Keeping the 150 Hour Rule Is Making the Profession’s Diversity Problem More Pronounced
by Sharon Lassar, PhD, CPA (Florida) John J. Gilbert Professor and Director of the School of Accountancy, University of Denver The AICPA announced the formation of a National Pipeline Advisory Group, published an article about its focus on the accounting talent shortage, and scheduled a webinar titled “Special Pipeline Series: Path to 150.” All of […]
Academics Pitted Human Accounting Students Against GPT-3, Students Won
As aspiring lawyers everywhere learned with horror that GPT-4 is capable of passing the bar exam (in the 90th percentile of test-takers, no less) a whole bunch of academics were not-so-quietly putting GPT-3 to the test on accounting. Literally. Published in Issues in Accounting Education, a total of 328 authors from 186 different institutions in […]
Researchers Shockingly Discover That If You Pay Low Level Grunts More, They Do Better Financial Reporting
A new working paper from Stanford Graduate School of Business professors Christopher Armstrong, John Kepler, and David Larcker, and Shawn Shi, Ph.D. ’23, of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business has found a connection between how well low-ranking accountants are paid and the quality of their work. This is a new area for […]
Bad News For Big 4: Educated Men Have Decided to Not Work So Hard
It is known that the pandemic shifted everyone’s priorities and forced many of us to confront the question of “what am I doing with my life?” Almost all human beings with jobs have thought about this at some point between March 2020 and now, and many of them came to the conclusion that whatever they […]
Research: Working From Home Frees Up Two Hours a Week, Time Many People Spend Doing Work
The anti-WFH, pro-RTO propaganda has chilled out a bit in recent months as boomer and boomer-adjacent Gen X CEOs wait out the next big recession but even those pinstriped menaces in the C-suite who think all remote work is the domain of the lazy can appreciate this info we are about to share with you. […]
In 2019, Academic Researchers Tried to Answer the Question ‘Is Accounting a Miserable Job?’
Stumbled across this interesting paper by authors Paul Madsen and Jeffrey Piao today and thought it worth sharing despite its age (2019). Misery in accounting is timeless after all. Plus it’s relevant given the ongoing accounting pipeline problem and concerns about accountant shortages as the paper talks about how the stereotype of “the miserable accountant” […]
Research: The Profession Continues to Have a Gender Diversity Problem at Upper Levels
Though some progress has been made in recent years, women continue to be suspiciously absent at the highest levels of public accounting. This fact has been amplified by new research published in Journal of Accounting and Public Policy. “Gender equity in public accounting: Evidence from single audit partner and director engagement leaders” examines vertical segregation […]
If You Are Young, Male, and Taking the CPA Exam We Have Some Good News For You
As any boomer who came of age in a time when slapping your female colleague’s backside was not only allowed but encouraged will tell you, guys are down hard these days. “Red pill” forums engage in endless debate about the plight of the modern man and some of these gents believe equality is a finite […]
Study: Ex-Arthur Andersen Audit Partners Do Not Deserve to Get Shredded
When you hear the name Arthur Andersen, the first thing that usually comes to mind is … well … you know. But here’s some good news associated with the Andersen name: audit partners who worked at Arthur Andersen during its collapse and who currently work in the Big 4 provide higher-quality audits than audit partners […]
You Should Be Watching Your CPA Review Course Videos at 2x Speed and Here’s Why
Personally I’ve never been a fan of watching YouTube at 2x speed because I’m already distracted as is. If I’ve got a video up on my phone, chances are I also have the TV on in the background, a cat loudly puking in the other room, and my drunk neighbor stomping around upstairs. Yeah, it […]