What Makes Accounting Students Choose their Career? A Case in Indonesian Major Universities

The objective of the study was to analyze the determinants of students’ professional choice to be public accountants, including salary, professional recognition, social values, and personality perception. A choice of a profession is connected to the theory of expectation and the theory of motivation, which became the novelty of this research. This study used a quantitative approach with a survey method through questionnaires distributed to 309 accounting students from Universitas Brawijaya, Universitas Indonesia, Universitas Airlangga, dan Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia. The findings demonstrated that deciding to become a public accountant is not influenced by money or wage considerations. Other elements, such as professional recognition, social values, and perceptions of an individual’s personality, positively affected an accounting student’s decision to become a public accountant. Other theories may be used in the future to see a potential influence on career selection for becoming a public accountant. For accounting students who choose public accountant as their future career, they are suggested to explore themselves more in preparing their skills to be ready for the job.