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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing career intentions toward becoming a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) by students who are studying at the accounting schools in Japan. This paper focused on students' work experience, prior major/s at their undergraduate level, gender, attitude toward the opportunity cost of becoming a CPA and their perceptions of the CPA profession.

The sample comprised students studying at 13 accounting schools in Japan. A questionnaire was given to these students in order to empirically examine the relationship between these influential factors and their career intention, with particular reference to those who intended to pursue a CPA career. Those studying in these accounting schools generally consist of two type of students; those who want to become a CPA and those who merely want to brush up on their accounting skills and do not wish to sit the CPA entrance exams. A total of 349 effective responses were analysed.

Findings indicate that students who have work experience and major in disciplines other than accounting or business are more reluctant to become a CPA. This is in direct contrast to one of the objectives for the CPA reform scheme in Japan, which is to extend the diversity of CPA candidature.

This paper is the first study undertaken in Japan to successfully provide a new dimension on the factors that influence career intention of students aspiring to become a CPA.

Ethical attitudes are especially important for accounting students as they transition from higher education into a profession where continuing education requirements for ethics are pervasive across state boards. We examine if generational categorization impacts ethical attitudes. We compare 172 student responses from an ethical survey to results reported in the prior literature from 1997, 2004, and 2007. We find evidence consistent with current students becoming less tolerant of ethically questionable behavior. Also, we explore students with self-declared Certified Public Accountant (CPA) aspirations to other students revealing minimal differences. This suggests that discussions around ethical attitudes might be beneficial in the workplace as multigenerational individuals need to make subjective decisions when working together. More specifically, our study encourages the development of additional ethical vignettes that include technological innovation twists to foster more robust classroom ethics discussions as many students fail to find a significant ethical gray area with the traditional vignettes.

Recent changes to the Uniform Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Exam provide an occasion to widely and broadly reflect about the longer run trajectory of the nature of this exam and about professional licensure. Based on a review of recent changes, we develop a set of general purposes served by the exam. We discuss the relative consistency between these purposes and academic values with the goal of evaluating the alignment of exam objectives with academic values. Concluding that accounting education and admission to accounting practice are not perfectly parallel, the chapter reviews the possibilities for academics to adjust our values or to alter our pedagogical practices. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons, the CPA Examination makes fewer appearances in the accounting education literature than it did in the past. We offer recommendations to reduce the points of schism and propose research relevant to the problem.

This paper reports on an exploratory study examining factors which may affect the career choice of accounting students. Although prior studies have examined factors affecting the choice of an accounting major, few studies have examined factors affecting the choice of career of accounting graduates. This study found that more students aspired to become Certified Practising Accountants (CPAs) of the Australian Society of Certified Practicing Accountants (ASCPA) rather than Associate Chartered Accountants (ACAs) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA) This study also found that there were differences in career aspirations between males and females, and between students at different universities. Female students perceived gender discrimination would have a greater adverse effect on their future careers compared with male students, particularly in chartered accounting and industry; and overseas students were more conscious of discrimination than Australian students. There is also some evidence that Big 6 selection practices are perceived as biased.

Increasingly mental health services are attempting to become recovery focused which demands changing the nature of day-to-day interactions and the quality of the experience in services. Care planning is the daily work of mental health services and within this context, care planning that enhances both the experience and the outcomes of a person's recovery is a key element for effective services. However, care plans, the care planning process and the Care Programme Approach (CPA) continue to pose a challenge for services. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.

Conceptual paper.

Within recovery focused services a care plan becomes the driving force, or action plan, behind a person's recovery journey and is focused on their individual needs, strengths, aspirations and personal goals. If involving people directly in the development of their care plan is critical to creating better outcomes then supporting self-management, shared decision making and coproduction all underpin the care planning process. Based on the evidence of people's experience of care plans and the care planning process it is time to seriously debate our current conceptualisation and approach to care planning and the future of the CPA.

The paper describes aspects of the current situation with regard to the effectiveness of care planning in supporting a person's recovery. The paper raises some important questions.

Puerto Rico (PR) is among the US jurisdictions with the lowest passing rates on the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam (National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), 2016, 2017). No prior studies have addressed this issue. To fill this gap, the authors conducted a survey among candidates to examine the factors perceived as challenges on the exam. The authors also studied the relationship between respondents’ individual, educational, and CPA exam-related characteristics and the likelihood of success on the exam. Results reveal there are three factors perceived by respondents as their main challenges: level of technical difficulty, cost of the exam, and not enough time to study for the exam. Additional analysis indicates that age, major Grade Point Average, weekly study hours, and the time interval between graduation and the first attempt at the exam are significant factors that affect the passing rates on the exam. These findings suggest that a combination of individual, educational, and exam-related factors affect Puerto Rican candidates’ results on the exam. The socioeconomic background of PR may heighten the impact of such factors. Considering that the accounting profession is always adapting to the evolutionary demands of the business environment, these results may contribute to the development of adequate measures in support of Puerto Rican and other minorities with diverse backgrounds.

