Mentoring in Accounting Firms in India and Malaysia - Is it Gendered?

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the opportunities and barriers for carrying out mentoring practices in accounting firms in India and Malaysia. The paper also further explores to understand whether or not mentoring is gendered in these country contexts. The theoretical lens used in this study relates to mentoring framework to understand the role of gender in hierarchically structured small and medium-sized accounting firMs Data obtained from conducting in-depth interviews with both male and female principals and partners working in the Indian and the Malaysian accounting practices (n = 40) and analysed using NVivo12. Findings indicate that informal mentoring support exists in accounting firms in both countries and the nature of mentoring support activities undertaken are largely gendered.