Audit or Tax? Using Personal-Environment Fit to Help Choose a Public Accounting Career Path
Keywords:
business, economics, public accounting, audit, tax, personality traits, person-environment fitAbstract
Choosing between audit and tax is a critical early-career decision for aspiring public accountants, often made with limited knowledge and experience. This paper explores how personality traits influence job satisfaction and career fit in audit versus tax, using three established psychological frameworks: the Hurtt Skepticism Scale, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and the five-factor model (FFM). By aligning personality traits with professional demands, this study highlights how a better person-environment fit can enhance job satisfaction, performance, and retention in public accounting. Future empirical research is proposed to validate these theoretical findings.
References
Andon, P., Chong, K.M., & Roebuck, P. (2010). Personality preferences of accounting and non-accounting graduates seeking to enter the accounting profession. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 21(4), 253–265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2010.01.001
Brkich, M., Jeffs, D., & Carless, S.A. (2002). A global self-report measure of person-job fit. European Journal of Psychological Assessment: Official Organ of the European Association of Psychological Assessment, 18(1), 43–51. https://doi.org/10.1027//1015-5759.18.1.43
Caldwell, D.F., O’Reilly, C.A., & Schmitt, N. (1990). Measuring person-job fit with a profile-comparison process. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(6), 648–657. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.75.6.648
Chia, K.H., & Tan, D.M.K. (2024). Neural correlates of the Big Five personality traits: Understanding the brain basis of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The Asian Educational Therapist, 2(2), 43–59.
Edwards, J.R. (1996). An examination of competing versions of the person-environment fit approach to stress. Academy of Management Journal, 39(2), 292–339. https://doi.org/10.5465/256782
Hurtt, R.K. (2010). Development of a scale to measure professional skepticism. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, 29(1), 149–171. https://doi.org/10.2308/aud.2010.29.1.149
Johnson, J.A. (2014). Measuring thirty facets of the Five Factor Model with a 120-item public domain inventory: Development of the IPIP-NEO-120. Journal of Research in Personality, 51, 78–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.05.003
Samagaio, A., & Felício, T. (2022). The influence of the auditor’s personality in audit quality. Journal of Business Research, 141, 794–807. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.11.082
Schneider, A., & Kugel, J. (2023). A synthesis of behavioral accounting studies that examine personality traits. Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research, 26, 325–348. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1475-148820230000026012
Valenzuela, M.A., & Rogers, S.E. (2021). Strategizing personality traits: An acculturation approach to person-environment fit and expatriate adjustment. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(7), 1591–1619. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1526201
Verwey, I.G.F., & Asare, S.K. (2022). The joint effect of ethical idealism and trait skepticism on auditors’ fraud detection. Journal of Business Ethics, 176(2), 381–395. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04718-8
Wetmiller, R.J., & Barkhi, R. (2021). Redefining the accountant’s personality: Success or stagnancy? Accounting Research Journal, 34(2), 76–90. https://doi.org/10.1108/ARJ-02-2020-0042
Wheeler, P. (2001). The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and applications to accounting education and research. Issues in Accounting Education, 16(1), 125–150. https://doi.org/10.2308/iace.2001.16.1.125
Yu, K.Y.T. (2016). Inter-relationships among different types of person-environment fit and job satisfaction. Applied Psychology, 65(1), 38–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12035
