Factors Affecting the Decision of Accounting Students to Pursue a Career as a Professional Accountant

Ashley  M. Otanes,; Jenny Joy  Q. Verdejo,

Factors Affecting the Decision of Accounting Students to Pursue a Career as a Professional Accountant

Discipline: human resource management

Abstract:

According to the World Bank Group (2017), the Philippines’ growth outlook remains positive and the country is expected to remain one of East Asia’s top growth performers. Despite the growing economy which could lead to growth in the demand for professional accountancy services and promising number of prospective professional accountants in 2017, still many among them do not pursue a career as professional accountants. In line with this, the Philippines has one of the highest gap ratios between the number of professional accountants and the total population in the ASEAN. This study investigated the contributing factors that influence the decision of accounting students to pursue a career as a professional accountant, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. The study focused on third year and fourth year accounting students from two universities offering accountancy courses in the Philippines. Upon survey of 165 accounting students, it was found out that the independent variables namely career prospect, financial rewards, interest in the job, and subjective norm do not affect the decision of accounting students to pursue a career as a professional accountant. Furthermore, the control variable, gender, was also statistically insignificant, which implies that gender does not determine an accounting student’s intention to pursue a career as a professional accountant. The quantitative data was further substantiated through related literature, interviews, and focus group discussions. Lastly,recommendations were given to the Board of Accountancy (BOA), to universities, to families of accounting students, and to future researchers.

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