A survey of scholars aiming to teach accounting disciplines at the highest Italian university levels

Scholars interested in career progression can be considered the most vital area of national academic communities, because they are likely harbinger of dynamic pushes and innovative trends. Since in 2012 Italy launched its new system of qualification for the university roles of associate/full professor, we provide a demographic and scientific cross section of the academic Italian Accounting community studying candidates who applied for such roles in the “13/B1 Economia Aziendale” sector. Thus, we split the 2012 session’s “coherent” candidates (CC) into subpopulations whose components applied for associate professorships (SP1), full professorships (SP2) and both (SP3). Afterwards, demographic (age/gender/profession) and scientific (publication quantity/quality/authorship/internationalization) features were statistically analysed. Demographic results show that the majority of candidates are: 31-40 (CC and SP1) and 41-50 (SP2 and SP3) years old; males, with lowest percentages in SP1; assistant (CC, SP1 and SP3) and associate professors (SP2). Scientific results show that: the average lifetime publications ranges between 30 (CC and SP1) and 40 (SP2 and SP3); the average of exceeded medians is about 1.5 and the chapters-articles median is the most exceeded one; candidates prefer co-authorship; many candidates reach the required minimum international threshold. Statistic association (chi-square) findings show that gender is generally not associated with scientific features, whilst age and profession are associated with almost all the detailed scientific features considered. Further studies are suggested both on other scientific features and the reasons for the above results.