1998we surveyed individuals beginning their careers with two Big 5 accounting
firms. The surveys were administered on site at their initial staff training sessions,
which occurred shortly after they began their employment. Because of guarantees for
anonymity, we cannot divulge the names of the firms or the number of respondents
from each firm. We compared each firm’s respondents on the basis of age, gender,
and level of education and found no significant differences between the two firms.
A total of 480 individuals completed the instrument. Sixty-six individuals did not
provide demographic data or did not answer all the questions, resulting in 414 usable
responses.