is very favourable for employment growth prospects”.
As a consequence there have been sustained efforts by the Accounting and Finance
Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) and the Joint Accounting Bodies
( JAB)[1] in Australia to in?uence Australian government policy as a means of meeting
the demand for suitably quali?ed graduates to enter the accounting profession
(Cappelletto, 2010). The main government policy response in recent years has beento use
migrants to address the skill shortage. Since 2001, international students studying
accounting in Australia have been permitted to apply for permanent residence as long as
they do so within six months of completing their accounting major. This strategy
attracted large numbers of international accounting students and resulted in an in?ux of
Australian-trained accounting graduates taking up the option of Australian residence
via the migration policy. The lure of Australian residency led to a ?vefold increase in
accounting enrolments in the six years from4,187 in 2002 to 20,210 by 2008 (Ross, 2010).
While the number of international graduates has increased rapidly as part of
government initiatives to increase supply, only a limited number of these graduates
have articulated into meaningful positions within the accounting profession, as they
have typically failed to meet the expectations of employers (Birrell and Healy, 2008).
This dysfunctional outcome was acknowledged in an announcement by the Minister
for Immigration and Citizenship where he stated that “the ‘supply’ driven system
saw over 40,000 unsponsored visas issued to accountants over the last ?ve years, yet a
shortage of accountants persists, because many of these skilled migrants did not ?nd
work in their profession” (Evans, 2010, p. 5).
At the same time, despite the efforts of the profession, there has been more modest
growth in the numbers of Australian students electing to study accounting courses at
Australian universities. Given the rapid growth in international student enrolments
and the modest growth in numbers of Australian student enrolments it is timely to
examine differences between the attitudes of Australian and international students
towards accounting and the accounting profession, underpinning their pursuit of
accounting related employment.
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Theoretical perspectives and framework
In order to investigate how best to attract students to the accounting profession, this
study uses the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to assess the intentions and behaviours
in making decisions, particularly related to occupational choice (Felton et al., 1995).
This theory is modelled on a social psychological framework which has been proven
useful in explaining many types of behaviour. The TRA has been reported as being
successful in explaining humans’ intentions and behaviour in a range of decision
situations (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). More speci?cally the TRA has been employed to
address variables affecting career choice, particularly in accounting (Felton et al., 1995).
The TRA assumes that individuals consider the implications of their actions and
behave in accordance with their beliefs about the outcomes of their actions and their
evaluation of those outcomes. The TRA predicts that students’ intentions to pursue a
career should be strongly related to their attitudes toward that career.
This paper utilises the TRA to examine actions that can be interpreted as intentions
to try to perform a certain behaviour, in this instance, the behaviour of becoming an
accountant. According to the TRA, intentions are a function of two basic determinants:
one personal in nature (i.e. attitude toward the behaviour) and the second the person’s
perception of social pressure to perform or not to perform the behaviour (i.e. subjective
norms). The TRA as an underpinning framework provides a means of identifying key
variables in attitudes toward the choice of an accounting career. As suggested by
Felton et al. (1995) theories of this type are also useful in formulating an integrative
framework that can be applied for future research around factors in?uencing choice of
accounting as a career.
Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) (TRA) framework is applied to investigate differences
between Australian and international students’ intentions and actions to become an
accountant. Their framework is shown in Figure 1.
This study extends the TRA literature in an accounting context. For example,
Felton et al. (1995) focussed upon the attitudes component when utilising the TRA in
an accounting context. This restrictive application of the theory has been based on the
view “that subjective norms are de?ned by reference to the perceived approval or
Figure 1.
Theoretical framework of
reasoned action to become
an accountant
Intentions to
become an
accountant
Behaviour–
become a
professional
accountant
Attitudes
toward
accounting
Subjective
Norms/
Reference
groups
Box 1
Box 2
Box 3 Box 4
Source: Adapted from Ajzen and Fishbein (1980)
Attitudes
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disapproval of behaviour by important others”, and therefore were not considered to
be important in their study (Felton et al., 1995). Similarly it can be noted that prior
studies such as Silverstone and Williams (1979) and Paolillo and Estes (1982) have
found reference groups have had limited in?uence on career choice in accounting.
Prior studies by Tan and Laswad (2006) and Jackling and Keneley (2009),
incorporated international student cohorts in New Zealand and Australia, respectively,
and their ?ndings provide some support for the importance of reference groups in
in?uencing choice of accounting as a ?eld of study.
To further inform this area of interest, the present study considers that parents
and peers may have an important in?uence on career choice, particularly parents of
international students studying in Australia. It focuses on differences in attitudes and
subjective norms between the two cohorts of students: Australian and international
students studying accounting in an Australian setting.
