Journal of Management Development

Factors influencing accounting students’ career paths

Yen Hong Ng Sue Pei Lai Zhi Peng Su Jing Yi Yap Hui Qi Teoh Han Lee
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Yen Hong Ng Sue Pei Lai Zhi Peng Su Jing Yi Yap Hui Qi Teoh Han Lee , (2017)," Factors influencing accounting students’
career paths ", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 36 Iss 3 pp. -
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 Factors influencing accounting students’ career paths

Introduction

According to the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA), accounting is a

system of recording past transactions, organizing source documents, and analysing companies’ financial
performance and position. In Malaysia, the accountant profession is regulated by a statutory body called
the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) which was established under the Accountants Act of 1967.
Apart from regulating accounting practices, the MIA also plays a significant role in enhancing the
competency level of accountancy professionals in meeting market demand. As reported by Nor, Zaini and
Zahid (2013), Malaysia plans to have 80,000 professional accountants by year 2020. However, the total
number of registered MIA members in the country is only 29,624 in the year 2013/2014. The number is
still far behind the targeted amount. Apart from that, as reported by Southern University College in 2014,
Malaysia also has a shortage of qualified tax accountants as well as qualified cost accountants. One of
the reasons is an outflow of trained and qualified accounting professionals to neighbouring countries such
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as Singapore. The member recruitment of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)
and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) indicates a slanted preference by
accounting students. In year 2013, ACCA recruited 10,361 new members while CIMA only recruited
5,527 new members. The low number of member recruitment in CIMA may be an indicator of accounting
students’ preference towards their career paths. Hutaibat (2005), as cited in Hutaibat (2012), explained
that the lack of preference for management accounting could be due to the lack of formal education in
management accounting. Past literature revealed that other influencing factors using the social cognitive
career theory include intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, third parties influence and career exposure.

The objective of this study is to identify factors which influence accounting students in choosing
their career paths upon graduation. Basically, accounting students have many choices in terms of career
advancement upon their graduation. For instance, they may advance into areas of financial accounting,
taxation, management accounting, auditing, finance, etc. This study includes new variables in the model
to ascertain which factors are significant in influencing accounting students’ preference towards their
career paths. Besides that, educational institutions may benefit from this study as subject teachers or
academic counselors may use the findings of this study to assist students in their career choices. On top
of that, professional accounting bodies may also benefit as the findings could provide a basis for them to
design their member recruitment strategies.

Literature Review

Social Cognitive Career Theory

The social cognitive career theory (SCCT) which was developed by Lent, Brown & Hackett (1994)
is used to explain variables that influence a person’s career choices. According to Lent et al. (1994), the
social cognitive career theory refers to the process of an individual developing his or her career choices,
vocational interests and persistence of his or her career. As explained by Wang, Lo, Xu, Wang & Porfeli
(2007), SCCT posits that an individual’s career choices and goals are influenced by the person’s self-
efficacy beliefs and career expectations. The concept of SCCT is regularly used in past literature in the
examination of career choices and career development. There are three major variables involved in the
career choice process, which are personal, contextual and behavioral variables (Flores, Robitschek,
Celebi, Andersen & Hoang, 2010). A past study conducted by James & Hill (2009) had used SCCT as a
framework in analysing the phenomenon whereby a majority of African-American students are
uninterested to advance in accounting as their career option.

As explained by Chantara, Kaewkuekool & Koul (2011), SCCT comprises of three primary tenets,
namely: self-efficacy, outcome expectations and goals. Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s faith about
his or her capabilities to achieve a course of action which is related to career achievement (Mandzik,
2011). Humans with strong sense of self-efficacy will usually place great effort in accomplishing tasks
despite of the obstacles they encounter. Outcome expectations, on the other hand, refer to the beliefs on
 the future consequence after a certain behaviour is performed (Mandzik, 2011; Chantara et al., 2011).
Lastly, goals are defined as a person’s determination to decide on specific outcomes of learning or
performance. The composition of goals represents a critical mechanism which involves the method which
a person exercise his or her self-empowerment.

