Through this paper we intend to disclose our actual research project focused on evaluation of the actual stage of Romanian academic accounting education in order to support the national university reform which has began in 2005. The research is meeting the international trends oriented to improve the academic process of accounting graduates. In this way, by determine a correlation degree between international trends: globalization, regionalization and the evolution of Romanian accounting system and by evaluation of the actual stage of Romanian accounting academic system from the point of view of actors involved (graduates, teachers and employers) we intend to determine the connection between the appliance of public requirements with the actual level of graduates’ professional knowledge. Then we will offer constructive solutions, empiric validated, which will help the accounting graduates in their way to accounting profession. The research is interdisciplinary and its originality is give by the pioneering work performed at national level by the research team who is developing such a theoretical and practically complex approach.accounting education, professional development, academic education, accounting profession

Ienciu Alin Ionel

Mutiu Alexandra Ileana

Tiron Tudor Adriana

English

Research Papers in Economics

1336 
 THE IMPROVEMENT PROCESS OF THE ROMANIAN 
EDUCATIONAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM TOWARD A GLOBAL 
ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT – A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF A 
RESEARCH PROJECT  
Mutiu Alexandra Ileana  
Babes Bolyai University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 58-60 Teodor Mihali, Cluj 
Napoca, alexandra.mutiu@econ.ubbcluj.ro, tel: +40.264.418.653 
Tiron Tudor Adriana  
Babes Bolyai University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 58-60 Teodor Mihali, Cluj 
Napoca, tiron@econ.ubbcluj.ro, tel: +40.264.418.653 
Ienciu Alin Ionel  
Babes Bolyai University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, 58-60 Teodor Mihali, Cluj 
Napoca, alin.ienciu@econ.ubbcluj.ro, tel: +40.264.418.653 
 