Prior literature and hypotheses development
The following section explores the two factors under investigation (attitudes towards
accounting and subjective norms/reference groups) from which the hypotheses are
developed.
Attitudes towards accounting
Prior studies have indicated that attitudes towards accounting are determined by
a number of different factors ( Jackling and Keneley, 2009; Marriott and Marriott, 2003;
Felton et al., 1995). Among these factors are the four to be tested in this study,
speci?cally: intrinsic motivation; perceptions of the work of accountants; the prestige
of the profession; and reference groups. The following review of the literature examines
each of these four factors in the context of the accounting discipline.
Intrinsic motivation. Extensive research has shown that the source of motivation
can have a dramatic effect upon the learning experience and performance of students
(Lin et al., 2003; Ryan and Deci, 2000a; Vallerand and Bissonnette, 1992). Intrinsic
motivation exists where students are motivated by the enjoyment derived from the
activityrather thananyextrinsic rewardsuchas ?nancial gain(Lin et al., 2003; Ryanand
Deci, 2000a; Vallerand and Bissonnette, 1992). Evidence suggests that students who
are intrinsically interested in their studies are more likely to engage with the content
in such a way that they achieve high quality learning outcomes (Entwistle and
Ramsden, 1983).
There is a wealth of research suggesting that students who are intrinsically
motivated are likely to display con?dence and interest, resulting in enhanced
performance, persistence and creativity (Deci and Ryan, 1991; Ryan and Deci, 2000b;
Sheldon et al., 1997) as well as high self-esteem (Deci and Ryan, 1991). Lin et al. (2003)
found that there was a positive relationship between the level of intrinsic interest[2]
shown by college students and the grades they achieved. In terms of the possible
relationship between intrinsic motivation and intention to become an accountant the
work of van der Linden (1987) shows that high levels of intrinsic interest are important
for students in terms of their attitude towards accounting as a career choice. Intrinsic
motivation has also been shown to have a strong effect upon performance and
career success (Deci and Ryan, 1991; Sheldon et al., 1997; Taylor and Brown, 1988).
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While the bene?ts of intrinsic motivation are well established for students, similar
bene?ts have also been observed in the accounting profession. For example,
an experiment by Becker (1997) found that auditors who displayed higher levels of
intrinsic motivation formed better audit judgements.
Whilst the intrinsic motivation of both students and professionals has been
established as a predictor of their performance, it should also be acknowledged that
cultural differences play an important role in the level of one’s intrinsic motivation.
Prior research by Auyeung and Sands (1997) found that students from Hong Kong and
Taiwan are more likely than their Australian counterparts, to be drawn towards
studying accounting because of extrinsic reasons such as the perceptions held about
the profession’s prestige, social status and earning potential. More recently, Jackling
and Keneley (2009) found that intrinsic interest was likely to in?uence choice of
accounting major if the student was an Australian student, rather than an international
student. This ?nding was attributed in part to the motivation for international students
to study accounting in Australia given government initiatives designed to enhance the
opportunity for permanent residence status on completion of accounting studies.
Overall, prior literature suggests that Australian students would tend to be more
in?uenced by intrinsic interest to pursue a career in accounting than international
students studying in Australia, given that the international students may be in?uenced
by factors other than intrinsic interest. Therefore, the ?rst hypothesis tested will be:
H1. Australian students are more likely to be intrinsically motivated towards
accounting than international students.
The work of accountants. The work of accountants has been stereotyped by the media
and popular culture as being dull, number-crunching work with little personal
interaction (Cory, 1992; Friedman and Lyne, 2001; Hunt et al., 2004). Accounting is
often perceived to involve mathematics and attention to detail over communication and
interpersonal skills (Hunt et al., 2004).
It is well known that students’ attitudes towards accounting are heavily in?uenced
by their perceptions of accounting (Adams et al., 1994; Mouldin et al., 2000; Tan and
Laswad, 2006). The stereotypical negative perception of the work of accountants has
concerned researchers as these perceptions can deter students fromstudying accounting
and pursuing a career in accounting (Cohen and Hanno, 1993; Fisher and Murphy, 1995;
Mladenovic, 2000; Smith and Briggs, 1999). However, other studies have found that even
though accountants may be viewed as having a dull image, anticipated job satisfaction
is a consideration of accounting students when they choose to study accounting
(Auyeung and Sands, 1997; Paolillo and Estes, 1982; Tan and Laswad, 2006).