Career Path

Career path is defined by Yusoff, Omar, Awang, Yusoff & Jusoff (2011) as a lifelong journey
which should be planned at the beginning of a person’s career. On the other hand, Joseph, Boh, Ang &
Slaughter (2012) defined career path as an occupational position held by an individual for his or her entire
lifetime. A person could advance into a career of business, law, academics, entertainment, etc. Career
path and career choice could be used interchangeably. In this study, career path refers to the career
choice which an accounting student makes upon his or her graduation. An accounting student’s career
choice includes advancing into areas of audit, tax, management accounting, financial accounting, finance,
etc. According to Dalton, Buchheit & McMillan (2014), accounting students frequently enter into the audit
and tax career paths.
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As commented by Byrne, Willis & Burke (2012), identifying the factors that influence graduates’
career choices would be helpful to the accountancy profession for its promotional and recruitment
campaign. As discussed earlier, it is observed that Malaysian accounting graduates have a slanted
preference towards ACCA instead of CIMA. Thus, the identification of factors influencing career choices
(i.e. career path) for the accounting graduates would aid CIMA in its recruitment campaign. According to
Joseph et al. (2012), a person’s career path could also be influenced by the personal attributes of the
individuals. Career path may also refer to work experience instead of progress in terms of career,
personal growth, job status and job satisfaction (Jennifer, 2010 as cited in Yusoff et al., 2011). Similar to
past literatures, this study adopts the concept of SCCT in the examination of accounting students’ career
paths in a reputable higher learning institution which recruits a huge number of accounting students
annually for its accounting programme.

Intrinsic Motivation

Generally, motivation is divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic
motivation refers to something or an activity which brings personal satisfaction (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Ryan
& Deci (2000) further explained that intrinsic motivation is a positive experience a person has when he
acts out of his own interest or challenge. It is not influenced by external factors such as pressures,
rewards or forced by others. On the other hand, Jackling & Keneley (2009) defined intrinsic motivation as
a personal contentment achieved from chasing and searching for some activity. Intrinsic motivation
includes two components, namely personal interest and personal choice.

A past study conducted by Odia & Ogiedu (2013) inspected factors affect accounting students’
career choice decisions in Nigerian universities. All 300 questionnaires were collected from
undergraduates in three different universities. The t-test analysis showed that intrinsic motivation was an
important factor for accounting students. Findings found that intrinsic motivation can positively affect
students’ career paths. Students prefer accounting simply because accounting is interesting. The
students are also confident in getting good results and are addicted to numbers and figures. These
factors had intrinsically motivated students to study accounting.

Another past study conducted by Mbawuni & Nimako (2015) examined job-related and
personality factors that influence career decisions for accounting students from the University of
Education, Winneba. Altogether, 516 questionnaires were collected from undergraduate accounting
students. Findings from this study showed feelings and perception towards the accounting profession
have positive and significant influence towards career decision in accounting students. On the other hand,
according to Adeleke, Binuomote & Adeyinka (2013), personality factors which included aptitude and
attitude are shown as significant factors of personality in the progress of career interest. Respondents of
that study comprised of secondary school leavers from both urban and rural areas. Therefore, this leads
to the hypothesis that:
 1
H : There is a positive relationship between intrinsic motivation and career path.

Extrinsic Motivation

As explained by Ryan & Deci (2000), extrinsic motivation is different from intrinsic motivation. A
person may be extrinsically motivated to perform some tasks even though they do not enjoy the task, as
he may be working for expected rewards (Bainbridge, 2015). As such, Bainbridge (2015) defined extrinsic
motivation as a motivation factor which comes from outside of an individual.

A study carried out by Hejazi & Bazrafshan (2013) consisting of 75 questionnaires were used to
survey the perception of graduate accounting students in universities of Iran regarding their interest in
management accounting. The result showed that management accounting is less preferred to than
financial accounting and auditing among the accounting students because financial accounting could
provide them with better extrinsic motivation in terms of higher pay and better benefits. The findings of the
study concluded that extrinsic motivation could influence career paths. Apart from that, there are also
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other past studies which have found that extrinsic motivation is positively associated with career path
(Jackling & Keneley, 2009; James & Hill, 2009; and Demagalhaes, Wilde & Fitzgerald, 2011). Based on
these past studies, the common extrinsic motivation factors found to influence career paths are salary
and the availability of job opportunities.

