Abstract
- Networking through golf is recognized in the business world as one possible component of professional development. After documenting an underrepresentation of females during the annual departmental golf outing at a regional public university, we developed this study using the action research methodology to measure the success of various iterations of a student-golf program created in response to this gender diversity gap. The motivation behind implementation of the program is to train more female students in this non-traditional skillset because it may otherwise prove as a limitation to important networking opportunities that may hinder those individuals’ success in public accounting. Using various structures of the Golf Links program, we find a tradeoff between more thoroughly developing the skillset of a small number of students as compared to providing limited instruction to a larger number of students. Given the feedback from accounting professionals suggesting that non-golfers do not see the networking value in learning golf, we find that providing a brief introduction to the sport to a wider number of students may be more effective in overcoming that hurdle and incentivizing students to pursue golf on their own as a means of professional networking.