In terms of possible differences between Australian and international students
attitudes towards the work of accountants, prior studies suggest that international
students have less positive views of their work role. McDowall and Jackling (2010)
compared attitudes towards accounting for international students with the prior work
of Marriott and Marriott (2003) in the UK. This comparison showed that overall
international students in the Australian sample had less positive attitudes toward
accounting than those in the UKstudy (Marriott and Marriott, 2003). The reason for the
difference was in part attributed to differences in motivation for studying accounting
in Australia compared with the UK.
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Based on these earlier ?ndings the second hypothesis aims to determine whether
there is a difference between Australian and international students in terms of
attitudes towards the work of accountants. Thus:
H2. International students are less likely to have positive attitudes towards the
work of accountants than Australian students.
Prestige of the accounting profession. The prestige of the accounting profession has been
identi?ed by several researchers as impacting on the desirability of studying accounting
and pursuing accounting as a career (Auyeung and Sands, 1997; Felton et al., 1994;
Marriott and Marriott, 2003; Paolillo and Estes, 1982; Tan and Laswad, 2006). Paolillo and
Estes (1982) found that professional prestige and respect were strong incentives for
accounting students to pursue a career in accounting, when compared with other
professions such as medicine, law and engineering. This study was replicated by Wells
and Fieger (2006) who examined perceptions from high school teachers’ in Australia and
New Zealand. They, in effect, con?rmed the results from earlier studies, which suggest
that the perceived prestige of the accounting profession tends to outweigh the negative
stereotypes. A limitation of these prior studies is that they tended to treat their student
cohorts as a homogenous group. To address these limitations, this study will test if there
are differences between Australian and international students’ perceptions of the
accounting profession’s status and prestige. Therefore, the third hypothesis tested will be:
H3. There is no difference between Australian and international students’
perceptions of the accounting profession’s prestige.
Subjective norms/reference groups
As outlined in the TRA, in making career choices, students may be in?uenced by
various reference groups. For example, prior studies have evidenced that parents
in?uence students’ attitudes towards choice of accounting majors (Inman et al., 1989;
Mouldin et al., 2000). However, overall the empirical evidence shows mixed results in
terms of other reference groups such as the in?uence of friends, career counsellors and
teachers. For example, Gul et al. (1989) found that teachers did not have a signi?cant
role in students’ choice of majors studied at university. In contrast, Geiger and Ogilby
(2000) and Mouldin et al. (2000) suggest that teachers have an important in?uence on
students’ decisions to pursue an accounting quali?cation.
Tan and Laswad (2006) found that international students, in comparison to
New Zealand students, had signi?cantly higher motivations to comply with the opinions
of others, particularly parents and career counsellors in their selection of major. Likewise
Auyeung and Sands (1997) found that parental, teacher, and peer in?uence had a greater
impact on Hong Kong and Taiwanese students than upon Australian students. More
recently Jackling and Keneley (2009) using a cohort of Australian and international
students found that there was a greater likelihood that international students would be
in?uenced in their decision to major in accounting by “reference groups” than Australian
students. Anecdotal evidence suggests that parents of international students would be
more likely to encourage the completion of an overseas quali?cation that not only led to
a professional quali?cation (accountant) but also had the dual bene?t of permanent
residency in Australia. The current study endeavours to build on the prior literature by
examining whether there are differences between Australian and international students
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in terms of the possible differences in the in?uence of reference groups, family, and
peers, in pursuing accounting as a career. Therefore, H4 is as follows:
H4. International students are more likely than Australian students to be
in?uenced by reference groups to pursue a career in accounting.
Data and method
Sample selection
The participants in this study were second year undergraduate students who were
undertaking an accounting major having enrolled in a Bachelor of Business degree at a
university in Melbourne, Australia that is accredited by the JAB. Self report data were
collected by administering a questionnaire to students during their ?nal lecture in semester
2 of 2008. The 280 students present were invited to participate in the study by completing
the questionnaire. After eliminating incomplete responses to the questionnaire, a total of
225 usable responses provided data to inform this study. To ensure the study did not fall
victim to non-response bias, a comparison of the broader student pro?le descriptors of
second year business students at the university when compared with respondents’
demographics suggested the sample was indicative of the known “typical” population.
Measurement of variables
As the main objective of the study was to test students’ intentions to become an
accountant, the ?rst section of the questionnaire utilised an updated version of the
accounting attitude scale (AAS) developed by Nelson (1990). Prior US studies found a
reliability coef?cient alpha of 0.80 or above (Graves et al., 1992; Nelson and Deines,
1995; Nelson and Vendrzyk, 1996) for the AAS.
The AAS consists of ?fteen items that seek to assess student perceptions of: the role
of accountants, whether students enjoy accounting, the prestige of the accounting
profession and the in?uence of parents and peers in selecting accounting as a career.