Through this paper we intend to disclose our actual research project focused on evaluation of the actual 
stage of Romanian academic accounting education in order to support the national university reform 
which  has  began  in  2005.  The  research  is  meeting  the  international  trends  oriented  to  improve  the 
academic  process  of  accounting  graduates.  In  this  way,  by  determine  a  correlation  degree  between 
international trends: globalization, regionalization and the evolution of Romanian accounting system and 
by evaluation of the actual stage of Romanian accounting academic system from the point of view of actors 
involved (graduates, teachers and employers) we intend to determine the connection between the appliance 
of public requirements with the actual level of graduates’ professional knowledge. Then we will offer 
constructive  solutions,  empiric  validated,  which  will  help  the  accounting  graduates  in  their  way  to 
accounting profession. The research is interdisciplinary and its originality is give by the pioneering work 
performed at national level by the research team who is developing such a theoretical and practically 
complex approach. 
Keywords: accounting education, professional development, academic education, accounting profession 
An overview of the project  
In recent years, at least three major factors had a significant impact on the business environment for which 
teachers prepare graduates: technology, globalization and the increased concentration  of power among 
certain markets investors. In this circumstance, the future of the accounting education depends on how 
proactive  teachers  are  and  on  the  way  universities  can  meet  the  necessities  of  the  economic  world’s 
ongoing change. High trade literature (Albrecht and Sack in 2000 and 2002, Dusch and Wambsganss in 
2006,  Hurt  in  2007,  etc)  reflects  concerns  regarding  the  perilous  academic  accounting  education  is. 
Moreover, the accounting profession’s organisms (IFAC, IAAER, UNCTAD, GAE, AAA, ACCA, etc.) 
are demanding changes in accounting education to be made before the image of the profession will be 
affected.  
The proposed research’s topic is based both on a fundamental and applicative research. The fundamental 
research  focuses  on  analyzing  information  by  description,  offering  the  useful  instruments  in  order  to 
perform analyze, launching ideas and believes. It allows, based on existing theories and concepts, to draw 
essential guidelines in the accounting education domain which assure the pre-requisite of the research.  
The  applicative  research  is  meant  to  identify  the  actual  stage  of  the  Romanian  academic  accounting 
education concerning the accounting graduates’ level of knowledge. Its results will have a great impact on 
verifying the hypothesis developed by fundamental research and also on identifying new problems, stages 
or particular cases for Romania. Using both of the research methods will contribute to establishing the 
connection ratio between the application of public requests and the actual level of accounting graduates’ 
knowledge.   1337 
The  transdisciplinary  feature  of  this  project  is  proved  by  involving  within  the  research  project  both 
Romanian’s  professional  organisms  and  top  management  of  the  most  important  audit  and  accounting 
companies. Their implication will add value to our research by bringing a practical and different vision and 
ideas. In this way, the hypothesis developed throughout this research will be larger. Since the subject of the 
research affects the public interest, the participative approach is a must. 
The structure of the research underlines its’ interdisciplinary feature: firstly, we are going to investigate the 
actual stage of the accounting curricula in relation to the requests of the professional organisms on the 
necessary  knowledge  an  accounting  graduate  must  have:  accounting,  finance  and  related  knowledge, 
organizational and business knowledge and IT knowledge [IES 2, p.3]. Being indispensable to assure a 
minimum base in gaining knowledge process of the accounting graduate, these areas of knowledge will be 
analyzed in order to identify the degree of correlation in between at curricula level. Moreover, we will 
analyze  other  significant  aspects  like  teaching  methods,  educational  models,  technology  and  the 
development stage of Romanian university.  
Research’s objectives are:  
−  O1: To identify the accounting education public requests made by the professional organisms 
and professional organizations at international, European and national level and the factors 
that affect them. 
−  O2: To determine the degree of correlation between the nowadays trend: globalization and the 
evolution of the Romanian academic accounting education system. 
−  O3:  To  evaluate  the  national  academic  accounting  education  by  deeply  analyzing  the 
accounting graduate’s level of knowledge. 
−  O4:  To  determine  the  extent  to  which  the  professional  organisms’  public  requests  are 
connected with the accounting graduate’s level of knowledge. 
−  O5: To issue new pragmatic approaches and to offer constructive solutions for achieving a 
higher accounting graduates’ level of knowledge. 
The research methodology and methods used 
The research methodology is based on scientific epistemology. A critical and mostly inductive research 
will  generate  the  obtaining  of  verifiable  knowledge  which  contributes  through  their  value  to  the 
development of the scientific knowledge in this area. Our vision is to build new hypothesis and opinions 
supported by the preliminary analyze of the present knowledge and specific phenomena and to test further 
the validity of the hypothesis and issued opinions. The testing process for the obtained data validity will 
consider only scientific methods. Besides inductive research, deductive research will also play an important 
role in the consolidation process of the research’s results. 
The research methodology implies gathering all possible existing theory, concepts, ideas and opinions of 
