Faculty Reform, Curriculums Development, and Motives of Accounting Specialization: Evidence from Egypt

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to determine the motives that influence the decision of business school students to specialize in accounting, consequently, selecting accounting as their future career. Four main motives are examined in the study including educational, student capabilities, psychological, and market and societal. The primary source of data was collected through structured questionnaires from the students at reputable university in Egypt, Cairo University, Faculty of commerce, English section, and Georgia programs. These programs have changed to a new system recently and made changes and development in their curriculums. The findings reveal that students' capabilities and psychological motives are the most influencing motives on their decisions, then comes the educational motives and eventually the market motives. The results also show the effect of gender and the students' faculty level on their decision. The current study might benefit accounting education institutions to set their strategies to attract more students to select accounting as their major. Further, the findings of this study may be beneficial to professional accounting bodies in establishing their strategies to enhance the image of accounting career.