IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/accted/v25y2016i4p349-367.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The expectation performance gap in accounting education: a review of generic skills development in UK accounting degrees

Author

Listed:
  • Jill Webb
  • Caroline Chaffer

Abstract

Accounting educators are criticised for a focus on the development of technical skills at the expense of generic employability skills. This study considers the perspective of UK graduates training for the CIMA professional accountancy qualification and examines their perceptions of the extent to which opportunities for generic skills development are exploited in accounting degrees. The results are compared with opportunities for generic skills development in degrees from other discipline areas, formal work-based training and the training undertaken when studying for professional examinations. The results of the questionnaire-based survey suggest that there is scope for improvement in the extent to which universities exploit opportunities for the development of generic skills. However, across most skill areas trainees’ perceptions of opportunities for the development of generic skills in UK accounting degrees are comparable to those offered in other discipline areas and compare favourably to those offered in both professional training and formal work-based training. The results indicate that the development of oral communication skills, the ability to take a comprehensive and global vision of an organisation, resilience and ethical awareness could be improved.

Suggested Citation

  • Jill Webb & Caroline Chaffer, 2016. "The expectation performance gap in accounting education: a review of generic skills development in UK accounting degrees," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 349-367, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:accted:v:25:y:2016:i:4:p:349-367
    DOI: 10.1080/09639284.2016.1191274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09639284.2016.1191274
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09639284.2016.1191274?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bassam Maali & Ali M. Al-Attar, 2020. "Accounting Curricula in Universities and Market Needs: The Jordanian Case," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440198, January.
    2. Karin Brunsson, 2022. "Formal Rationality as Ideal: The Textbook Approach to Management," Athens Journal of Business & Economics, Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), vol. 8(4), pages 329-344, October.
    3. Apostolou, Barbara & Dorminey, Jack W. & Hassell, John M. & Rebele, James E., 2017. "Accounting education literature review (2016)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-31.
    4. Prerana Agrawal & Jacqueline Birt & Lyndie Bayne & Nikki Schonfeldt, 2022. "The use of case studies in developing students’ understanding of the concept ‘material misstatement’," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(S1), pages 1307-1338, April.
    5. Hanns de la Fuente-Mella & Ricardo Campos-Espinoza & Nelson Lay-Raby & Omar Lamelés-Corvalán & Mario Pino-Moya & Reynier Ramírez-Molina, 2022. "Multinomial Cross-Sectional Regression Models to Estimate and Predict the Determinants of Academic Performance: The Case of Auditor Accountant of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-15, July.
    6. Plant, Kato & Barac, Karin & Sarens, Gerrit, 2019. "Preparing work-ready graduates – skills development lessons learnt from internal audit practice," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 33-47.
    7. Smith, Kenneth J. & Emerson, David J. & Haight, Timothy D. & Mauldin, Shawn & Wood, Bob G., 2019. "An examination of the psychometric properties of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10 (CD-RISC10) among accounting and business students," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 48-62.
    8. Snead, Ken C. & Kraft, Margo J. & Lozada, Aida R. & McGrath, Richard N. & Biswas, Tania & Zhou, Fuzhao, 2023. "An Application of Judgement Modeling to Examine Inter-Cultural Differences Regarding Perceptions of Business Skill Importance," MPRA Paper 120040, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Jan 2024.
    9. Ross Taplin & Abhijeet Singh & Rosemary Kerr & Alina Lee, 2018. "The use of short role-plays for an ethics intervention in university auditing courses," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 383-402, July.
    10. Sabine Graschitz & Simona Holzknecht & Marcel Steller, 2023. "Perceived Attractiveness of Tax Consultancy and Auditing Professions: Insights From a German-Speaking Area," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, March.
    11. Atanasko Atanasovski & Marina Trpeska & Zorica Bozinovska Lazarevska, 2018. "Accounting Students' and Employers' Perceptions on Employability Skills in the SEE Country," European Financial and Accounting Journal, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2018(3), pages 55-71.
    12. Nanja Kroon & Maria do Céu Alves, 2023. "Fifteen Years of Accounting Professional’s Competencies Supply and Demand: Evidencing Actors, Competency Assessment Strategies, and ‘Top Three’ Competencies," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-23, February.
    13. Komarev, Iliya & Preobragenskaya, Galina, 2022. "A framework of market-relevant accounting competencies for the Gulf Cooperation countries (GCC)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    14. Francesca Culasso & Elisa Giacosa & Edoardo Crocco & Daniele Giordino, 2023. "Modern day Management Accountants: A latent Dirichlet allocation investigation," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2023(2 Suppl.), pages 11-36.
    15. Yet Mee Lim & Tat Huei Cham & Teck Heang Lee & Tharunika @ Chithra Latha Ramalingam, 2019. "Employer-Employee Perceptual Differences in Job Competency: A Study of Generic Skills, Knowledge Required, and Personal Qualities for Accounting-Related Entry-Level Job Positions," International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, vol. 9(4), pages 73-83, October.
    16. Denise Jackson, 2020. "Gauging the development of innovative capabilities in Accounting and Finance students: can they drive the national innovation agenda?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(3), pages 2689-2715, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:accted:v:25:y:2016:i:4:p:349-367. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAED20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.