high rated specialists and a comparative approach of different visions on two levels: conceptual (literature 
and existing regulations) and de facto (the actual stage of academic accounting education in Romania). 
The  first  important  step  is  represented  by  identifying  the  knowledge  area  in  this  field,  which  will  be 
achieved  through  a  harshly  documentation  over  the  most  recent  publications:  articles  in  journals, 
governmental acts, reports, standards, recommendations issued by international and national professional 
organisms. The documentation process followed by observation will help us to use a comparative approach 
on three different levels (International, European and National) in order to identify the requests of the most 
active professional organisms. By offering explanations on similarities and differences observed in our 
effort to establish a causality relation, based only on valid theories, we can build a necessity’s perimeter of 
academic accounting education in Romania.  
The Academic accounting system (AAS) is influenced by external and internal aspects. One of the external 
aspects which play an important role is the globalization/regionalization process (Mathews, 2001, Hilton, 
2005, Needles, 2005, Pekdemir, 2007). We will look closely at this factor in order to identify its impact on 
national AAS. On the other hand, AAS is influenced by the evolution of social, economic, cultural and not 
at least political factors. We will identify and investigate their influence using the holistic analyze because 
the  effect  of  each  factor’s  evolution  is  representative  only  if  it  is  analyzed  on  the  whole.  The  issued 
hypothesis will be empirically tested to reach trustable conclusions from scientific point of view. 1338 
Having the goal of evaluating the actual stage of national AAS we will apply four questionnaires in order 
to assess the accounting graduate’s knowledge in Romania. The questionnaires which will be applied are 
based on those used by Steve Albrecht S and Bob Sack in 2000 and published in their remarkable study: 
„Charting the Course through a Perilous Future”. The reasons for using their questionnaires are as follows: 
they  were  drawn  by  a  team  of  specialists  whose  professional  probity  can’t  be  questioned;  the  trade 
literature  didn’t  identify  any  doubts  regarding  their  quality,  although  their  study  was  analyzed  and 
commented  by  many  specialists;  the  questionnaire’s  scope  is  the  same:  to  evaluate  the  academic 
accounting  graduates’  knowledge;  the  questionnaires  are  available  at 
http://aaahq.org/pubs/AESv16/index.html with no restriction to be used. Even so, we will not use the same 
questionnaires’  working  methodology:  few  amendments  will  be  considered  regarding  the  nature  and 
number of analyzed subjects. Moreover, some additional questions will be added in order to clarify some 
specific aspects. The results will be processed with SPSS 16.0 using descriptive statistics. The practical 
approach of the research is essential by permitting us to assess both the actual stage of the academic 
accounting education system and its results which will guideline our research to reach and offer practical 
solutions of the studied phenomena. By doing so, we can connect the theoretical research’s results with 
those resulted from the applicative study in order to establish a correlation ratio between public requests 
and the actual stage of accounting graduate’s knowledge. All these new results will be managed using the 
instruments of the inductive research. This stage of the project contributes to the reality’s deep knowledge 
of  the  studied  topic  and  permits  us  to  identify  and  explain  different  problems  or  specific  identified 
situations and phenomena. The tools used in this phase will permit us to draw scientific conclusions which 
will be empirically validated. Based on the achieved results and using observation and direct analyze we 
can identify new approaches and offer constructive solutions with the purpose of raising the performance 
of  the  Romanian  academic  accounting  education.  In  order  to  reach  the  proposed  objectives,  the 
documentation process will be focused on ongoing bases and oriented to the recent journals’ publications.  
The originality and the novelty of the proposed research topic 
It is for the first time that such a deep analyze of the actual stage of the Romanian accounting academic 
education  is  taken  into  consideration,  with  the  specific  purpose  of  bringing  a  contribution  to  its 
development. By proving preoccupation in improving the academic education system, this project will 
confer Romania a special status among the UE countries. In addition, we have to underline that none of the 
European country has performed a similar research. The international echo of the project will be sound, 
Romania becoming one of the few countries who had tried to move on to be competitive in this domain, 
and  this  way  showing  its  preoccupation  regarding  the  faith  of  accounting  profession.  Such  complex 
research, approached both theoretical and practical are extremely valuable because it tests the identified 
subject as a whole. Since now, partial researches which focus on accounting curricula ((Malciu, 1998, 
Tiron si Mutiu, 2007) and accounting regulations (Diaconu, 2006) have been done, but they are not so 
detailed and can’t offer a global picture of the Romanian academic accounting education; moreover, they 
can’t offer a constructive solution regarding the entire system. These are the motivations that show the 
originality and the novelty of the proposed research topic.  
The functioning chart of the consortium 
The consortium comprises research teams from the most well-known Romanian universities with a long 
tradition in accounting education. Each research team is run by a coordinator whose election was made 
based on a mix of several reasons: the level of expertise, professional and scientific achievements. The 
coordinator is in charge to select the research team’s members except one amendment: team members have 
