Accounting for the future: more than numbers: volume 1: final report

This project is a collaborative investigation into the changing skill set deemed necessary for professional accounting graduates over the next ten years and the strategies for embedding such skills into professional accounting programs. The goals for the 12- month project were to: identify whether there is a consensus as to the relative importance of key technical and non-technical skills for graduates of professional accounting programs to meet the challenges of the profession over the next ten years; identify the range of non-technical skills required of professional accountants over the next ten years; identify examples of best practice for the embedding of relevant non-technical skills in professional accounting programs; and widely disseminate findings to accounting academics for use in accounting programs in the higher education sector and to other stakeholders, with presentations at seminars in each mainland state and at AFAANZ conferences. In the first stage of the project, data were collected from interviews with these key stakeholders: employers of accounting graduates, including all Big 4, some mid-tier/niche and small accounting firms; the three professional accounting bodies; large and small companies; and the public sector across Australia. The project team also interviewed recent graduates and conducted focus group sessions with current accounting students. Interviews were transcribed and analysed, with the identity of individual participants concealed. In the second stage of the project, the project team distributed a survey to all 38 public universities seeking information about how non-technical skills were developed and assessed in all the relevant subjects required for accreditation by the professional accounting bodies. The non-technical skills used in the survey were those identified by the Business, Industry and Higher Education Collaboration Council (BIHECC) in its Graduate Employability Skills Report published in August 2007. The survey also invited respondents to share initiatives/strategies for the development of these nine non-technical skills. The project team has not passed any value judgements or assessed these initiatives/strategies. We do, however, provide a description of each initiative, the learning and teaching rationale that underpins it, and any evidence available about its success. Our report should enable accounting academics to select those initiatives that interest them and to have enough detail to trial the idea in their subject or program.