Sample statements included: “I would enjoy being an accountant” and “accountants are
number-crunchers: they seldom work with people”. Respondents were asked to
indicate their perceptions based on a series of statements using a seven-point Likert
scale anchored to 1 – “strongly disagree” and 7 – “strongly agree”.
The second sectionof the questionnaire included three categorical questions relatingto
respondent demographics: age, gender, and country of permanent residence. A sample of
respondent characteristics (Table I) reveals a majority of the respondents were female
136 (representing 59.4 per cent of the sample) while 40.6 per cent were male. Of the 225
usable responses 48 per cent were Australianstudents while 52per cent were international
students. Investigation of the country of residence showed that the majority of
international students were from China (34 per cent) with signi?cant numbers also from
Malaysia and Hong Kong. In terms of age groupings, as would be anticipated, the vast
majority of the sample (88 per cent) was in the age group 18-24 years.
Results
Table II shows the mean scores for each of the variables addressing attitudes towards
the accounting profession as well as an overall average attitude towards accounting
score. The AAS measure of attitude to the profession includes some items that need to
be reversed in the scale. In addition, as in previous studies using the AAS, all items
were re-keyed to a scale of 0-10. Items in Table II marked whave been reversed coded
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Frequency
PercentageGender
Male 90 40.0
Female 135 60.0
Total 225 100.0
Nationality
Australian 108 48.0
International 117 52.0
Total 225 100.0
Country of origin: international only
China 41 35.0
Malaysia 16 13.7
Hong Kong 8 6.8
Other 52 44.5
Total 117 100.0
Age groupings
18-24 198 88
25-29 14 6
30-34 7 3
$35 6 3
Total 225 100
Table I.
Demographic
composition of the sample
Descriptive statistics
Statement Overall mean (SD) Australian mean (SD) International mean (SD)
n 225 108 117
Interact with people 7.28 (2.03) 7.44 (2.17) 7.13 (1.88)
Respected profession 6.97 (2.15) 7.24 (2.05) 6.71 (2.20)
* * *
Family view 6.91 (2.53) 6.93 (2.33) 6.89 (2.71)
Boring
w
6.55 (3.01) 7.30 (2.83) 5.86 (3.02)
*
Fixed rules
w
6.56 (2.42) 7.05 (2.20) 6.12 (2.52)
*
Peers view 6.50 (2.27) 6.48 (2.37) 6.51 (2.18)
Profession prestige 6.44 (2.08) 6.61 (2.04) 6.27 (2.12)
Number crunchers
w
6.35 (2.47) 7.11 (2.41) 5.64 (2.33)
*
Enjoy 6.28 (2.60) 6.72 (2.45) 5.88 (2.68)
* *
Like accounting 6.20 (2.64) 6.76 (2.49) 5.69 (2.69)
*
Work alone
w
5.76 (2.63) 6.35 (2.53) 5.21 (2.60)
*
No satisfaction
w
5.74 (2.58) 6.37 (2.65) 5.15 (2.37)
*
Par med. law 5.73 (2.48) 5.37 (2.56) 6.07 (2.36)
* *
Interesting 5.47 (2.67) 6.00 (2.41) 4.97 (2.81)
*
Rule memory
w
4.96 (2.67) 5.72 (2.39) 4.26 (2.74)
*
Average AAS 6.24 (2.48) 6.63 (2.48) 5.89 (2.29)
Notes: Differences between Australian and international students signi?cant at
*
1 per cent
( p , 0.01),
* *
5 per cent ( p , 0.05),
* * *
10 per cent ( p , 0.10); items marked with an w on all tables
have been reversed keyed, which means that the higher the score the less the respondents agree with
the negative statement and hence the more positive their attitude towards accounting
Table II.
Mean scores for AAS
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so that the higher the score the lower level of agreement with the negative statement,
hence the more positive the attitude.
The results shown in Table II indicate the overall responses, plus mean scores for
Australian and international students. Tests for signi?cance of difference between the
two groups were undertaken using Mann-Whitney U Tests. Overall, respondents
perceived that accountants interact with many people (mean 7.28), that accounting is a
respected profession (mean 6.97), and their family would like them to become an
accountant (mean 6.91). The scores on items more closely associated with intrinsic
interest in accounting, “I would enjoy being an accountant” and “I like accounting” were
rated lower by this cohort of students when compared with the items in Nelson and
Vendrzyk (1996) study where scores ranged from 7.225 to 7.56 out of a possible score of
10. Similarly, Marriott and Marriott’s (2003) study had scores above eight on four of the
statements: including “the accounting profession is well respected”; “I wouldenjoy being
an accountant”; “accountants are not boring people”; “I like accounting”. However,
it should be acknowledged that in their study the scores were for students at the
commencement of their studies whereas the results reported in the present study are for
students in their second year of study.
