The skills required to become a successful accounting professional are evolving. In the past, accountancy students that excelled in memorizing and retaining technical content have generally performed well in their professional careers. The advancement of technology such as robotic process automation and artificial intelligence has changed that status quo in the profession. Essential skills (ES) such as critical thinking, deduction, problem solving, teamwork and collaboration, inclusive mindset, effective communication and presentation, articulate writing, professionalism, ethical reasoning, and the ability to provide/receive constructive criticism are becoming paramount in this new environment. Professional and academic frameworks have promulgated the importance of these higher order skills. However, accounting programs have generally not adapted as well in preparing students with these skills. The authors provide directors of accounting programs with two different approaches in implementing these ES into their curriculums.
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There are many professional associations that represent the Accountancy profession. Both the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) provide formal higher education with frameworks that prepare the next generation of professionals for success. The AICPA is a professional association that represents Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). Similarly, the IIA is a professional association that represents the Internal Audit profession. Through their frameworks, both associations express the importance of ES and emphasize their desirability for accounting professionals. Higher education and business school specific accrediting bodies such as the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), Middle States11, and National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) also recognize and emphasize the importance ES as part of their frameworks. The profession and higher education accrediting bodies have aligned views that ES are important for a student to succeed in the business world. Therefore, the authors propose that accounting programs must consider adjustments to their current curriculum to facilitate or parallel the delivery of the ES.
What is the ES necessary for candidates entering the profession? How do prospective candidates acquire skills that are valued and necessary for successful accounting careers? These are questions that Directors of Accountancy programs should be contemplating because the skillset for graduates has evolved and many traditional methods of delivering an accounting education are becoming less relevant. As many tasks once responsible for entry-level professionals shift to non-licensure candidates (i.e., community college graduates entering the profession) or to robotic process automation (RPA), the more likely ES will shift to a higher order of skills. Bloom’s taxonomy of higher order skills is analyzing, evaluating and creating; whereas lower-level skills such as remembering, and understanding are those that do not manifest into higher order skills because technology allows immediate access to relevant information. That access lessens the requirement to remember technical knowledge. Therefore, what was deemed as higher order skills now represent ES for entering the profession tomorrow.
ES are defined as critical thinking, deduction, problem solving, teamwork and collaboration, inclusive mindset, effective communication and presentations, articulate writing, professionalism, ethical reasoning, and the ability to provide/receive constructive criticism. Higher order stills require a critical perspective of interpretation and evaluation along with effective communication skills that require presentation skills to inform and persuade. The ES for candidates is not avoided of being questioned and challenged and thus possessing the emotional intelligence and fortitude of being challenged amidst of being praised.
The ES were prominently called for on November 7, 2022, when the AICPA released their Foundational Competencies Framework for Aspiring CPAs22 (“Framework”). The Framework focuses on critical skills necessary for the long-term success of candidates entering the profession. The Framework does not prescribe traditional technical knowledge, which is reserved for the CPA exam. Rather the Framework posits that the ES are necessary for the variety of career opportunities that a prospective CPA may choose from. Because the Framework was created with direct assistance from accounting professionals, it does reflect the ES to enter the practice.
In this Chapter, we discuss select professional and academic frameworks in relation to the ES. We provide Program Directors two alternative approaches to implement ES into an accounting curriculum. The first strategy involves changing an entire accounting curriculum that transforms the curriculum from a traditional discipline approach to an ES development approach. And the second strategy provides a transitional approach that involves the offering of a required ES focused course in a curriculum. The proposed strategies will enable an accountancy program to comply with the applicable frameworks that call for ES.
The remaining Chapter is structured as follows; Section II discusses the profession and academic frameworks. Section III discusses two strategies to implement ES into an accountancy program curriculum. Lastly, Section IV concludes the paper.