Abstracts

Perceived Skill Underutilization Among Big Four Accounting Consultants in the United States

by Olabode Samuel Adeola




Institution: Capella University
Department:
Year: 2017
Keywords: Business administration
Posted: 02/01/2018
Record ID: 2150969
Full text PDF: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10269610


Abstract

Na (2013) identified human capital as one of the important resources Professional Service Firms (PSFs) use to stay successful. This study examined the past and current literature on skill underutilization, perceived job match, perceived overqualification and perceived overeducation. The relationship that exists between these concepts and skill underutilization was also examined to help understand how the Big Four accounting consultants in the United States perceive skill underutilization. This study adopted a quantitative study to examine how accounting consultants perceive skill underutilization. Survey responses from 119 accounting consultants were used to examine how Big Four accounting consultants perceive skill underutilization. The results of the research reveals that perceived skill utilization was positively related to perceived job match (r = .76, p < .001) while being negatively related to perceived overeducation ( r = -.42, p < .001) and perceived overqualification (r = -.50, p < .001). The three independent variables Perceived Job Match, Perceived Overeducation and Perceived Overqualification together account for 61.5% of the variance in the dependent variable Perceived Skill Utilization. Perceived Job Match accounted for 36.6%, Perceived Overeducation accounted for 0.04% and Perceived Overqualification accounted for 1.2% of the variance. The remaining variance, 23.7% (61.5% - 37.84%), is shared variance among the three independent variables. The variables, Perceived Overeducation and Perceived Overqualification actually contributed very little to the variance in Perceived Skill Utilization beyond that provided by Perceived Job Match, despite being significantly significant. Much of this contribution is due to the inter-correlation of these variables with Perceived Job Match.