Accounting Career Choice: Bahir Dar University Case Study Analysis

This case study examines the factors influencing students' career choices in accounting, focusing on students at Bahir Dar University. The research explores both intrinsic factors, such as student ability, interest, and the appeal of a challenging job, and extrinsic factors, including job availability and flexibility. The study reviews literature on socioeconomic influences, parental and teacher guidance, salary expectations, and the perceived complexity of accounting. It contrasts factors that attract students to accounting, such as career opportunities and the potential for independent work, with factors that deter them, like a lack of creativity or the perception of excessive workload. The analysis also considers how the profession has evolved due to technological advancements and changing market demands. The conclusion highlights rewarding salaries, excellent job prospects, job security, and strong analytical skills as motivators, while lack of creativity, course difficulty, and competition from other fields are identified as demotivators. The research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting students' decisions to pursue accounting careers.

Accounting Case Study
(Factors that Affect Students’ Career Choice in
Accounting: A Case of Bahir Dar University Students)
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
LITERATURE REVIEW.....................................................................................................................3
Factors that create interest among students to choose accounting...................................................3
Factor that prevent...........................................................................................................................4
Factors that influence students to select accounting now and not earlier........................................5
Own theory (Diagram).....................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Accounting refers to the comprehensive and systematic procedure applied for accurately
reporting the financial transactions of the business unit. In the field of educations, Universities offer
accounting programmes to the students with the aim to build an exceptional, excellent and stronger
account based knowledge and technical capabilities that firm required making rationalized decisions
for the prospective growth. However, now-a-days, the choice or selection of accounting course by
the students is affected by the multitude of factors. In the current era, the interest of the students in
building their career as an accounting profession shows a decline trend because the perception of
the students has been changed and they are more interested in building their profession in creative,
innovative & people-oriented field. Society consider the profession of accounting as just the number
crunchers who pay more emphasizes on the numerical or data accuracy, daily recording, financial
calculations and strong analytical skills to use the monetary information of the firm to make smarter
decisions for the growth and success. Therefore, this research study aims at examining various
factors to identify the factors that impact the choice of students in the field of accounting as their
profession. It will evaluate various factors which encourage or not the students to build career in the
field of accounting.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This section will critically evaluate the peer-reviews from the historical articles to deeply
understand and examine the motivational factors that create interest among students to choose
accounting as their profession.
Factors that create interest among students to choose accounting
Career choice has been defined as a process of lifelong learning, in which, students make
their career decisions by balancing their self-interest, opportunities and availability of skills and
talent. As per the Dibabe, Wubie and Wondmagegn (2015), socioeconomic theory of the career
choice reflects that student’s choices are significantly affected by their social conditions. It includes
various factors like influence of the parents, teacher’s guidance, social status as well as economic
conditions i.e. accountant’s salary and existing job opportunities. Accounting the great topic and it
enhances knowledge of students about financial aspects. It is the important area in which there are
many job opportunities that can help in the career growth of individual. It is the only field in which
limited number of people applies so competition is very low. It can help in gaining success to the
students to great extent. The most important factor that encourage students to make career in
accounting is interest because in the field of education, students only choose that subject in which
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they have a great level of interest, so that, they can willingly, interestingly and enjoyably study the
chosen area and make their career brighter and stronger.
However, on the other side, Porter and Woolley (2014), stated that accounting is the field in
which person can start its own business and can earn independently. Accounting professionals have
huge scope of earning good amount that encourages them to select the accounting field rather than
any other subject. Likewise, few of the studies suggested that good earning opportunity and high
salary is the main factor which motivates students to select the course of accounting as a major
profession. In the study, it has been stated that choice of students highly influenced by the earning
potential of particular field. It is believed that companies offer high amount of salaries to
accountants. It gives lots of job experience to students so that they can establish their career and can
guide others as well.
In addition to this, Al-Rfou (2013), founded that students who are willing to work in a
challenging environment often choose accounting as their career. Candidates who have good
numerical skills and interested in the field of financial analysis wish to make their career in
accounting field. Mbawuni (2015), founded that students who studied accounting in the high school
are majorly interested to choose accounting as a major area of their career. Further, freedom or
independent work also influences positively to choose accounting as their career choice. Introvert
students believe in work independently rather than working in a group, therefore, they consider
accounting as a highly suitable profession.
Factor that prevent
As per the views of Dibabe, Wubie and Wondmagegn (2015), complexity of accounting
course is the main factor which resulted withdrawal from the field as it needs excellent numerical,
financial and analytical skills, this is the reason why students considered it as a difficult course and
do not prefer the same. However, on the critical note, Samsuri, Arifin and Hussin (2016), argued
that social status is the main influencing element, now-a-days, society do not believe that
accounting is an excellent field for the extra-ordinary students because it do not need strong
communication skills, as a result, it gains less interest among students and cannot be considered as a
challenging and dynamic profession.
Furthermore, Solikhah (2014), accounting job is not considered creative, this is the reason
why students who has good creativity are not looking to join accounting profession. Thus, creativity
is the main factor that prevents and discourages students to choose accounting field. On the
contrary, Subramaniam and Ramachandran (2012), argued that accountants have excessive work
load which encourage students to shift into any other profession.
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Edwards and Quinter (2011), discovered that decision-making ability is an another
component that has an adverse impact to the students. In this way, it has been stated that till the
period of high education, students activities were limited to scorekeeping only through recording of
all the activities in a structured format, however, in the practical working, accountants suffer
problems due to lack of readily availability of information. Moreover, they are also blamed by the
establishments for reporting inaccurate or misleading information even the misconceptions were not
done intentionally by them.
Despite this, Douglas and Shepherd (2002), studies believed that earning cannot be
considered as a factor that encourage choosing accounting profession, more importantly, in the
current period, students believed that other professions like engineering, doctor and others offer
higher level of earnings comparatively than accounting. Further, student viewed that accounting is a
rule-based system rather than generating new ideas, therefore, it effects negatively student’s
accounting choices.
Factors that influence students to select accounting now and not earlier
Now-a-days, excellent pay is the main factor why students choose accounting now and not
earlier. Moreover, if any person who is willing to work extremely hard for a quarter of the year
encouraged to select accounting because in such a short period, he or she can get full year’s pay.
Every industry need accountant to record, summarize, interpret and examine their financial status,
thus, the profession has excellent job opportunity and advancement and growth possibilities. It also
offers job security to the accountants which were not provided earlier.
Presently, accounting profession shows a dramatically change because of introduction of
latest computer software, high governmental regulations and policies, frequent changes in the
taxation laws, internationalization and corporate re-structuring. With the dynamic and turbulent
competitive world, companies require excellent accounting skills, as a result, it became a
challenging and dynamic career choice (Wally-Dima, 2013). Accountants feel prestigious as they
are considered finance experts, professional, analysts and management consultants also which has
vast job opportunities in the current times than before. Thus, in other words, it becomes clear that
rising demand for accountant by the industries for devising the best financial plans and eliminating
the possible consequences is the reason why this profession is now gains preference among
students.
Own theory (Diagram)
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High impact
High impact Less impact
Less impact
From the graph, it is clearly visualized that students under the intrinsic factors, students
ability, desire, interest and challenging job need has a strong level of impact on the accounting
selection over the difficulties, creativity and others. However, on the other hand, extrinsically,
availability of job and flexibility options has a significant impact on their professional choices over
the payment structure, social status and others. Apart from this, in the society, families also have an
influence over the students whether they should select accounting or not. At the same time,
perception towards accounting either as a stressful job, challenging job, valuable and others also
works as a motivator to build career in accounting field.
CONCLUSION
From the report, it can be concluded that rewarding salary, excellent job opportunity, high
demand, job security, strong analytical and financial skills, independent work, dynamic and
challenging job are the factors which motivate students to choose accounting as their career path.
Besides this, there are several demotivational factors also founded i.e. lack of creativity, good salary
in other professions, lack of interest, requirement of excellent and superior finance knowledge and
difficulties in course are the factors that pretend students in choosing accounting as their profession.
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Intrinsic factors
Student’s ability or interest
Willingness to become entrepreneur
Challenging job
Intrinsic factors
Accounting subject in high school
Difficulties in course
Creativity
Extrinsic factors
Job availability
Career option
flexibility
Extrinsic factors
Excellent pay
Social status
Legal responsibilities
Accounting
profession

