Comparing accountants' perceptions towards marketing and advertising in Hong Kong and Malaysia

The objectives of the paper are to study how CPA firms in Hong Kong and Malaysia perceive the concepts of advertising and marketing; how they perceive the effects of advertising and marketing of their services on professional ethics; and to compare the accountants' perceptions towards marketing and advertising in these two countries. A structured questionnaire consisting of 27 statements was used to measure the attitudes of CPA firms towards marketing and advertising using a Likert scale ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree." In Hong Kong, the sample was drawn by using systematic 1 in 3 sampling technique from the Hong Kong Yellow Pages telephone directory which provided 120 firms. A response rate of 75% was recorded. In Malaysia, the sample was drawn from the Directory of Accountants, Tax Consultants and Tax Advisers, which provided a sample .of 416. Eighty-six successful responses were received, which gives an acceptable response rate o 20.67 percent. Findings indicated that Malaysian CPAs tend to be more consumer-oriented than their counterparts in Hong Kong.