Charting futures: understanding anticipatory professional socialisation practices of prospective accountants within higher education

Drawing on Bourdieu’s sociological framework, this study examines how prospective accountants engage with professional socialisation opportunities within the accounting higher education field. Prospective accountants globally experience anticipatory professional socialisation through which they develop employability skills and shape their professional trajectories. Through interviews with Malaysian prospective accountants and insights from local accounting professionals and academics, this study reveals that the prospective accountants’ professional socialisation practice is not solely a conscious and deliberate process. Instead, it involves ongoing negotiation between an individual’s habitus (way of being), capital (resources), and the opportunities that the accounting higher education field offers to them. The findings also highlight the ways in which an individual’s way of being is influenced by their class and ethnic background, and how this impacts their socialisation and career orientations. Individuals from privileged backgrounds tend to possess greater cultural and social capital, positioning them advantageously to benefit from professional development opportunities provided by their institutions compared to those from less privileged backgrounds. These findings raise questions about the role of higher education institutions in promoting equity and expanding access to the accountancy profession for underprivileged groups.