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al-Rfou, A.N., 2013. Factors that influence the choice of business major evidence from Jordan.
Journal of Business and Management. 8(2). pp.104-8.
Douglas, E.J. and Shepherd, D.A, 2002. Self-employment as a career choice: Attitudes,
entrepreneurial intentions, and utility maximization. Entrepreneurship theory and
practice. 26(3). pp.81-90.
Edwards, K. and Quinter, M, 2011. Factors influencing students career choices among secondary
school students in Kisumu municipality, Kenya.Journal of emerging trends in educational
research and policy studies. 2(2). pp.81-87.
Mbawuni, J., 2015. Examining Students' Feelings and Perceptions of Accounting Profession in a
Developing Country: The Role of Gender and Student Category. International Education
Studies. 8(6). pp.9-29.
Porter, J. and Woolley, D., 2014. „An examination of the factors affecting students' decision to
major in accounting‟. International Journal of Accounting and Taxation. 2(4). pp.1-22.
Samsuri, A.S.B., Arifin, T.R.B.T. and Hussin, S.B, 2016. Perception of Undergraduate Accounting
Students towards Professional Accounting Career.International Journal of Academic
Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences. 6(3). pp.78-88.
Solikhah, B., 2014. An application of theory of planned behavior towards CPA career in Indonesia.
Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences. 164(12). pp.397-402.
Subramaniam, R. and Ramachandran, J., AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE CHOICE OF
ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING AS A CAREER–AN EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA.
182(14). pp.483-580.
Wally-Dima, L.B., 2013. Factors Influencing Students’ Choice of Accounting as a Major: The Case
of Botswana Accounting Students. Asian Journal of Empirical Research. 3(4). pp.464-476.
Online
Dibabe, M. T., Wubie, W.A. and Wondmagegn, A. G, 2015. Factors that Affect Students’ Career
Choice in Accounting: A Case of Bahir Dar University Student. [PDF]. Available through: <
>. [Accessed on 27th March 2017].
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