Accounting Education for Professional Accountants: Evidence from Italy

Abstract

In the last years, the worldwide changes in global, political and financial contexts have gradually modified the approaches to the accounting of national governments and international institutions. In this varying scenario, the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) and consequently national governments have introduced new accounting standards along with related regulatory changes. These issues are of ever-growing importance when considering that the International Accounting Education Standards Board (IAESB) has recently developed “The basis for conclusions document for 2017-2021 IAESB Strategy and 2017-2018 Work Plan” (IAESB, 2017) with the aim of informing the Board’s deliberations on its future strategy and priorities about the future expectations of professional competence. The aim of this paper is to report the findings of an empirical study on this topic and address the following research question: what are professional accountants’ views on quality in accounting education? This primary research question is expanded to consider professional accountants’ beliefs on the present (what is necessary for their workplace) and future (what will be necessary for their workplace) with respect to quality in accounting education. The survey highlights how professional accountants have more expectations than in the past about their skills. The majority of professional accountants have been transforming themselves into business consultants since they are now required to offer more services than accounting and taxation consultancy. Consequently, there is a growing demand for cooperation with the university world in order to broaden the programs of accounting education with new technical competencies for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.