Factors Influencing the Choice for Majoring in Accounting by Saudi Students

Abstract

<p>There is a clear shortage in Saudi Accountants working in Saudi Arabia. This study examines the factors that contribute to Saudi students’ intention to major in accountancy. The theory of planned behaviour (TPB) was extended, tested, discussed, and used to identify specific factors that influence Saudi students’ intentions. According to the TPB, the key predictors of the intention is the perceived behaviour control, subjective norms, and attitude.</p> <p>Due to the nature of Saudi as a religious male dominant country, Culture and religion is added to the main TPB model, gender is proposed as a moderator, and proposed antecedents of the attitude (i.e. job salary, job availability, job security, workload, aptitude, and difficulty of the curriculum and programme).</p> <p>Structural equation modelling with PLS was used to test the research hypotheses. The population for the study was Saudi business students studying inside of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The instruments were distributed using Twitter. A total of 329 valid useful responses were returned from Saudi Students studying the first year in business school in Saudi Arabia.</p> <p>The results are first attitude and perceived behavioural control are key predictors for Saudi students’ intention to major in accounting, while subjective norms and culture& religions are found to be in-significant factors. Second, the significant antecedents of the attitudes are job security and social image. Third, job availability, job salary, workload, difficulty of the programme and curriculum and aptitude are not significant antecedents of the attitudes towards majoring in accounting. Fourth, Gender has not been found as a key moderator in this study.</p> <p>The main academic implication is that Saudi Arabia has different set of predictors of the attitude and intention to major in accounting than for the literature. Practical implications here are many. First, in this tribal context, academic institutions do not need to oversimplify the topics studied or curriculum because difficulty of the programme and curriculum and workload are not affecting the attitude; rather, these institutions shall work on the social image because it matters for them. Second, the role of academic advisors shall be activated to encourage students to major in accounting.</p>