Of interest to the present study was the ?nding that students viewed accounting as
requiring a great deal of rule-memorising (mean 4.96). Additionally, respondents were
likely to perceive that accountants worked alone (mean 5.76). The overall score for
attitudes towards accounting (average AAS) was lower than in previous accounting
studies (e.g. Marriott and Marriott (2003) average AAS 7.5) and this may to some
extent be in?uenced by the diversity of students in the sample. To further explore
differences between Australian and international students in the sample, we used
factor analysis to reduce the 15 items in the AAS to a set of independent factors
suitable for inclusion in the logistic regression analysis where the dependent variable
was residency: Australian or elsewhere.
Factor analysis
Factor analysis with principal components extraction was used to reduce the number of
variables to a set of independent factors. The “varimax” rotation method was used in the
principal component analysis to ensure that the factors are orthogonal to each other, thus
making them suitable for use in logistic regression. The suitability of the data for factor
analysis was assessed and two variables (“boring people” and “prestige”) were identi?ed
with loadings of more than 0.40 for at least two components denoting that each has a
complex structure. Consequently, these two variables were omitted in the reported
factor analysis shown in Table III (Field, 2009). In addition, a cut off score of 0.46 was
employed to ensure that only variables that signi?cantly loaded into a component
were included in the factor analysis. As a result, the variable “no satisfaction” was
removed and a principal component analysis was run with 12 of the 15 original
variables.
The Kayer-Meyer-Oklin value for the principal components analysis is 0.786 being
above the recommended 0.6 (Kaiser, 1970, 1974) and the Bartlett’s test of Sphericity
(Bartlett, 1954) is statistically signi?cant (x
2
¼ 821.57, df ¼ 78, p , 0.01) indicating
that the correlation matrices of these items were factorable. Table III shows the four
components extracted from the analysis explaining a total of 60.6 per cent of the
variance, together with the variable loadings[3].
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The ?rst three factors contain components of attitudes towards accounting as
identi?ed in the adaptation of the TRA shown in Figure 1. The ?rst factor measures
perceptions of accounting as a discipline and is labelled “intrinsic interest”. The items
that loaded heavily on this factor include: “accounting is interesting” with a factor
loading of 0.840, “I like accounting” with a factor loading of 0.807, and “I would enjoy
being an accountant” with a factor loading of 0.799. The “intrinsic interest” factor
explains 19.8 per cent of the variance between items surveyed. This grouping is
consistent with the components of intrinsic interest present in the literature reviewed
earlier.
The second factor measures the perceptions of the work that accountants do and is
labelled “accountants’ work”. The items that loaded on this factor include: “accountants
are number-crunchers: they seldom work with people” with a factor loading of 0.781,
“accountants work alone more than they work with people” with a factor loading of
0.762, and “accounting is a lot of ?xed rules: it doesn’t involve conceptual skills or
judgement” with a factor loading of 0.744. The “accountants’ work” factor explains
19.6 per cent of the variance between items surveyed.
The third factor measures how the accounting professional status is perceived and is
labelled “professional prestige”. The items that loaded on this factor were “accounting is
Component
Intrinsic
interest
Accountants’
work
Professional
prestige
Reference
groups
Accounting is interesting 0.840 – – –
I would enjoy being an accountant 0.799 – – –
I like accounting 0.807 – – –
Accountants are number crunchers;
they seldom work with people
w
– 0.781 – –
Accountants work alone more than
they work with people
w
– 0.762 – –
Accounting is a lot of ?xed rules; it
doesn’t involve conceptual skills or
judgment
w
– 0.744 – –
Professionally-quali?es accountants
interact with lots of people – 0.509 – –
Accounting is just a lot of rule
memorizing
w
– 0.470 – –
Accounting is a profession, on a par
with medicine and law – – 0.813 –
The accounting profession is well
respected – – 0.688 –
My family would like me to be an
accountant – – – 0.849
Cronbach alpha 0.844 0.714 0.462 0.438
Eigenvalue 3.546 2.196 1.152 0.984
Percentage of variance 19.782 19.589 11.264 9.967
Cumulative (%) 19.782 39.370 50.634 60.602
Notes: Extraction method, principal component analysis; rotation method, varimax with Kaiser
normalisation; rotation converged in six iterations
Table III.
Rotated component
matrix: attitudes towards
accounting and
accountants
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a profession, on a par with medicine and law” (0.813) and “the accounting profession is
well-respected” with a factor loading of 0.688.
