From Bean Counting to Teaching: Pathways to Accounting Academia in South Africa

Abstract

The pathways to accounting academia in South Africa (SA) is not prescribed to secure tenure at a higher education institution. Accounting academia in SA is influenced by the accounting professional bodies that have a desire to produce highly trained accountants as opposed to research driven accounting academics. SA higher education institutions employ chartered accountants and accountants holding masters’ and doctoral degrees as lecturers in their academic accounting departments. The focus of this paper is to establish how accounting academics pursue their pathways to accounting academic careers. The method used to collect data were purposive sampling. Accounting academics were selected to be interviewed on their academic careers. The observations revealed that accountants are taking varying paths into academia where they pursue their career paths either on a full-time basis, part time basis or on a combination of both full time and part time bases depending on their personal circumstances. The findings indicate there is a low output of doctoral candidates among accounting academics. It is recommended that support is provided to accountants that want to pursue a career in academia.

Keywords: Accounting Academic; Teaching Experience; Teaching Qualification; Work Experience