Changes, Challenges, and Choices: An Approach to the Future of Accounting Education in a Turbulent World

Introduction

Accountants perform an important role in the organizational value chain, and it is fairly consensual that the accounting profession is undergoing a paradigm shift due to revolutions in technology and in the labor markets, moving towards a more leadership-oriented role. Further, crises have arguably become the new normal with a constellation of factors eliciting small to paradigm shifting changes and challenges: from pandemics, extreme weather events, and wars to shifts in technological paradigms, the impact on the operations of a multitude of organizations is undeniable and brings forth the need to focus on accountants’ competencies in dealing with this type of evermore recurring events.

In this context there is an agreement from both academics and professionals that, in addition to technical skills, there are other “soft” skills that are critical for value creation by accountants.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have a crucial role in developing future accountancy professionals’ competencies especially through bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but they also play a role in lifelong learning, offering continuous training to accountants already employed in the labor market.

In this chapter, we focus on three main dimensions about the future of accounting education: what the literature says that will be a priority, what dealing with constant crisis will mean for professionals in the future, and what strategies should HEIs undertake to help their graduates cope with the challenges ahead. To this purpose, we perform a three-dimensional approach, which allows us to identify: the “changes” occurred in the accounting profession’s competency profile; the “challenges” that derive from a turbulent, crisis prone environment and the “choices” which may allow HEIs to better prepare their graduates to the labor market as well as to gain a competitive advantage in accounting education, distinguishing themselves from the others.

Figure 1.

Chapter perspective

Background

In the 21st century, accounting and the accounting profession have undergone some of the greatest transformation processes of which there is historical record. According to Kuhn (1970, cit in Shortridge & Smith 2009), the reasons that lead to revolutionary processes are the existence of anomalies or significant crises that force deep and structural changes instead of small adjustments and evolutions. This is an accurate depiction of the contemporary challenges facing the accounting profession, given the amount and speed of emerging changes, the transformation of the industrial economy into an information economy, the increase in globalization and the surge in available information and its processing capacity (Shortridge & Smith, 2009). Additionally, accounting services have become increasingly broader and more diversified, which has triggered the need for accountants to specialize in specific areas that make up the profession (Bui & Porter, 2010).

Institutions that regulate the accounting profession have long been highlighting the need for accountants to develop behavioral, communicative and interdisciplinary skills, in order to bring their curriculum closer to the needs of the market, seeking, among other objectives, to maximize the satisfaction of accountants in relation to their profession (Strawser, Flagg, & Holmes, 2000), but also allowing them to deal with the uncertainty and constant change of the work context, as well as with the ever-present social responsibility (Kavanagh & Drennan, 2008).