A new study by Eric Horne, Serena Loftus, Sarah Shonka McCoy, and Amanda found that sustainability in a job description significantly increased interest in accounting careers. But only for one group of students.
The finding reveals something important about the nature of the pipeline problem and, more broadly, about how a profession’s self-conception shapes who finds it attractive.
A Profession Losing Its Audience
In 2021, the American Institute of CPAs reported a steady decline in accounting graduates, a trend that has only accelerated in the post-pandemic period. Experienced accountants have left the profession in large numbers, prompting what some observers have called a “Great Resignation” within the field. Firms report persistent difficulty filling positions, and the problem extends beyond entry-level roles to experienced staff and partners.
The next generation of potential recruits, Generation Z, broadly defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, now accounts for about 20 percent of the U.S. population. This cohort will determine the profession’s future composition. Yet surveys consistently show that Generation Z members prioritize something that traditional accounting recruiting has not emphasized: social impact.
Deloitte’s 2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey found that half of Generation Z respondents had rejected employers who did not align with their values, with negative environmental impacts cited as a common reason. Ernst & Young’s 2023 survey of students identified the chance to impact sustainability and contribute to society as top motivations for pursuing an accounting career. Yet the same survey found that only 29 percent of senior accounting executives use environmental, social, and governance considerations as a selling point to potential employees.
There is a disconnect here. Students are signaling what they want. The profession is not listening.
Or perhaps more accurately, the profession is not translating its work into the language that students understand. The core insight of Horne and colleagues is that accounting already contains the elements that Generation Z values. The problem is that these elements are not being emphasized.
The Experiment
Horne et al. recruited 366 undergraduate business students from introductory accounting classes at two large public universities in the western and southwestern United States. These students were typical of the population from which the next generation of accountants will be drawn: about 60 percent male, 37 percent from minority backgrounds, and 30 percent first-generation college students.
Before any exposure to job descriptions, the students completed a series of well-established psychology questions that measure social value orientation. These questions require participants to choose between different distributions of payoffs between themselves and another person. Some people consistently prefer outcomes that benefit themselves, even at the expense of others. Others consistently prefer outcomes that benefit everyone, even if it means receiving less individually. The researchers classified students above the sample median as relatively prosocial and those at or below as relatively proself.
Then came the manipulation.
Students were randomly assigned to read one of two job descriptions. Both described an entry-level assurance position at a large accounting firm. Both offered the same salary, between $55,000 and $60,000, and required the same qualifications, including a bachelor’s degree and CPA eligibility. Both emphasized data analytics skills and strong communication.
The only difference was the substantive focus of the work.
One group read a description of a financial audit assistant position. The work involved “examining clients’ financial reports,” “evaluating and testing financial accounting data,” and “business risk assessments and mitigation strategies.”
The other group read a description of a sustainability audit assistant position. The work involved “examining clients’ environmental reports,” “evaluating and testing environmental, social, and governance data,” and “climate risk assessments and mitigation strategies.”
Everything else was identical. The same firm. The same compensation. The same qualifications.
After reading the description, students answered questions about their curiosity regarding accounting career opportunities, their interest in pursuing an accounting career, and their likelihood of considering an accounting major.
The results were striking—but not in the way one might expect.
The Prosocial Pipeline
Students who read the sustainability assurance job description were, on average, more interested in accounting than those who read the traditional financial assurance description. This finding alone is noteworthy. A simple change in framing—replacing “financial” with “sustainability”—increased career attractiveness.
But the average concealed a more important pattern.
The entire effect was driven by prosocial students. When Horne and his colleagues examined the two groups separately, they found that prosocial students were significantly more attracted to accounting after viewing the sustainability description compared to the financial one. For proself students, however, there was no difference in attraction between the two job descriptions.
This is the paper’s central contribution. The sustainability emphasis does not appeal to all students equally. It appeals specifically to those who care about others and the broader social good. And these are precisely the students that the profession may be losing to other fields.
The researchers then investigated why this effect occurred. The answer, again, was revealing.
Prosocial students rated the sustainability position as more intrinsically appealing than the financial position. That is, they felt the sustainability job would allow them to live their values, would make them proud to tell others about their employment, and would involve interesting work. This sense of intrinsic appeal, in turn, mediated their increased career interest.
For proself students, there was no such effect. They viewed both positions as equally consistent with their values—or equally inconsistent.
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Using an experiment with 366 undergraduate business students, Horne, Loftus, McCoy, and Winn (2024) demonstrate that emphasizing sustainability in accounting job descriptions significantly increases career interest—but only for prosocial students, those who value collective welfare over self-interest. The effect is driven by intrinsic appeal, not salary or prestige.
Students were randomly assigned to read one of two nearly identical job descriptions—financial assurance or sustainability assurance. Both offered the same salary ($55,000–$60,000), qualifications, and firm. The only difference: the work focus—financial reports vs. environmental and climate risk reports.
“Examine clients’ financial reports… evaluate and test financial accounting data… business risk assessments.”
