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Purpose Built upon three components (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) of the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that influenced accounting students’ intention to pursue public accounting instead of private accounting as their career choice in China. Design/methodology/approach The TPB is used to predict the rational intention of accounting students in this study. A binary logistic regression analysis was applied to test all hypotheses because of its suitability. Findings The authors find that the variety and marketability of public accounting experiences, high turnover plus, low firm cohesion in the workplace, and perceived difficulties in traveling extensively affected students’ intentions to pursue the public accounting profession significantly. By highlighting these factors that affect students’ intention to pursue public accounting, this paper has important implications for the accounting educators and other stakeholders in China and other emerging economies. Originality/value By understanding the factors influencing the accounting students’ interests in pursuing public accounting, accounting educators and accounting firms could make some changes, redesign accounting curriculum, and enhance internship experience and recruiting process in order to increase more interests in public accounting. Professional organizations and policy makers might learn some lessons to take some actions to encourage young accounting professionals to work for public accounting firms. Moreover, this study has provided a valuable perspective to accounting educators, practitioners, and policy makers in other emerging economies with the same shortage of qualified public accountants.

US citizens' online political participation is on the rise, fueled by the phenomenal growth of social media. In the 2008 election, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that, for the first time, the majority of US adults (55%) used the Internet to stay informed or get involved in the political process (Smith, 2009). Two years later, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that, in the 2010 midterm elections, 73% of adult Internet users (54% of US adults) received political news or information, or got involved online, and 35% of social networking site (SNS) users (about 22% of online adults) visited these sites for political information or getting involved in the campaign (Smith, 2011a, 2011b). A more recent Pew survey found that, on SNS, 66% of social media users (39% of US adults) engaged in one of eight civic or political activities (Rainie, Smith, Schlozman, Brady, & Verba, 2012). Political scientists and communication scholars urged politicians to tap the huge potential of engaging voters and campaigning via social media (Utz, 2009) because those who use social media for political purposes are more likely to vote or to donate to a campaign (e.g., Kim & Geidner, 2008). Political candidates have turned the Internet into a major fund-raising tool since 2000 when John McCain made history by raising US$2.7 million within 3 days of winning the New Hampshire primary (van Natta, 2000). In the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama's campaign raised US$500 million dollars of contributions with the help of 35,000 groups organized by My Barack Obama website, the most popular Facebook page, and 1,800 YouTube videos (Learmonth, 2009). Of US$1.1 billion raised by the Obama team in the 2012 presidential campaign, US$690 million came from online donations (Green, 2012; Mason & Tanfani, 2012). Little is known about how US millennials' general social media use, political use of social media, political self-efficacy, general social trust, and online social capital influence their online political participation, although there is a growing body of research literature on social media use and political participation since 2004-the birth year of Facebook. Most of them attempted to discover whether the general use of social media could enhance young people's online and offline political participation and civic engagement (e.g.,