Exploring the impact of 4IR on skills and personal qualities for future accountants: a proposed conceptual framework for university accounting education

The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) presents many opportunities and challenges in a digitised world of work. This paper draws on a systematic literature review of recent research published by accounting professional bodies outlining the impact of digital technologies on the accounting profession. By taking advantage of this work this study critically assesses the types of skills and personal qualities that graduates as future accountants will need and explores the implications for accounting education and university curricula. The analysis reveals that necessary skills for future accountants may be summarised into four categories: a) Ethical skills; b) Digital skills; c) Business skills; and d) Soft skills. The analysis reveals ‘adaptability’ and ‘lifelong approach to CPD’ as the two essential personal qualities for future accountants. The practical implications for university accounting education are summarised in a proposed conceptual framework. The proposed conceptual framework: 1) acts as a roadmap for universities to align their accounting curricula with the developments in professional body syllabi; 2) helps university accounting education teachers to update, enrich, and refocus their teaching and learning approach to the requirements of the 4IR; and 3) promotes the coordination and rationalisation of the skills and personal qualities currently pursued by employability agendas at university, course, and module levels

Comparative Advantages of School and Workplace Environment in Competence Acquisition: Empirical Evidence from a Survey Among Professional Tertiary Education and Training Students in Switzerland

This paper sheds light on the questions how important competences are and which competences can best be learned at school and which competences can be acquired better in the workplace. Exploiting data from a survey among professional tertiary education and training business administration students and their employers in Switzerland, we find that competences related to strategic management, human resource management, organizational design and project management processes are most suitable to be taught in school. However, the results further suggest that soft skills can be acquired more effectively in the workplace than at school. The only exceptions are analytical thinking, joy of learning and organizational competences, for which school and workplace are similarly suitable. Thereby, the paper provides empirical evidence regarding the optimal choice of the learning place for both human resource managers as well as educational decision makers who aim to combine education and training, e.g. in an apprenticeship

Estas son algunas de las habilidades blandas demandadas en Colombia

Este producto forma parte de una serie de infografías de divulgación científica que buscan reseñar algunas de las investigaciones más importantes en las que ha tenido participación la Universidad EAFIT, publicadas en las revistas especializadas más prestigiosas del mund