“Examine clients’ environmental reports… evaluate and test environmental, social, and governance data… climate risk assessments.”
Using validated measures of professional skepticism, Horne et al. found that prosocial students were generally less skeptical than proself students. This raises important questions about audit quality and the potential trade-offs in attracting more prosocial individuals to the profession.
- Regulators view professional skepticism as a cornerstone of audit quality.
- Attracting more prosocial individuals may enhance purpose-driven motivation but potentially reduce skepticism.
- The relationship between social value orientation and audit quality remains unresolved.
- Prosocial individuals may engage in group-beneficial behaviors; proself individuals may prioritize self-interest.
The findings offer concrete, evidence-based strategies for addressing the accounting talent shortage.
- Recruit beyond business majors: Students in arts and sciences may have stronger prosocial leanings.
- Highlight social impact: Emphasize how financial assurance also serves societal goals (trust, transparency, investor protection).
- Manage expectations: Avoid overpromising; ensure sustainability roles are substantive, not tokenistic.
- Create pathways: Develop certificate programs and alternative entry routes for non-traditional candidates.
The Horne study is rigorous, but it leaves important questions unanswered—invitations for future research that will strengthen the evidence base.
- Regulatory evolution: Sustainability reporting standards are still emerging; the nature of assurance work may change significantly.
- Skills divergence: Long-term career growth in sustainability may require different skills than entry-level positions.
- Audit quality: Does lower skepticism among prosocial individuals translate into worse audit outcomes? Can training offset it?
- Educational background: Do students from liberal arts colleges, certificate programs, or non-accounting majors respond differently?
The Skepticism Question
The researchers also examined a secondary question that has important implications for practice: how does social value orientation relate to professional skepticism?
Regulators view professional skepticism as a cornerstone of audit quality. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both emphasized its importance in ensuring that auditors exercise due professional care. If prosocial individuals are less skeptical, then attracting more of them to the profession might have unintended consequences for audit quality.
Using validated measures of professional skepticism, Horne and colleagues found that prosocial students were generally less skeptical than proself students. This finding suggests a trade-off. A profession that attracts more prosocial individuals may gain in purpose-driven motivation but potentially lose in the cognitive orientation that regulators consider essential.
However, the researchers are careful to note that this finding does not necessarily imply worse audit outcomes. Prior research has found that trait skepticism is only positively associated with effective audit planning for auditors with “high ethical idealism,” a characteristic that may relate to prosocial orientation. The relationship between social value orientation and audit quality is complex and not yet fully understood.
What is clear, though, is that firms cannot simply assume that prosocial individuals will make better or worse auditors. The trade-offs are real, and they require careful management.
What This Changes
The findings of Horne and colleagues have concrete implications for how the accounting profession approaches recruiting and retention.
First, and most directly, firms should emphasize sustainability in their recruiting materials. The study shows that a simple job description change can shift perceptions. Yet current practice lags far behind. Only 29 percent of senior accounting executives use ESG as a selling point, despite clear evidence that students care about these issues. Firms that fail to highlight sustainability are leaving talent on the table.
Second, professional societies and accounting programs should incorporate sustainability accounting topics into their curricula. Although many educators have begun this work, there is room for strengthening the emphasis. Standalone courses and integrated cases can expose students to the sustainability dimensions of accounting work, potentially increasing interest before students make career decisions.
Third, firms should consider rotation programs that allow accountants in traditional financial assurance roles to work on sustainability engagements. Such programs would increase the number of professionals who can credibly speak to the sustainability dimensions of the work, amplifying the recruiting message. More importantly, they would ensure that prosocial employees are not left disillusioned if their actual work does not match the recruiting pitch.
Fourth, the profession should look beyond traditional recruiting pools. Business majors may not be the only, or even the best, source of prosocial talent. Students in the arts and sciences may have stronger prosocial leanings than business majors, according to prior research. Creating pathways for these students to enter accounting could broaden the talent pool and bring in individuals who might otherwise never consider the profession.
The Disillusionment Risk
There is a darker implication to these findings, one that the researchers acknowledge directly. The researchers caution that if the next generation of accountants cannot obtain sustainability accounting positions, or if their career perceptions are misaligned with their eventual workplace experience, they could become disillusioned and exit the profession. This would exacerbate the already-high turnover in the field.
The problem is not hypothetical. Many sustainability assurance roles are still emerging. The regulatory landscape is less developed for sustainability reporting than for financial reporting, and the nature of the work is evolving rapidly. An entry-level position that seems attractive today may look quite different in practice.
Firms must manage expectations carefully. Emphasizing sustainability in recruiting creates a promise—implicit or explicit—about the nature of the work. If that promise is not kept, employees will leave. The profession needs a strategy not just for attracting prosocial individuals, but for retaining them.
Rotation programs and career development paths that connect financial and sustainability assurance work are one possible solution. Another is to emphasize the social impact of traditional financial assurance—the role that auditing plays in maintaining trust in capital markets, protecting investors, and enabling economic activity that benefits society. If sustainability is one way to frame the social value of accounting work, it is not the only way.