However, Porter & Woolley (2014) found that the effect of extrinsic motivation is smaller in
comparison to intrinsic motivation in terms of career choice. The study was conducted in a single
university with a total of 278 questionnaires being collected and analysed. Even though Porter & Woolley
(2014) agreed that the accounting career does provide extrinsic benefits such as better pay and career
stability, intrinsic motivation is a greater factor in influencing career path. Despite the mixed results found,
the hypothesis of this study on extrinsic motivation is as follows:
2
H : There is a positive relationship between extrinsic motivation and career path.

Influence of Third Parties

Career choice can also be affected by an individual or a group of people which includes family
members, friends, career guidance teachers and career consultants. Numerous past studies have found
that third parties’ influence is one of the important factors which influence the career paths of accounting
students. According to these past studies, students are influenced by parents (Byrne et al., 2012;
Myburgh, 2005; Porter & Wolley, 2014; Tan & Laswad, 2006; Umar, 2014), subject teachers (Byrne et al.,
2012; Myburgh, 2005), relatives (Myburgh, 2005) and friends (Porter & Woolley, 2014).

However, one of the past studies conducted by Wally (2013) examined factors which influence
accounting students and concluded that influence by third parties is less significant. Wally (2013)
conducted the study in the University of Botswana with a collection of 51 questionnaires from final year
accounting students. The findings of the study suggested influence from parents, peers and secondary
teachers are unimportant. Conversely, the availability of career advancement, personal interest towards
the subject, job opportunities available and higher earnings are more important factors in influencing the
accounting students’ career paths. Despite the mixed results found, the hypothesis of this study on the
influence of third parties is as follows:
3
H : There is a positive relationship between influence of third parties and career path.

Career Exposure

In this study, career exposure refers to students’ exposure to career-related information.

According to Ghani, Said, Nasir and Jusoff (2008), most accounting students gain career exposure
through professional accounting bodies. Ghani & Said (2009) commented that it is important for students
 to be exposed to the nature of an accountant’s job and what type of career it offers. With greater
exposure on career-related information, one can make better decision in their career choice.

Past studies have indicated that career exposure given by professional practitioners have
influenced students’ career choice (Ghani et al., 2008; Sugahara & Boland, 2006; and Hutaibat, 2012). A
study conducted by Ghani et al. (2008) in one of the universities in Malaysia had collected a total of 802
questionnaires from first and final year students. The result showed that slightly more than half of the
students had obtained some form of exposure during their university life. The exposure was obtained
from lecturers as well as through career talks provided by professional accounting bodies and counseling
sessions. On the other hand, a study which investigated factors influencing students to be interested in
pursuing management accounting careers conducted by Hutaibat (2012) found that accounting students
prefer public accounting as their career choice compared to management accounting area due to lack of
seminars, workshops and tutorials organized by their universities. As a result, students lack detailed
information and sufficient knowledge with regards to career options in the management accounting area.
Through this study, it suggests the importance of career exposure towards students’ preference in their
career paths. Therefore, this leads to the hypothesis that:
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4
H : There is a positive relationship between career exposure and career path.

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

Source: Adapted from Mustapha & Abu Hassan (2012), Hutaibat (2012), Odia & Ogiedu (2013) and
Ghani et al. (2008)

Research Methodology

This study is conducted in one of the private universities in Malaysia. The institution is selected as
it represents a reputable higher learning institution which recruits a huge number of accounting students
annually for its accounting programme. The authors attempted to obtain the list of students for accounting
programme from the university management. But, it was turned down. Hence, without a sampling frame,
convenience sampling which is one of the non-probability sampling techniques is applied. Convenience
sampling refers to a sampling method where responses to questionnaires are obtained from respondents
who are conveniently available in providing it (Sekaran, 2003). According to Choy, Ng and Ch’ng (2011),
as long as the proportion of target population has insignificant influence towards the validity of result,
convenience sampling is suitable to be used. Nevertheless, the researchers applied extra care during the
data collection process to ensure the result is fairly distributed among the first, second and third year
accounting students. The questionnaires were distributed in three different lecture sessions, as an effort
to cover all accounting students from first, second and third year of their studies.

