Attracting the Next Generation of Accountants: The Joint Impact of Sustainability Emphasis and Social Value Orientation on Accounting Career Perceptions

Abstract

A consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is that workers increasingly want work that aligns with their values. Given that Gen Z, the next generation of accountants, is characterized by a focus on ESG issues, we use an experiment to test whether emphasizing sustainability assurance roles attracts individuals to the profession and which types of individuals are most attracted. We find individuals are more interested in becoming accountants when sustainability assurance positions are emphasized, relative to financial positions. We further find individuals with a prosocial (but not proself) social value orientation drive this result due to the greater intrinsic appeal of sustainability jobs to these individuals. We also find some evidence that prosocial individuals exhibit lower professional skepticism than proself individuals, highlighting a potential negative consequence of attracting prosocial individuals to the profession. Our findings illuminate how the accounting profession can attract prosocial individuals and one implication of doing so.