| This transcendental phenomenological study focuses on accounting department chairs at public universities accredited under the standards of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Their shared lived experiences in handling the shortage of doctorally qualified accounting faculty and their increased reliance on professionally qualified faculty who do not possess a terminal degree in accounting. Purposeful sampling was utilized to select the participants. Interviews of the participating ten accounting department chairs were conducted over the telephone. Each semi-structured interviewed was recorded, transcribed, and analyzed by phenomenological reduction. The data resulted in five overarching core themes: (a) Accreditation (T1), (b) Practical Experience (T2), (c) Professional Qualification (T3), (d) Academy (T4), and (e) Accounting as an Applied Vocation (T5). |