These three factors ?t within the theoretical framework of the TRA as outlined in
Box 1 of Figure 1, attitudes towards accounting.
The ?nal factor is titled “reference groups” and included two items “my family
would like me to be an accountant” with a loading of 0.849 and “my peers would think
I made a good career decision if I became an accountant” with an item loading of 0.594.
This factor ?ts within the theoretical framework of the TRA as outlined in Box 2 of
Figure 1, subjective norms/reference groups.
Analysis of the responses that led to the identi?cation of the four factors supports
the structure of the model shown in Figure 1.
Logistic regression analysis
The four composite variables derived from the principal components analysis (intrinsic
interest, accountants’ work, professional prestige and reference groups) are
incorporated in a logistic regression model to determine differences in perceptions of
these variables by international and Australian students. The model allows for the
prediction of the likelihood that international students perceive the role of accountants
primarily as number-crunchers; that international students have intrinsic interest in
accounting; whether the accounting profession is perceived to have a high degree of
professional prestige and whether parents and peers in?uenced intentions to pursue
accounting as a career. The dependent variable is “country of permanent residence”
which took the value “0” for Australian students and “1” for international students:
logit p ð Þ ¼ b
0
þ b
1
Intrinsic interest þ b
2
Accountants’ work
þ b
3
Professional prestige þ b
4
Reference groups þ [
where logit(p) is the logit to be estimated by the right hand side variables, while the bs
are the parameters of these variables.
Regression results
The main purpose of this study is to investigate whether there are differences between
Australianstudents andinternational students interms of their level of intrinsic interest in
accounting(H1), their perceptions of the work accountants perform(H2), their perceptions
of the accounting profession (H3) and the in?uence of reference groups (H4). Table IV
shows the ?nal model regressionresults including the logistic regressioncoef?cient, Wald
test, degrees of freedom, level of signi?cance, and odds ratio for the variables in the
Predictor b SE b Wald x
2
P Odds ratio
Intrinsic interest 20.470 0.150 9.862 0.002 0.625
Accountants’ work 20.690 0.161 18.383 0.000 0.502
Professional prestige 0.216 0.150 2.052 0.152 1.241
Reference groups 0.097 0.149 0.426 0.514 1.102
Constant 0.074 0.143 0.266 0.606 1.077
Notes: Dependent variable coded (1) for international students and (0) for Australian students;
n ¼ 225
Table IV.
Logistic regression:
predicting attitudes of
Australian and
international students’
attitudes towards
accounting and
accountants
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equation (Exp(b)). The value under Exp(b) is the predicted change in odds for a unit
increase inone independent variable, holdingother variables constant. The ?nal columnin
the table, percentage probability (P) expresses the odds in terms of probabilities.
The model x
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the model performs well. The overall percentage prediction accuracy of the model is
64.5 per cent. Given that the aimof the study using the TRAis to determine the difference
in responses of Australian students compared to international students, this model is
considered acceptable. The results of the logistic regression test used a 0.5 per cent
criterion of statistical signi?cance.
The following section of the paper outlines the ?ndings commencing with a discussion
of the results for the composite variables tested in the logistic regression analysis.
Intrinsic motivation
There is a statistically signi?cant difference between Australian and international
students for the variable “intrinsic interest”, and the negative coef?cient con?rms that
Australian students are more likely to have an intrinsic interest in accounting than
international students (x
2
¼ 9.862, p , 0.01), thus providing support for (H1). This
?nding is consistent with the previous work of Jackling and Keneley (2009) and
Auyeung and Sands (1997) who found that Australian students tend to have positive
attitudes towards accounting (an attribute of intrinsic motivation), more so than
international students who are studying accounting in Australia.
Accountants’ work
Support is also found for (H2) with the statistically signi?cant negative coef?cient for
Accountants’ Work, indicating that an international student is more likely than an
Australian student to perceive the work of accountants as monotonous, repetitive and
involving number-crunching (x
2
¼ 9.862, p , 0.01). This result is somewhat disturbing
given that the content and emphasis of accounting courses has undergone considerable
change in recent years (Howieson, 2003). These changes mean there is nowsigni?cantly
less emphasis on rule memorisation in curriculum and a greater emphasis on critical
thinking and problem solving to more adequately prepare students for the work
environment. More recently accounting education literature has emphasised the bene?ts
of focussing on critical thinking and problem solving skills in developing graduates for
the global accounting environment (Hancock et al., 2009; Howieson, 2003).
