Are Today's Young Accountants Different? An Inter-Generational Comparison of Three Psychological Attributes

• In Event: Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum I

Abstract

Much has been written about the so-called “Millennial Generation.” It is fashionable to think that young people possess values and preferences that render them qualitatively different from cohorts that came before them. Many writers have suggested that such differences will be consequential to social institutions such as the professions. This paper compares a generation of individuals that entered accounting in the mid-1980s with a group in the process of entering in the mid-2010s. The results suggest that real differences exist in the types of people that started accounting careers then and now in traits other than what many would expect. Implications for accountant socialization, including attributes for successful accountants, are drawn.

Authors

• Timothy J Fogarty, Case Western Reserve University

• Alan Reinstein, Wayne State University