Self-administered questionnaires were distributed and collected immediately. Items in the

questionnaires were adapted from past studies. Both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are
measured using 5 constructs adapted from Odia & Ogiedu (2013). Influence by third parties is measured
by 5 constructs adapted from Hutaibat (2012) and Ghani et al. (2008). Career exposure is measured
 using 5 constructs adapted from Hutaibat (2012), and career path is measured using 5 constructs
adapted from Yusoff et al. (2011). These question items are depicted in Table 1. Before the
questionnaires were distributed, a pilot test of 30 samples were conducted to ensure that the questions
are reliable and understood clearly by the respondents. A five-point Likert Scale ranging from 1=strongly
disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree to 5=strongly agree was used to measure each item. For the
measurement of sex, programme of study and family background of the respondents, a nominal scale
was used. An ordinal scale was used to measure age, education level and rank of choices of accounting
students. Out of the 350 questionnaires distributed, only 306 responses are complete and usable. The
questionnaires collected were then keyed in to the Statistical Analysis System (SAS) for further analysis.
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 Table 1: Research Constructs and Measurement Items
Code Dimensions and items of evaluation No. of items Sources

Intrinsic motivation 5 Odia & Ogiedu

IM1 I like accounting. (2013)
IM2 Accounting is interesting.
IM3 I would enjoy being an accountant.
IM4 I am willing to spend a lot of time studying accounting.
IM5 I can do better in calculation.

Extrinsic motivation 5 Odia & Ogiedu

EM1 I choose accounting course because there will be jobs (2013)
available for me when I graduated.
EM2 I choose accounting course because there will always
be a great job market demand for people like me.
EM3 I can get high paying job if I graduate with accounting
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degree.
EM4 Being an accountant has a lot of prestige.
EM5 The accounting profession is well respected.

Influence by third parties 5 Hutaibat (2012)

ITP1 My family and friends have high influence on my career & Ghani et al.
path decisions. (2008)
ITP2 I am strongly influenced by the educators on my choice
of career path.
ITP3 I am strongly influenced by the media on my choice of
career path.
ITP4 I am strongly influenced by the public/society on my
choice of career path.
ITP5 I am strongly influenced by the career counselor on my
choice of career path.

Career exposure 5 Hutaibat (2012)

CE1 I am aware of the existence of professional bodies and
qualifications for accounting students.
CE2 I am given real case studies in university.
CE3 Seminars and workshops in accounting are provided at
universities.
CE4 There are plenty of job opportunities for accounting
students.
CE5 There is support from the professional bodies to
accounting students.

Career path 5 Yusoff et al.

CP1 I plan to further my postgraduate studies in accounting (2011)
after I graduate.
CP2 I have the intention to continue pursuing professional
qualifications.
CP3 I clearly know my choice of professional body.
CP4 I understand the career options available to me (for
example, tax assistant, audit assistant, costing
assistant and accounts assistant).
CP5 I clearly know my choice of career upon my graduation.
 Data Analysis

Table 2 summarises the demographic profile of respondents of this study. The respondents
consist of 173 (56.54%) females and 133 (43.46%) males. Most of the respondents are around 21 years
old, 22 years old, and 20 years old at 30.07%, 29.08% and 27.45% respectively. The remaining
respondents are 19 years old (13.40%). There are 106 respondents (34.64%) in their second year of the
degree programme. Respondents in the first and third year number at 88 (28.76%) and 86 (28.10%). Only
a small number of students (8.50%) are in the fourth year as these are students who extended their three
year degree programme. More than half of the respondents (51.63%) do not have family or friends who
are accountants. Close to half of the respondents (147 respondents, 48.04%) have indicated that the
accounting programme was their first choice.

