Accounting graduates with both online and traditional coursework: impact on hiring decisions

ABSTRACT

With the growth of online education, many students enrolled in traditional accounting programs are taking a portion of their coursework online. Accounting students, educators, and administrators in traditional programs want to select a mix of coursework that avoids sending a negative signal to recruiters and harming job prospects. Given that accounting is a specialized profession, the signal may vary with the type of coursework (accounting, non-accounting business, non-business) taken online. First, we use a sample of 546 U.S. Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) to determine the portion of coursework taken online needed to make a difference in evaluations of job candidates. Then, using an additional sample of 286 U.S. CPAs, we test whether the type of coursework taken online makes a difference in the evaluation of a job candidate. Taking accounting courses online tends to adversely affect evaluations while taking non-accounting business courses or non-business courses online does not.

KEYWORDS:

• Online education
• traditional coursework
• CPA
• hiring decision

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Prior to drawing the sample, the administrators of the national database used in this study indicated that response rates are generally around one percent for requests such as these. The response rates reported here exceed the level normally experienced by the granting organization.