Abstract
The shortage of doctoral-qualified accounting lecturers in South African higher education institutions (HEIs) limits the development of a robust research culture and slows academic transformation. This study investigates the academic and professional qualifications of accounting lecturers, focusing on the prevalence of postgraduate degrees and professional certifications, and their association with academic rank. Drawing on publicly available data from 281 accounting lecturers across seven HEIs, the study employed descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and binary logistic regression to explore patterns in qualification profiles. The results reveal that while 50.5 % of lecturers hold master's degrees, only 14.6 % possess doctoral qualifications as the highest academic qualification. In contrast to academic qualifications, 68.7 % of the lecturers hold a minimum of one professional qualification. The predominant professional qualification was Chartered Accountants [CA(SA)]. Professorial ranks were strongly associated with holding both doctoral and professional qualifications, with Professors being nearly 41 percent more likely than Senior Lecturers to possess both. These findings highlight the reluctance of accounting lecturers at South African HEIs to pursue postgraduate qualifications, which hinder academic progression and research output. The study recommends targeted institutional and national interventions to strengthen research capacity, enhance career development, and align accounting education with global academic standards. These findings are relevant to policymakers, higher education managers, and professional accounting bodies.