Appalachian State University Blog

Today, Pennie Bagley, PhD, CPA, has both feet planted firmly in the accounting world. In addition to teaching classes such as graduate and undergraduate auditing at Appalachian State University, she’s a creative and active researcher, she’s involved with the American Accounting Association (AAA), and she’s been the chair of the Department of Accounting since 2019.

It might be hard to imagine, but there was a time when none of that was on Dr. Bagley’s radar.

“I graduated high school in the 90s and environmental engineering was super cool,” she remembered. “I wanted to be an engineer, in particular an environmental engineer.”

However, while Dr. Bagley enjoyed campus life, environmental engineering just wasn’t for her — and her grades reflected that.

Fortunately, someone recognized her talent for organization and suggested she try an accounting class. “I took that first accounting class, and I just kind of knew,” Dr. Bagley said. “I liked that there was some order to it.”

From there, Dr. Bagley embarked on a journey of academic and professional development that proves there’s more to accounting than numbers and formulas. Her accounting students, whether they’re enrolled in the graduate program or App State Online’s Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) in Accounting Flight Path Program, walk away prepared to tackle anything this complex field has to throw at them.

Auditing and Accounting for People

During her undergraduate studies, Dr. Bagley took classes on financial accounting, managerial accounting, taxation and a wide range of other topics. While the courses were challenging, the mentorship she received kept her on course and enthusiastic about her new path.

“Those last couple of years as an undergrad, I really had these great relationships with my professors. They were approachable,” she recalled.

These relationships did more than spur on Dr. Bagley’s enthusiasm for accounting, though. They also helped her discover a love for a particularly challenging side of the field: auditing.

“Auditing is basically where you provide assurance over what other people have done,” she explained. “Companies have accountants that have done the books and created the financial statements. You, as an auditor, come in as an outside independent party and provide assurance that it looks like they were doing things right.”

To Dr. Bagley, auditing stood out as a uniquely interpersonal sector of accounting, requiring both soft skills and technical know-how.

“In general, the auditing profession is a lot more interactive. You have conversations with the controllers or the accountants that are working at the companies whose books you’re looking at. You ask them questions. There are some accounting rules that aren’t black and white.”

After working in public accounting for two years, and then for one year in industry, Dr. Bagley went back to school, earned her PhD and took her love for interaction into the collegiate classroom. Just as importantly, she began a campaign of research that explores the gray area between accounting and human behavior.

Stress, Emotions and Relationships: Researching the People Behind the Numbers

Dr. Bagley began probing the link between behavior and accounting as early as her PhD student days. “My dissertation way back in the day was about the review structure of the public accounting environment and how that affects your stress levels and, therefore, your work,” she said.

Since then, Dr. Bagley and her colleagues have shed light on areas such as the way bias manifests in accounting, the effect of economic conditions on an accountant’s decision-making and how professionals process and implement feedback.

However, as impactful as all of these studies are, a 2023 peer-reviewed paper that Dr. Bagley cowrote, titled “How Remote Work Affected Early-Career Auditors,” stands out as perhaps one of the most relevant and useful to today’s students and tomorrow’s professionals.

Untangling the Pros and Cons of Remote Work

While remote work wasn’t unheard of before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made it a necessity for organizations across the globe. According to Dr. Bagley, this change had a profound effect on those in the auditing sector — especially those who had just gotten into the field.

“A few years ago, accounting was really struggling to get people to stay in the field,” she said of that era. To find out exactly why, Dr. Bagley and her colleagues interviewed experienced auditors from the Big Four and top 10 firms about the experiences of their less seasoned colleagues.

These interviews revealed that many of the reasons early-career auditors were struggling revolved around limitations of remote work, such as:

• Feeling disconnected from teams

• Decrease in coaching

• Lack of opportunities for new auditors to build strong relationships with colleagues and clients 

• Transactional but not relational nature of communication

• Inability of supervisors to physically notice when new auditors were struggling

However, Dr. Bagley and her colleagues don’t end their paper with a rally to return to the office. Instead, they offer some ways to improve, such as planning meals with teams and clients to build relationships, scheduling regular check-in meetings with new professionals and creating virtual audit rooms where people can work alongside each other.

Leveraging Accounting Expertise in the Classroom

With these evidence-based and person-centered insights, Pennie Bagley, PhD, CPA, is equipped to teach her students both the technical and interpersonal skills they need to excel in any sector of the accounting workforce. She’s spent the last 25 years doing just that for both graduate and undergraduate students on campus.

Soon, though, a new group of students will be able to benefit from her expertise. Dr. Bagley is currently working on a curriculum for App State Online’s BSBA in Accounting Flight Path Program.

The Flight Path Program is a University of North Carolina-wide effort to make getting a degree more accessible to more students through a self-paced online curriculum. Dr. Bagley encourages students who are considering a career in accounting to take a page from her own story.

“If you’re nervous, just try one class, see how it goes, and reach out to your professors,” she said. “I haven’t taught in the program yet, but I know I’d be thrilled to hear from some of my students, for them to make that connection.”

As Dr. Bagley’s own career shows, those connections can be the key to homing in on a career path. Whether students need help with assignments, need career advice or want to attend events such as the Meet the Firms job fair, Dr. Bagley and her colleagues are there to do what their own professors once did for them and open doors.

To find out more about the BSBA in Accounting Flight Path program, reach out to the App State Online admissions team or request more information today.

Recommended Readings

4 Different Types of Audits Explained

How to Study for the CPA Exam: 7 Tips

What Can I Do With an Accounting Degree?

Sources:

Journal of Accountancy, “How Remote Work Affected Early-Career Auditors”