5. Discussions and Conclusion
This paper analyzes some key factors influencing accounting students’ intention to pursue public accounting instead of private accounting as their career choice in China. We find that the variety and marketability of professional public accounting experiences, high turnover and low firm cohesion in the workplace, and perceived difficulties in maintaining traveling extensively all affected students’ intentions to pursue the public accounting profession. Our research has provided some evidence to support the application of the TPB to predict Chinese accounting students’ career choices. Future research is needed to validate our findings due to the small sample size of our survey.
This paper has important implications for the accounting educators and other stakeholders. We suggest that public accounting firms, the government and educators should promote the variety and marketability of public accounting experiences if they would like to encourage more young Chinese accounting students to consider working as public accountants.
