Personality types and accounting subfields

Abstract

Accountants have been categorized as conventional among Holland's (1997) six well-known personality types. We argue that the personality type of accountants affects their performance in their respective subfields. In this paper we have subdivided accountants into the following three categories: financial accountants, managerial accountants, and auditors. Following prior findings, we posit that conventional individuals are likely to be successful financial accountants; along similar lines, we hypothesize enterprising and investigative individuals are more likely to be successful managerial accountants and auditors, respectively. To test our position, we hypothesize that accounting students who are conventional, enterprising, and investigative perform better in financial accounting, managerial accounting, and auditing courses, respectively. Using a sample of 99 participants along with 179 instances of completed financial accounting courses, 75 instances of completed managerial accounting courses, and 92 instances of completed auditing courses, we find support for our hypothesis that enterprising students perform better in managerial accounting classes. However, we do not find support for the other two hypotheses. Implications are discussed.