This study aims to investigate tertiary business students' perceptions of certified public accountants (CPAs) in Japan and how this perception may influence their career path decision.

This study is the first such research in Japan that has been conducted to investigate students' perception of various factors regarding the accounting profession and CPA. The data used in this study were collected via questionnaires completed by students who were studying at the undergraduate and graduate levels in large Japanese universities. From approximately 200 universities offering accounting courses in Japan, this study mainly selected universities where students were contemplating a career in the accounting profession. The results of the questionnaire were then quantitatively analyzed.

The results indicated significant differences in several factors of perceptions toward the CPA between accounting students and non‐accounting students. These results create various implications that need to be addressed in order to reverse the current situation of the problematic unpopularity towards the accounting sector in Japan.

As this is the first accounting education paper produced in Japan on this topic the results will inspire educators and the CPA to re‐think the way in which they market accounting as a profession to potential students.

In the context of an industrial complex where corporate political activity (CPA) and political corporate social responsibility (political CSR) are not related, this study aims to investigate the possible relationship between citizens’ perceptions of these two non-market strategies and residents’ trust in companies located in the industrial complex.

Data were collected from 740 citizens living near a petrochemical complex in Tarragona (Spain). The results were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Based on institutional theory, the key findings of the study are that CPA and political CSR are differently related to citizens’ trust in companies. The results also verify that the negative relationship (between CPA and trust) outweighs the positive one (between political CSR and trust).

The lack of fit between political CSR and CPA in the complex analysed suggests that firms are neglecting approaches shared by these non-market strategies, and thus wasting a huge opportunity to improve citizens’ trust in and acceptance of the complex firms. Moreover, the ethical dimension should always be present when these firms take on political responsibilities.

To date, CPA and political CSR have largely been dealt with separately in the literature. This study attempted to bridge this gap by examining a situation where there is no strategic relationship between CPA and political CSR to analyse, from the perspective of citizens’ perceptions, the relationship each strategy has with the important academic concept of citizens’ trust in companies.

This chapter reports on the findings of the fourth wave of a longitudinal study of the image of accountants regarding perceptions of their instrumental and expressive traits. The four waves were conducted in 1972, 1982, 1992, and 2002. The images germane to this research were those reflected in the “looking glass” of undergraduate students, a relevant peer group of those potentially contemplating entry into the accounting profession. The accountant's stereotype has been blamed for harming the ability of the profession to attract individuals with excellent human relations and communications skills. The negative image originated when accounting was a male-dominated endeavor. Gender typing is important in forming impressions of vocational choices. Thus, this study investigates the manner in which the accountant's image has evolved as its gender composition has become balanced. My focus is on comparing the 2002 wave with the 1972 and 1992 waves. The latter comparison covers the period of the “Enron era” scandals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors influencing the accounting students' career choice in public accounting practices.

Multinomial logistic regression is used to analyze survey data of 214 accounting students from three universities in Hong Kong. Three dependent variables are: pursue a career in public accounting (CPA); general accounting; and a non‐accounting careers.

Results support the TRA model. The two constructs in the model – “intrinsic factors” (attitude toward the behavior) and “parental influence” (subjective norm), make significant and independent contributions to predicting the career choice of accounting students. Results indicate that “intrinsic factors” and “parental influence” have significant influence on the decision whether to select a CPA career. This result is not consistent with the New Zealand study and the Canadian study. Neither the “financial rewards factor” nor the “high school accounting” factor is an influencing factor on the career choice in the post‐Enron. This result is also in contrast to the findings of the literature in the pre‐Enron. The fact that financial rewards variable has no influence on career choice is an interesting finding. There may be a “cultural” factor in Hong Kong linked to the prestige of professions that may outweigh the financial rewards factor. “Flexibility of career options” factor has the highest influencing power among all the variables, possibly influenced by the US Sarbanes Oxley enactments that result in a buoyant job market, and China's convergence with the International Financial Reporting Standards in 2007. Females dominate over males in entering the CPA career or general accounting career.

The support of the TRA model in this paper could be applied as a useful theoretical framework to examine other accounting areas.

The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Big 4 firms should exercise more efforts to improve the traditional accountants' negative image as boring and methodical so as to attract bright students to enter the accounting profession.

The lack of using a theoretical model and prior studies' limitations make any inferences drawn and generalizations difficult. This paper represents the first to the author's knowledge to use the theory of reasoned action (TRA) model from the social psychological literature to examine the issues into the Hong Kong environment.