Comments on: PhD Candidate Shortage in Accounting

By: Vinicius

Vinicius — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:25:51 +0000

Considering all the coments on this topic I offer a different perspective (and more critical) for the accounting profession issue from someone who lives in an emergent economy (Brazil). Generaly, in Brazil accounting is seem as an exact profession and plays its role primarily on calculating (and not using it for managment) firm periodic numbers. This scenario, viewing accounting as a mechanical job and not a science, creates a hard barrier on the development of the profession. It is essencially due to many social factors and the legal enviroment. There are just few educational institutions that are able to prepare students (and develop the interest on them) for a more extensive learning on accounting. Hopefully, on the past recent years there were some extraordinay academic people who have started a “revolution” on the accounting teaching, introducing even the positive accounting view.
The accounting students even are not prepared for further courses or do not have the right incentives to continue on the academia (because the teacher salary is in general not worth it comparing to alternatives carrers)
I would not like to extend writting on this because showing some empirican evidence would seem more appropriated, and for this my e-mail is: vncslima@gmail.com. I would like to make an infinitesimal contribution for the academic research in accounting in Brazil and for this, I would like to ask for any advice on the requirement for a foreign student (ending college this year) to join on Phd program on the US?

By: david

david — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:10:22 +0000

What are the chances of job in academia for some one with DBA (Doctor of Business Administration in Accounting)? I will be graduating from a regionally accredited university with DBA in Accounting in 2 ½ years. Should I prefer consulting or teaching? Any advice or comment!

David

By: brad smotherman

brad smotherman — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:11:19 +0000

As a prospective PHD student, I would like to add to this conversation. Although the opportunity costs associated with obtaining a phd are extensive, the payoff is worth it. To make 150k starting out (which is projected) on a 9 month contract is a great opportunity. Not only can someone go into different business aspects (I personally want to develop residential real estate) but it offers for more down time or family time.

Thats what is important to some of us.

Best,

Brad.

By: Erik Wetter

Erik Wetter — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:54:33 +0000

AACSB has some stats on (shortages in) new doctorate production across the management disciplines; take a look at

Salary Survey (2005/6), split by discipline: http://www.aacsb.edu/knowledgeservices/home/SSExecSummary_05-06.pdf

and also the older (2002) but more in-depth report on future trends and shortages in faculty supply:
http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/dfc/default.asp

By: Morton Slonim

Morton Slonim — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 22:05:22 +0000

Accouting has an intellectually shabby reputation. It is wrongly seen as a sterile and mechanical activity making low demands on the IQ. This reputation is in some part deserved, if one looks only at past practice in academic accounting. But accounting is also an important part of many management and internal labor market issues. A host of rich questions in economics are ultimately grounded in difficulties in obtaining good quantitative answers to questions. Accountants collect and produce data, therefore they play a critical role in any eventual answers to such questions. Accounting practice plays a central role in the management of firms and government agencies.

It is true that economic theory suggests that a lot of accounting numbers are useless or wrong-headed. But that is not a reason to dismiss accounting, but instead should ground a call for the reform of accounting practice.

I invite all of you to peruse the journal “Accounting, Organizations, and Society.” By all means, discount the occasional articles written from a Marxist or “critical” perspective. The bottom line is that accounting is an empirical social science. When PhD programs in accountancy clearly takes this point on board, I predict that enrolments in such programs will rise.

By: Gary Peters

Gary Peters — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 16:04:43 +0000

ZH hits it pretty much on the mark. What is striking about ZH’s comment “the research that a typical Tier I (or even Tier II) school requires of faculty make it (getting a PhD) not worth it”.. is that the starting salary for rookie acct PhDs at Tier 1, PhD granting institutions will probably average around the 145K mark this year. Accounting anyone?

For more info about Acct and other Business PhD shortages see: http://aaahq.org/temp/phd/index.cfm

For historical data on Econ PhDs see Survey of Earned Doctorates: Demographic Profile of Doctoral Recipients in Economics and Econometrics – Table A, “American Economic Association Universal Academic Questionnaire Summary Statistics” Charles E. Scott and John J. Siegfried, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 92, May, 2002, 530

By: Peter Klein

Peter Klein — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:14:39 +0000

Anon, I’m sorry, I don’t actually have the raw data, just some slides summarizing key findings. The slides were produced by Judy Rayburn (U. of Minnesota) and Fran Ayers (U. of Oklahoma); perhaps one of them would be willing to share the data.

One factoid that jumped out at me: The median age for US accounting professors is about 54!

By: ZH

ZH — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 03:57:25 +0000

Few people get Phd’s in accounting at all, let alone go into academia. I was talking to a number of friends who are currently accountants or masters in accounting students and they all pretty much told me the same thing. There is little if any marginal benfit in getting anything more than a masters. Same in most other business fields. It is not too hard for a good, smart accountant (the same type of people a PhD program would be looking for) with a masters and 5-10 years of experience to earn a similar salary as a typical accounting PhD would in academia. And while the academic can earn extra from consulting on the side, the extra years spent on getting a PhD and the research that a typical Tier I (or even Tier II) school requires of faculty make it not worth it. The same applies to most other business disciplines. I am not sure why economics is different, but economics (and finance) seem to attract more mathematically and scientifically oriented PhD students than the other business related fields. These people are likely to be more inclined toward a career involving a lot of research as opposed to the more business oriented people that the other fields attract, who would rather work in the business world.

By: anon

anon — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:59:22 +0000

can you please post the data?
thanks