Radical career change by accountants: an exploratory study

Abstract

This thesis explores the motivations underlying the voluntary radical career changes of nine former accounting professionals. To date, no research has been conducted on this topic in New Zealand. The study used interviews and questionnaires to collect both quantitative and qualitative data for a qualitative analysis appropriate for exploratory work. Participants also completed the MBTI personality inventory. The participants were of both sexes with ages ranging from twenties to sixties, and with accounting experience of from four to twenty-six years. This study tested the relative importance of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, both in initial choice of an accounting career and at the time of leaving accounting. While extrinsic motivations, such as opportunity for promotion and good anticipated long term earnings, were ranked more highly, on average, for the group in entering a career in accounting, intrinsic factors were more important for them, post-experience. During their period of accounting experience, these former accountants were found to fall into one of two groups; they either developed aversion to accounting or its work environment, or despite not rejecting accounting, they became more strongly attracted to other occupations. Aversion and attraction are both examples of emotion, the trigger for their career change. This contrasts with the traditional accountant stereotype of a withdrawn person showing little emotion. The aversion group needed to undertake a search process, accompanied by unhappiness and lack of direction, to identify a new direction for their career. The attraction group, aware of their new direction, in general moved more rapidly to implement their change. Most participants experienced a reduction in income since their career change, however this was not of concern. All expressed greater satisfaction with their new careers, and only one from the attraction group would return, conditionally, to full time accounting work. Four of the nine participants were among the three MBTI types most represented among accountants completing the indicator in New Zealand to date. No patterns appeared in the distribution of types except that all except one showed preferences for Judging. These findings support those of Roborg (1984) in his study of more than a hundred New Zealand career changers across many occupations. This study identifies aversion and attraction factors somewhat similar to the 'push and pull' factors Roborg identified for changers, but in addition, identifies both these factors as emotional. Emotion emerged as the trigger for change enabling participants to achieve more intrinsic rewards through enhanced job satisfaction. Recommendations for further research, in the emerging theoretical context of the boundaryless career, include extending this study by increasing the sample to a size sufficient for statistical tests; exploring the motivations of a sample of accountants who remain in this career; preferably subsequent to the further exploratory work suggested, conducting a large sample study of former New Zealand accountants to investigate whether the conclusions of this study hold; and surveying the motivations of accounting academics for comparison with practitioners.