Table 2: Demographic Profile of Respondents (n = 306)

Profile Category Frequency Percentage (%)
Sex Female 173 56.54
Male 133 43.46
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Age 19 41 13.40
20 84 27.45
21 92 30.07
22 or greater 89 29.08
Year of programme First year 88 28.76
Second Year 106 34.64
Third year 86 28.10
Fourth year 26 8.50
Accounting professionals Yes 148 48.37
among family members or No 158 51.63
friends of respondents
Rank of choice on accounting First choice 147 48.04
programme Second choice 105 34.31
Third choice 54 17.65

Table 3 below shows the mean, standard deviation and result for reliability and normality. Career
path has the highest mean of 3.6098. This deduces that a majority of the respondents agree with our
statement that they are clear on their career choices upon graduation. The second highest mean is for
extrinsic motivation (3.5314). This shows that a majority of the respondents agree that higher pay and
better job opportunities are important to them. Cronbach’s alpha is frequently used in testing the reliability
of data. According to Tavakol & Dennick (2011), an acceptable value of Cronbach’s alpha is 0.70 and
above. As seen from Table 3, all of the constructs have Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.7 and above which
indicate that the multiple items used in measuring each construct are reliable. Lastly, skewness and
kurtosis is used to assess normality. Kurtosis is related to the distribution’s flatness, while skewness
measures the symmetry. Overall, the data appears to be normally distributed. According to DeCarlo
(1997), kurtosis values in the range of ±3 are considered an acceptable. As for skewness, a range of ±2 is
considered acceptable (West, Finch & Curran, 1995). The results shown in Table 3 shows that constructs
are normally distributed as the skewness values are within the range of ±2 and the kurtosis values are
within the range of ±3.

Table 3: Mean, Standard Deviation, Reliability and Normality Results

Standard Cronbach’s
Variables Mean Deviation Alpha Skewness Kurtosis
Intrinsic motivation 3.4374 1.1630 0.8551 -0.3163 -0.3432
Extrinsic motivation 3.5314 0.9220 0.8031 -0.2449 -0.3008
Influence of third parties 3.2379 1.0463 0.7592 -0.1609 -0.4455
Career exposure 3.4889 0.8823 0.7502 -0.2756 -0.1816
Career path 3.6098 0.9454 0.8013 -0.2519 -0.5493
 Table 4 shows the result from a Pearson correlation analysis. Since the value of correlation
between each variable are below 0.9, there is no multicollinearity problem (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill,
2009). As seen from table 4, the highest correlation between the independent variables is 0.59499 and
since it is below 0.9, the multicollinearity problem does not exist.

Table 4: Pearson Correlation Analysis Results

Intrinsic Extrinsic Influence of Career Career
motivation motivation third parties exposure path
Intrinsic motivation 1
Extrinsic motivation 0.49885 1
<0.0001
Influence of third parties 0.22283 0.39503 1
<0.0001 <0.0001
Career exposure 0.39976 0.59499 0.39684 1
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<0.0001 <0.0001 <0.0001

Career path 0.59933 0.46208 0.18249 0.48257 1
<0.0001 <0.0001 <0.0001 <0.0001

A multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between several
independent variables and one dependent variable. Table 5 below shows the result from the multiple
regression analysis. The proposed model was adequate as the F-value (58.42) was significant at 0.05
level (Pr>F = <.0001). Thus, this indicates that the overall model was reasonably fit. As seen from Table
2
5, the adjusted r-square (adjusted R ) of the model is 0.4296. This indicates that 42.96% of the variance
in the career path can be explained by the four independent variables, namely: intrinsic motivation,
extrinsic motivation, influence of third parties and career exposure.

