There are three objectives of our study. The first is to develop a pertinent measure of
professionalism in the context of accounting, a widely-recognized professional job. Here
we draw largely on the work of Miner (1993) regarding professional role requirements.
The second objective is to evaluate the influences of various socialization factors on the
development of the professionalism of individuals. In particular, we contrast the impacts
of factors in early career stages (e.g. university training and membership of professional
bodies) with factors in current employment (e.g. professional tenure and job position).
The third objective is to examine the effects of socialization factors and professionalism
on certain job attitudes such as job satisfaction, intentions to quit and professional
identification. Previous research has largely focused on the degree of professionalism of
an occupation and has not adequately addressed its behavioural implications for
individuals (Kalbers and Fogarty, 1995; Shafer et al., 2002). We try to fill this void in the
current literature.