When i grow up … understanding the motivations that individuals have for pursuing a career in tax

Till Arne Hahn; Tisha King

doi:10.2308/ISSUES-19-118

When i grow up … understanding the motivations that individuals have for pursuing a career in tax

Till Arne Hahn, Tisha King

Rowe School of Business

Résultat de recherche: Article › examen par les pairs

4 Citations (Scopus)

Résumé

Often seen as a specialization, the motivation to pursue a career in tax is not well understood, compared to the broader disciplines of law and accounting. Relying on an initial set of exploratory interviews, this study examines why individuals have decided to pursue careers as tax practitioners. A survey more systematically investigated the motivations, revealing that the qualitative nature of tax work, including the intellectual challenge, is the strongest motivator, regardless of professional background. Overall, intrinsic motivations dominate over more external reasons, and the survey results are largely consistent and convergent with the interview findings. The study contributes to the understanding of the factors that influence individuals to both enter and remain in a very specialized field, which has hereto received limited direct attention. The results should be of interest to students considering a career in tax, as well as those in charge of educating and recruiting future tax practitioners.

Langue d'origine	English
Pages (de-à)	1-21
Nombre de pages	21
Journal	Issues in Accounting Education
Volume	36
Numéro de publication	3
DOI	https://doi.org/10.2308/ISSUES-19-118
Statut de publication	Published - août 2021

Note bibliographique

Funding Information:
We thank all of the participants who have helped inform this study. Earlier versions have benefited from comments of faculty and students at Smith School of Business at Queen’s University and participants at seminars at the Université de Sherbrooke, University of Limerick, and National University of Ireland, Galway, as well as those who attended the presentation at the 2019 Annual Conference of the CAAA. We thank Laurence Daoust, Jonathan Farrar, Fiona Kay, Suzanne Landry, Alan MacNaughton, Bertrand Malsch, Steve Salterio, and Wally Smieliauskas for their helpful suggestions. We also received useful feedback from Heather Evans, Lyne Latulippe, and Sandy Staples concerning the survey and, in addition to them, we express thanks to the Chaire de recherche en fiscalité et en finances publiques at the Université de Sherbrooke for its financial support of the survey used for this study and the Canadian Tax Foundation and the Association de planification fiscale et financière more generally for publicizing the survey. Finally, Till-Arne Hahn acknowledges the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Fondation des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec in his research overall.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, American Accounting Association. All rights reserved.

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

Accounting
Education

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10.2308/ISSUES-19-118

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When i grow up … understanding the motivations that individuals have for pursuing a career in tax

Résumé

Note bibliographique

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

Accès au document

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