Professional and Job‐related Attitudes and the Behaviours they Influence among Governmental Accountants

Abstract

This study investigates professional and job‐related attitudes and behavioural intentions of 427 state and municipal governmental accountants from five southwestern states. While professional commitment has been investigated in terms of its impact on conflict, researchers have not investigated the possibility of a model of professional attitudes that mirrors organisational attitude models and attempts to predict professional turnover intentions. The conceptual model proposed in this study combines organisational and professional concepts into a single model with the goal of assessing the predictive ability of professional attitudes in conjunction with organisational attitudes with respect to organisational turnover intentions. Path analysis was used to estimate coefficients between related variables as an indication of direct relationships. Attitudes of governmental accountants were observed to be a complex set of relationships including professional as well as traditional organisational attitudes (job and professional satisfaction and organisational and professional commitments) as predictors of professional and organisational turnover intentions.