Research students’ training in accounting and finance: the case of “new universities”

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study of how new universities train research students in accounting and finance from a student perspective. The purpose is to provide evidence of the problems faced by the new universities in offering research degrees in accounting and finance, and how these problems are addressed. It was found that the new universities have made a major commitment to research students’ training since 1992. Financial incentives were offered to attract research students. Experienced supervisors were borrowed from other subject areas and established universities to make up for the internal shortage. Despite these efforts, students might suffer from a lack of an appropriate research culture and environment. Nearly half the students could not obtain advice from persons other than their supervisors, and more than half the number of students responding to the questionnaire did not take any formal research method course. The majority of the students found it relatively hard to surprise their supervisors by progress, to make their relationship with their supervisors amicable and enjoyable, to make a workable time schedule, and hard to obtain advice from non‐supervisors. They also expressed their wish for their supervisors to treat supervision as a higher priority, and be more knowledgeable and more available when needed.