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Bravidor, Marcus ; Loy, Thomas ; Scharf, Christina ; Krüger, Jan:
Who wants to be an Accountant? Early Evidence on Career Decisions and Personality Traits of German Students.
2016
Veranstaltung: 39th European Accounting Association Annual Congress
, 11.05.-13.05.2016
, Maastricht.
(Veranstaltungsbeitrag: Kongress/Konferenz/Symposium/Tagung
,
Vortrag
)
Abstract
Accounting students are said to conform to the precise and trustworthy, but dull and boring “bean counter” stereotype. We present additional evidence on the effect of personality traits on the decision to major, the intention for a first job and the desire to pursue a professional examination in accounting. The study is based on a survey of 1,100 students at 15 German universities. Personality traits are measured using the Big Five Inventory, commonly used in psychology and human resources. In contrast to prior studies, we differentiate between students in managerial, financial and tax accounting as well as finance. Our results confirm prior evidence on the predominance of the “bean counter” stereotype. Results are particularly strong for tax accounting students. We find weaker effects for managerial accounting where students even switch to the “business professional” stereotype in some cases. We observe nearly no effects for students in financial accounting. Effects vary between accounting facets and decisions, indicating differences in timing and extent of potential filtering effects.