Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether some motives for the choice of an accounting career, disproportionately stronger among women than among men, explain disproportionately more women (60 percent) than men (40 percent) in the accounting profession. Design/methodology/approach – The ordered probit model is used to analyze online survey data of approximately 580 responses collected from members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Findings – This study finds three reasons why more women (than men) enter the accounting profession: locational freedom, social status, and income stability. Women who choose accounting as a career value these three offered by accounting more than do men who choose accounting as a career. These findings represent mainly those of older CPAs (who are older than 50). The finding related to social status is reversed in the case of younger CPAs. Research limitations/implications – The paper's findings may be limited to some extent because the authors investigate only three motives for the choice of an accounting career. Also, the online survey data may not be generalized to the entire CPA population. Originality/value – The hypothesis that relates motives for the choice of an accounting career to more women in the accounting profession is carefully derived using Bayes’ theorem. This hypothesis is tested by the ordered probit method.

Corporate accountants are mandated to prepare and distribute financial accounting reports for external U.S.ers at end of each accounting period.  However, there are no similar statutory requirements for corporate accountants to provide managers of their companies with the management accounting information necessary for decision making in their bU.S.iness operations.   Cost accounting is an important integral part of management accounting.  Product costing has always been a much debated issue in management accounting.  The area that has generated a host of conflicting views is the allocation of overhead costs to products.  Traditional absorption costing is claimed to be resulting in an unfair allocation of overhead costs to products.  New approaches such as the Activity Based Costing (ABC) did not receive widespread adoption. It is being realized in management accounting field that an emerging costing method known as Resource Consumption Accounting (RCA) is a better method for product costing.  It is a method adopted by the German manufacturing companies.  This paper describes the German cost accounting method and also compares the German cost accounting with the cost accounting in the United States, specifically in the automobile manufacturing indU.S.try.

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