The difference between Australian and international students in terms of perceived
attitude towards the work of accountants, may in part be explained by the difference in
year of entry to university studies. International students in the main enter university at
the second year level having gained exemption from ?rst year university studies, having
completed their ?rst year accounting studies within a Technical and Further Education
(TAFE) environment in Australia. The TAFE sector offers courses at vocational and
para-professional level (e.g. diploma, certi?cate, etc.) and has a focus on developing
de?ned levels of competency required by industry and employers[4]. The approaches to
teaching and assessment in TAFE differ substantially from the university environment
where the focus in university is on a much broader role of advancing knowledge and
promoting scholarship. First year programs inuniversities inAustralia have movedaway
from teaching procedural tasks to a more conceptual and analytical form of teaching and
assessment (Hall et al., 2004; English et al., 2004). Therefore, the differences in attitudes
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related to the work of accountants between Australian and international students may
re?ect the formation and perhaps reinforcement of stereotypical attitudes towards the
profession by international students given that they mainly enter university study at the
secondyear level, havingcompletedaccountingstudies at TAFE. Althoughstudents were
not requested to identify their entry pathway in the questionnaire, this would be an
important addition to future studies addressing differences in attitudes towards
accounting between Australian and international students.
Professional prestige
There is no statistically signi?cant difference between Australian and international
students for the variable “professional prestige”; thus (H3) is supported. It would appear
that accounting students, regardless of their background residence, believe that accounting
is a prestigious profession as measured by the factor derived from the AAS instrument.
Reference groups
No statistically signi?cant difference is found between Australian and international
students for the variable “reference groups”; thus (H4) is not supported. Although
collectively are were no differences between the two cohorts in terms of the perceived
in?uence of reference groups, it would appear from the factor loadings that parents
exerted the most in?uence on career choice for both Australian and international
accounting students followed by their peers. Overall, the results for this part of the study
are not consistent with previous studies that have identi?ed the in?uence of reference
groups in the choice of accounting major ( Jackling and Keneley, 2009; Tan and Laswad,
2006). The difference in the result for this study may in part be attributable to the
difference in the variables used to test for the in?uence of reference groups. The results
however appear to be more consistent with the work of Felton et al. (1995) where only the
attitudes component of the TRAwas employed. Similarly, the ?ndings support previous
research of Silverstone and Williams (1979) and Paolillo and Estes (1982) who suggest
that reference groups do not in?uence career choice in accounting.
Discussion and conclusions
In a climate of high demand for quality accounting graduates, this study used the TRA
as a basis to examine the differences between Australian and international students in
in?uences on attitudes towards accounting and the accounting profession. The basic
premise of the TRA model is that attitudes in?uence intention, which ultimately results
in behaviour, i.e. becoming an accountant.
Some commonalities are found between Australian and international students. For
example, there is no difference in the viewof the prestige of the accounting profession, nor
is there any signi?cant difference in the role of reference groups. In contrast, the study
identi?es differences in the attitudes towards accounting between Australian and
international students. In particular, Australian students appear to have more sustainable
positive attitudes towards accounting that are likely to strengthen their resolve to become
an accountant Similarly, there are signi?cant differences between Australian and
international students in attitudes towards the work of accountants and intrinsic interest.
It could therefore be argued that international students who have less positive attitudes
may be less likely to intend to become an accountant. Prior studies have concluded that
international students have a greater focus on obtaining permanent residence in Australia
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than perhaps becoming an accountant (Birrell et al., 2007). This conclusion is
supported by a more negative attitude towards the work of accountants, expressed
by international students, and their less positive attitudes linked to intrinsic interests,
when compared with Australian students.
It is posited however, that there may be additional constraints on international
students to ful?l their intentions to become an accountant. Failure to achieve this
planned behaviour has been attributed to the lack of an appropriate skill set of
international graduate accountants (Birrell and Healy, 2008).
Prior research has clearly demonstrated that the ongoing viability of the accounting
profession is dependent upon attracting students with positive attitudes towards
accounting and the accounting profession (Byrne and Willis, 2005; Garner and
Dombrowski, 1997). The ?ndings of this study indicate that the attitudes towards
accounting are different for international students compared to their Australian peers
and this may be an important constraint in their capacity to gain employment as an
accountant and thus address the skill shortage. A combination of an increase in the
number of places available to Australian students in accountancy programs in
Australian universities and better recruitment of genuinely interested international
students may well be a means of addressing the skill shortage in the Australian
accounting profession in the longer term.
Results also showthat international students are more likely than Australian students
to perceive the role of accountants as number-crunching andfollowing ?xed rules. Further
evidence demonstrated that despite more stereotypical images of the work of accountants,
there is no signi?cant differences between Australian and international students in
perceptions of the prestige of the profession. Discussion of these forces consistent with the
TRA served to demonstrate that these constraints may represent a strong barrier to the
individual’s capacity to follow through with their intention to become an accountant.
