An instructional exercise in gender bias

Abstract

Both men and women pursue careers in accounting equally, but the percentage of women that remain in the public accounting profession dwindles among the higher-tier and lead positions of larger firms (Association of International Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) 2019). While there are many variables that could affect this trend, one factor might be fewer advancement opportunities for women due to implicit bias within the profession. Since decisions about what positions to pursue, who to hire, and who to promote will be important choices in a student’s future accounting career, we thought it would be essential to teach awareness of gender bias in the profession and to prepare students with techniques to recognize and decode implicit gender biases. For this instructional exercise, our students participated in a simple experiment, attended a lecture with discussion on gender bias and occupational stereotypes, and reviewed and discussed the compiled data from their responses. We found that sharing the data comparisons by gender helped to spark lively discussions and create memorable learning experiences. We explore the topics of gender bias and gender coded words in an activity that was developed to test for bias and to be used to build awareness of potential gender bias in hiring or promotion activities. As the profession seeks to understand more about creating an inclusive environment to retain employees, this timely experiment to explore how implicit bias could occur in hiring and promotion is an intervention itself.