Vocational Misfit: Source of Occupational Stress Among Accountants

Abstract

The career path of management accountants involves rotation through disparate positions that, we hypothesized, puts these professionals at risk for episodes of vocational misfit. Survey data from 188 management accountants were examined through correlational analyses and structural equation modeling. As predicted, many respondents (40%) met Hollands (1985b) criterion for vocational misfit. Poor vocational fit was significantly associated in correlational analysis with job dissatisfaction, how self-esteem, and turnover, and in a structural equation model, with a stress process that included both stressors and strains.