The result of hypothesis testing for the independent variables’ relationship with the dependent
variable is shown in Table 5 below. Two out of the four independent variables which are intrinsic
motivation and career exposure have p-values of less than 0.05. Therefore, the variables’ null hypotheses
are rejected. This study has concluded that both intrinsic motivation and career exposure have positive
relationships with career path. For extrinsic motivation and influence of third parties, the p-value is above
0.05, hence, the null hypotheses are not rejected. Therefore, both extrinsic motivation and influence of
third parties do not have significant relationships with career path. Lastly, from the multiple regression
analysis results, the following prediction model is formed:

Career path = 1.0075 + 0.4030(IM) + 0.1045(EM) – 0.0611(ITP) + 0.2997(CE)

Where, IM stands for intrinsic motivation

EM stands for extrinsic motivation
ITP stands for influence of third parties
CE stands for career exposure

According to the equation above, the most powerful antecedent to career path is intrinsic
motivation. It means that with every 1 unit increase in intrinsic motivation, career path will increase by
0.4030 units. The second powerful antecedent is career exposure to career path. Every 1 unit increase in
career exposure will result in an increase of career path by 0.2997 units.
 Table 5: Multiple Regression Analysis Results
Unstandardised Standardised
coefficients coefficients
Model Beta Std. error Beta t-value Sig.
(Constant) 1.0075 0.2005 5.02 <.0001
Intrinsic motivation 0.4030 0.0445 0.4569 9.06 <.0001
Extrinsic motivation 0.1045 0.0601 0.1021 1.74 0.0831
Influence of third parties -0.0611 0.0455 -0.0647 -1.34 0.1804
Career exposure 0.2997 0.0630 0.2648 4.75 <.0001
2
R 0.4370
2
Adjusted R 0.4296
F-value 58.42
Sig. F <.0001

Conclusion and Discussion

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The findings of this study have concluded that intrinsic motivation and career exposure have
positive relationships with career path. However, extrinsic motivation and influence of third parties do not
have significant relationships with career path.

The result of this study is supported by past studies. According to past studies, intrinsic
motivation is an important variable in influencing career path (Jackling & Keneley, 2009; Ryan & Deci,
2000; Adeleke et al., 2013; Odia & Ogiedu, 2013; Mbawuni & Nimako, 2015). Most of the respondents
reflect that they chose accounting as their career choice because they like calculations and they found
accounting interesting. Past studies conducted by Ghani et al. (2008), Sugahara & Boland (2006) and
Hutaibat (2012) have also concluded that career exposure has a positive relationship with career path.
This is in-line with the findings of this study. The respondents need sufficient information on the
accounting career and exposure in order to choose their career paths. The findings of this study have
also indicated that extrinsic motivation has no significant relationship with career path. This is supported
by Porter & Woolley (2014) which found that extrinsic motivation is not as influential as intrinsic
motivation. Influence by third parties also has an insignificant relationship with career path, which is in-line
with past studies conducted by Wally (2013) and Hejazi & Bazrafshan (2013). According to Hejazi &
Bazrafshan (2013), interest of family members and friends do not affect the students’ own interest.

This study is beneficial to the professional accounting bodies in designing their strategies for
members’ recruitment. However, the results of this study may be limited in two ways. First, this study was
conducted on a single private institution in Malaysia. Second, the data was collected using convenience
sampling method. The results, therefore, cannot be generalized to all accounting students in Malaysia.
Nonetheless, the findings of this study may still be beneficial to the professional accounting bodies as the
private university chosen recruits a huge number of accounting students in Malaysia annually for its
accounting programme. From the findings of this study, a shortage of qualified cost accountants as
mentioned earlier could be solved by creating interest in secondary school students before they enter into
tertiary education. Professional bodies such as CIMA and ACCA may consider providing more talks,
seminars and events to improve secondary school students’ interest towards management accounting.
Besides, talks, seminars and events on the management accounting career could also be provided to
tertiary students to expose them to career paths in the management accounting area. With more career
exposure towards the management accounting career, accounting students’ interest towards
management accounting career could be further improved. The results of this study could be further
improved in two ways. First, control variables such as year of programme or/and age, could be included
to further enhance the model. Second, the two insignificant independent variables may be replaced by
other variables, for instances, employer requirement, sources of information from media, etc in future
research. It may also be interesting for future research to extend its scope to examine other business
students who decided not to major in accounting.
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