BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN ACCOUNTING: evidence from Brazil, based on the dialogue between efficiency and performance.
Efficiency. Higher Education. Performance. Human Capital Theory.
Meeting the growing demand for higher education and maintaining quality is proving challenging worldwide. Accounting education is part of this problem. Based on the framework of Human Capital Theory, this research aims to highlight the current accounting education landscape in Brazil from the perspective of educational efficiency and performance, with a focus on success on the CFC Exam. To this end, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Hierarchical Linear Method (HLM) will be adopted, using the Educational Production Function as a background. Data will be extracted from the Higher Education Census, ENADE microdata, and statistical data from the Federal Accounting Council. The low performance rate on the CFC Exam is a point of concern among accounting education stakeholders and is a frequent debate within the CFC/CRC system. The increased demand for accountants, fueled by constant legal changes, provides an opportunity to investigate the efficiency of training in this field. This work can provide data and assist researchers interested in the topic, especially at the undergraduate level. Among the possible limitations is communication between databases, for which the strategy of adjusting the variables in the model could be adopted.