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The Capabilities Necessary for Practice
The dialogue about education must be based on a clear statement of the capabilities needed for practice. Also, there must be a focus on the broader skills that will support a lifetime of professional success. Without a clear set of capabilities to use as objectives in the curriculum design process, it is unlikely that change in the current content or teaching methods will be responsive to the needs of the profession.In 1988, the AICPA issued a revised version of its Education Requirements for Entry into the Accounting Profession. That monograph includes an illustrative program of study with narrative descriptions of the appropriate content in specific areas. While the AICPA report and the capabilities described in this paper have much in common, the following focuses on the desired outcomes of the educational process, as contrasted with courses of study.
Educational for the accounting profession must produce graduates who have a broad array of skills and knowledge.
Skills for Public Accounting
To be successful, an individual must bring to the practice several general skills. These are divided into three categories:
Communication skillsIntellectual skills
Interpersonal skills.
The categories are not mutually exclusive and cannot be considered in a vacuum. Obviously the communication skills are highly interrelated with the interpersonal skills, and some of the intellectual skills are dependent on some of the communication skills. The curriculum must support all of these skills.
Communication Skills
Public accounting requires its practitioners to be able to transfer and receive information with ease.
Practitioners must be able to present and defend their views through formal and informal, written and oral, presentation. They must be able to do so at peer level with business executives.
As the rate of change in the business world increases, so does the amount of information that must be gathered from outside sources. Practitioners must be able to listen effectively to gain information and understand opposing points of view. They also will need the ability to locate, obtain and organize information from both human and electronic sources.
Intellectual Skills
Individuals seeking to be successful in the diverse world of public accounting must be able to use creative problem-solving skills in a consultative process. They must be able to solve diverse and unstructured problems in unfamiliar settings. They must be able to comprehend an unfocused set of facts; identify and, if possible, anticipate problems; and find acceptable solutions. This requires an understanding of the determining forces in a given situation and the ability to predict their effects.
Inductive thought processes and capabilities for judgment must be developed to support such activities. Practitioners must also be able to identify ethical issues and apply a value-based reasoning system to ethical questions.
The practice of public accounting, like the practice of any profession, includes many challenging pressures. Conflicting demands, unexpected requirements and coinciding deadlines are but a few of the sources of stress found in practice. The effective practitioner must be able to manage these pressures. This requires the ability and judgment to select and assign priorities within restricted resources and organize work to meet tight deadlines when necessary.
Interpersonal Skills
The ability to work with other human beings is an important part of public practice. Working effectively in groups with diverse members to accomplish a task is essential.
The practitioner must be able to influence others; organize and delegate tasks; motivate and develop other people; and withstand and resolve conflict. These are the skills of a competent manager. Because public accountants advise clients on the operation of their businesses, they should possess the requisite management skills. They must also be able to assume leadership positions within their own firms.
Knowledge for Public Accounting
An individual must also bring to the practice of public accounting a large body of knowledge. It is categorized here into three areas:
General KnowledgeOrganizational and business knowledge
Accounting and auditing knowledge.
To counter the temptation to focus only on knowledge directly related to accounting and auditing, this discussion starts with the general knowledge category.
General Knowledge
For the good of the profession and society as a whole, education for accounting must include a sufficiently large, broad and deep general education component to yield a level of knowledge that is characteristic of broadly educated person.
The successful practitioner requires general knowledge that covers a number of factors:
An understanding of the flow of events in history and the different cultures in today's world.The ability to interact with diverse groups of people and at the highest levels of intellectual exchange.
A sense of the breadth of ideas, issues and contrasting economic, political and social forces in the world.
Experience in making value judgments.
The general education component of university education should support the development of these factors and should leave the student excited about, and prepared for, lifelong learning.
Organizational and Business Knowledge
To understand their clients' and their own work environments, public accountants must have an understanding of the economic, social cultural and psychological forces that affect organizations. They must also understand the basic internal workings of organizations and be able to apply this knowledge to specific examples. This requires an understanding of interpersonal and group dynamics.
Given the rapid pace of change in the business world, public accountants must understand the methods for creating and managing change in organizations. The professional environment is also characterized by rapidly increasing dependence on technological support. No understanding of organizations could be complete without attention to the current and future roles of information technology in client organizations and accounting practice.
Accounting and Auditing Knowledge
Post-secondary education should provide a strong fundamental understanding of accounting and auditing. This includes the history of the accounting profession and accounting thought, as well as the content, concepts, structure and meaning of reporting for organizational operations both for internal and external use. A companion area includes the methods for gathering, summarizing and analyzing financial data. Entering practitioners must also understand the meaning and application of, as well as the methodology for, attest services.
Accounting knowledge cannot focus solely on the construction of data. The ability to apply decision rules embodied in the accounting model is only a part of the goal. Accountants must be able use the data, exercise judgments, evaluate risks and solve real-world problems.
Passing the CPA examination should not be the goal of accounting education. The focus should be on developing analytical and conceptual thinking-versus memorizing rapidly expanding professional standards.