An International Comparison of the Academic Accounting Professoriate*

Abstract

An international comparison of the accounting professoriate provides useful information to both key decision makers and individual faculty. We compare characteristics of the academic accounting professoriate in the United States and Canada. Our comparison includes the size of accounting departments (measured by the average number of accounting faculty) and the relative level of research versus teaching focus in accounting departments (proxied by the proportion of tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track faculty). We also examine the relative mobility of accounting faculty (proxied by the number of faculty employed in the same country where they received their final degree vs. the number of faculty employed in a different country). We examine the time it takes for tenure-track faculty to obtain tenure and the time for tenured associates to become full professors, broken out by obtaining their final degree in the same country where they are employed versus faculty who obtained their final degree in a different country.