to be young researchers (masters and PhD students) which can assure by their background and knowledge 
the research will be carried through its final stage at the highest possible standards. The teams’ structure 
has to be revised every time it is considered to be necessary, so that therefore, the professional knowledge 
of the researchers which are involved can successfully assure the achieving of the research’s goal. 
The project will be run by teams’ coordinators and by the director of the project. The administration 
process of the project will be done by a person who is not involved in research.  
Every team is involved actively in achieving every objective, as it is shown in the table from below. Their 
role is a major one, the work they perform being indispensable for the proposed research project. Based on 
the  written  procedure  issued  by  the  project’s  director,  every  team  has  specific  tasks  regarding  the 1339 
documentation  process,  obtaining  and  analyzing  data,  in  order  to  build  hypothesis  and  to  test  them. 
Advancing  hypothesis,  results  interpretation  and  designing  the  conclusions  will  be  done  by  the 
coordinators,  assisted  by  the  representatives  of  the  Romanian  professional  organisms  and  business 
environment. The representatives’ participation in this project will be voluntarily and no claims for any 
financial reward will be possible. The team’s contribution is presented below according to the project’s 
objectives: 
Scientific objectives of the project 
Team’s contribution (%) 
% 
from 
total   UBB  ASE 
Bucuresti 
AI 
Cuza 
Iasi 
UV 
Timisoara 
O1:  To  identify  the  accounting  education  public 
requests  made  by  the  professional  organisms  and 
professional  organizations  at  international, 
European and national level 
42,5  19,5  19  19  100 
O2:  To  identify  the  accounting  education  public 
requests  made  by  the  professional  organisms  and 
professional  organizations  at  international, 
European  and  national  level  and  the  factors  that 
affect them 
31  23  23  23  100 
O3:  To  determine  the  extent  to  which  the 
professional  organisms’  public  requests  are 
connected  with  the  accounting  graduate’s  level  of 
knowledge 
31  23  23  23  100 
O4: To issue new pragmatic approaches and to offer 
constructive  solutions  for  achieving  a  higher 
accounting graduates’ level of knowledge 
31  23  23  23  100 
% on objectives  33,9  22,1  22,0  22,0  100 
Table 1. The team’s contribution according to the project’s objectives 
The research’s results 
The research’s results will have a great positive impact and will represent an important milestone for the 
national academic education system because the result will identify new approach directions characterized 
by a high level of pragmatism, offer new development’s solutions of the national academic educational 
system  and  allow  designing  new  strategies  whose  main  role  will  increase  the  performance  of  the 
accounting graduates and the prestige of Romanian accounting academic system at international level.  The 
results of the research will constitute a reference point for future similar research both at national, regional 
and international level. Moreover, they will permit an ongoing analyze of the national education system‘s 
performance.  
The utility of the project is claimed by the international  trend that emphasize the power of academic 
accounting education has to increase in order to help its bigger sister: the accounting profession. The 
results of the research will follow this trend by proving to be a part of the effort made by international 
professional organizations: (IAAER, IFAC, ACCA, etc.), well known accounting and audit companies 
(KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, etc.) and researchers (Albrecht and Sacks, 2002, Bennet 2005, Hurt, 
2007, Cheng, 2007, etc.) in their way to improve the accounting educational system. Going further, our 
belief is that the results will be applied into practice since their existence will be circumscribed with the 
direct interest of the university in increasing the quality of the education process.  
Our research  will  most definitely add value in this  field because it both identifies the actual stage of 
national  academic  accounting  education  and  offers  ways  to  improve  it,  this  way  contributing  to  the 
development of the accounting educational strategy. We consider that a strong connection exists between 
the high quality of accounting profession and the high quality of the accounting education system. Because 1340 
of that, the future imagine of the accounting profession depends on the improvements made in the quality 
of the education system.  
Selective references 
1.  Albrecht W. S. and Sack J., Charting the Course through a Perilous Future, December 2000;  
2.  www.aaahq.org/pubs/AESv16/toc.htm 
3.  Burlaud  A.,  Herniet  A.  and  Perez  R.,  La  reforme  des  etudes  comptables  superieures, 
September 2005; http://www.afc-cca.com/fichiers/Actes_des_journees_pedagogiques_232 
4.  Cheng,  K.,  The  curriculum  design  in  universities  from  the  perspective  of  providers  in 
accounting education, Journal of Education, Summer 2007, Vol. 127, Issue 4, 57-81 
5.  Hurt, B., Teaching What Matters: A New Conception of Accounting Education, Journal of 
Education for Business, Volume 82, Number 5 / May-June 2007, 295 – 299 
6.  Deaconu, P., The impact of Globalization in Accounting Research, simpozion intenational 
Business Excellence ICBE 2006, Facultatea de Stiinte Economice, Brasov 2006  
7.  Hilton, W. R., Managerial Accounting – Creating value in a Dynamic Business Environment, 
McGraw-Hill Publishing, New York, 2005 
8.  Needles  B.  E.,  –  Implementing  international  education  standards:  The  global  Challenges, 
Accounting Education, Vol. 14 (1), 2005, 123-129 

The Improvement Process of the Romanian Educational Accounting System Toward a Global Economic Environment

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The Improvement Process of the Romanian Educational Accounting System Toward a Global Economic Environment

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