A limitation of the ?ndings of this study is that international students are not a
homogeneous group. Within this comparison category, students in this study were
drawn from twenty countries, although 34 per cent of the international cohort was from
China. An extension of this project could therefore be to extend the study to a range of
universities throughout Australia thereby incorporating a larger sample from both
Australia and the Asia-Paci?c region.
Additionally, the ?ndings of this research result from the conduct of the study within
one university at one point in time. Furthermore, the study indicates students’
attitudes towards accounting part way through their university studies of accounting.
A longitudinal study of Australian and international students over the duration of their
undergraduate accounting studies, including identi?cation of differing entry pathways,
would be a worthwhile extension of the present study. An important conclusion to be
drawn from the study is the need to undertake further research that addresses not only
attitudes towards accounting but also address external forces that impact on planned
behaviour of accounting students to become an accountant. The theory of planned
behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 2007) as an extension of the TRA has the potential to address a
broader range of aspects of career choice when applied to accounting in an Australian
context. Of particular interest infurther studies wouldbe the incorporationof the construct
“perceived behaviour control” as part of the TPB which is not only linked to attitudes
but also highlights the possibility of realistic constraints to pursuing planned behaviour
(e.g. a career in accounting).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia
and NewZealand (AFAANZ) for their generosity in providing ?nancial assistance for this
research. The authors would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the
editor Natalie Gallery, for their invaluable feedbackwhichhas helpedtoimprove the paper.
Notes
1. The JAB in Australia are: CPA Australia; Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia
and the Institute of Public Accountants.
2. The literature suggests that an individuals’ motivation is a product of many factors one of
which is intrinsic interest in the subject matter or task. For the purposes of our analysis and
discussion we accept the link between intrinsic interest and motivation (Lin et al., 2003).
3. According to the Kaiser criterion (eigen values) three factors obtained values of over 1 while the
scree plot identi?ed two factors to extract with many data points clustered near the bend. As
Costello and Osborne (2005) point out, when this occurs one can manually set the number of
factors and run multiple factor analyses: once at the scree level (two factors); one at the Kaiser
criteria (three factors); and then at numbers above and below those. In this case, three factor
analyses were performed at two-four factors, respectively. Costello and Osborne (2005) add that
the factor with the “cleanest” factor structure has the best ?t to the data and should be chosen.
4. TAFE institutions in Australia are equivalent to community colleges in the USA and Canada
and further education colleges in the UK.
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About the authors
Beverley Jackling is presently the Director of the Financial Education and Research Unit (FERU)
in the School of Accounting and Finance, Victoria University, Australia. Her primary research
interests have included the education aspects of business and accounting education and her
research has been informed by strongly established links with professional accounting bodies
nationally and internationally.
Professor Paul de Lange (B.Ed., Grad Dip Acc., M.Bus Acc., PhD, CPA, IPA) is currently
a Professor and Deputy Head Research in the Department of Accounting at RMIT University,
Australia. He has published over 30 refereed publications and is a regular speaker at numerous
international and national conferences. He is an associate editor of Accounting Education:
an International Journal and has won over $700,000 in competitive research grants in the last four
years. He has an international reputation and gave a plenary address at the 2007 British Accounting
Association SIG on Accounting Education. He has participated as an expert reviewer for Otago
University on their external review. Since 2006 he has been an elected member of the AFAANZ
Boardof Directors andinthis capacityhas beenco-chair of the conference technical committee. He is
currently President elect of AFAANZ and will assume the Presidency in July 2013. His track record
in research grants and publications shows he is a “teamplayer” and research mentor. Paul de Lange
is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Jon Phillips (B.Bus (Acc.), B.BusCom (Hons), ASA) is currently an Assistant Lecturer in the
Department of Accounting and Finance, Monash University, Australia and his area of research
includes the accounting profession, taxation and accounting education. He has been the recipient
of a number of competitive external research grants and has published in a number of Australian
and international journals. He has presented numerous conference papers locally and
internationally, including the AAA and AFAANZ.
James Sewell has a Bachelor of Business Accounting and has completed several years in
industry. Having now decided to pursue an academic career, he is currently employed as an
Assistant Lecturer inthe Department of Accounting andFinance at Monash University, Australia.
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This article has been cited by:
1. Badingatus Solikhah. 2014. An Application of Theory of Planned Behavior towards CPA Career in
Indonesia. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 164, 397-402. [CrossRef]
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