Description
The purpose of this paper is to determine the requirements of accounting graduates in
relation to generic attributes. Employers have consistently maintained that graduates are deficient in
this area. This Australia-wide, all-sector study addresses the issue by examining what employers
mean when they make demands for universities and academics to deliver work-ready graduates.
Accounting Research Journal
Desirable generic attributes for accounting graduates into the twenty-first century: The
views of employers
Irene Tempone Marie Kavanagh Naomi Segal Phil Hancock Bryan Howieson, and J enny Kent
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Irene Tempone Marie Kavanagh Naomi Segal Phil Hancock Bryan Howieson, and J enny Kent,
(2012),"Desirable generic attributes for accounting graduates into the twenty-first century", Accounting
Research J ournal, Vol. 25 Iss 1 pp. 41 - 55
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Desirable generic attributes for
accounting graduates into the
twenty-?rst century
The views of employers
Irene Tempone
Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology,
Hawthorn, Australia
Marie Kavanagh
School of Accounting Economics and Finance, University of Southern
Queensland, Spring?eld, Australia
Naomi Segal
Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Phil Hancock
Accounting and Finance, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Bryan Howieson
Business School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia, and
Jenny Kent
School of Accounting and Finance, Charles Sturt University,
Wagga Wagga, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the requirements of accounting graduates in
relation to generic attributes. Employers have consistently maintained that graduates are de?cient in
this area. This Australia-wide, all-sector study addresses the issue by examining what employers
mean when they make demands for universities and academics to deliver work-ready graduates.
Design/methodology/approach – Interviews (recorded, transcribed and analysed with NVivo)
with employers, and accounting professional bodies were conducted to ascertain their views of their
needs of accounting graduates into the future.
Findings – Employers held the generic attributes of communication, teamwork and self-management
to be the most critical for graduates in the three areas of recruitment, training and ongoing employment.
Demands on universities to deliver work-ready graduates are not homogeneous. Employers in different
sectors construe the meaning of generic attributes in line with their speci?c needs.
Originality/value – The study was an original piece of work that gauged the opinions of
professional accounting bodies and employers of accounting graduates across Australia and in all
sectors of the accounting profession. The value of the study is to inform academics as to the ranked
importance of generic attributes but also alert themto the different meanings that are assigned to these
skills by employers in different sectors.
Keywords Generic attributes, Accounting graduates, Communication, Team working,
Self-management, Australia, Students
Paper type Research paper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1030-9616.htm
Desirable generic
attributes
41
Accounting Research Journal
Vol. 25 No. 1, 2012
pp. 41-55
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1030-9616
DOI 10.1108/10309611211244519
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1. Introduction
Much has been written about the changed global business environment in which
contemporary accountants work and the consequent changes in accountants’ role. The
contemporary business environment is characterised by an increased pace and extent of
change as well as increased uncertainty, increased competition, shorter life-cycles for
products and shorter competitive advantage. These changes are in addition to the
increased importance of innovation; new industries, new technologies and new
professional services. The impact of a changing environment is compounded by a more
decisive role for management, a greater role for human resource management, greater
complexityof business transactions, newregulatoryrequirements, demographic changes
affecting work, as well as a greater emphasis on customer satisfaction and stakeholders’
demands (Albrecht and Sack, 2000 cited in Jones, 2010, p. 9; Howieson, 2003).
The role of the accounting profession within this new environment is to be
“generalists with specialist knowledge” or “knowledge specialists” (Howieson, 2003;
Jackling and De Lange, 2009), advising and consulting ( Jones and Abraham, 2007), or
even becoming business partners, rather than, as in the past, primarily being limited to
ensuring compliance. Accountants are required to meet a broader and more complex
set of skill demands both at recruitment and in their advanced career. However, careers
are no longer adequately depicted by vertical advancement within one organisation,
work is no longer characterised by a ?nite and ?xed set of tasks, and competencies or
skills acquired for one job may not be suf?cient for a long period (McMahon et al.,
2003). Bridgstock (2009, p. 34) suggests that the university graduate will:
[. . .] therefore also need higher order “meta” work skills – the abilities required to
continuously recognise and capitalise on employment and training and related opportunities
in order to integrate these with other aspects of the individual’s life.
Employability sits within, but is not identical to “graduate attributes”. Bowden et al.’s
(2000) commonly cited de?nition of graduate attributes tends to encompass two main
types of attributes: those which relate to an individual’s capacity for citizenship and the
ability to contribute towards a well-functioning society (Rychen and Salganik, 2005;
Bowden et al., 2000); and those which relate to an individual’s capacity to obtain and
maintain work (Harvey, 2001; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005), that is, his or her
“employability”. It is the employability agenda which has gained in pro?le in recent years
with“generic skills” beingde?nedas “those transferable skills, essential for employability
whichare relevant at different levels for most” (Kearns, 2001, p. 6). AccordingtoSmithet al.
(2009, p. 18), employability is a multidimensional notion:
[. . .] it can be considered fromthe subjective perspective of the student or graduate in terms of
his or her con?dence and preparedness for the world-of-work (e.g. abilities, interests, skills,
knowledge, self-concept, health).
It is also possible to consider “employability” from “an objective perspective of
government and policy-makers, employers, and universities, all of which take stock of
graduate outcomes” (Smith et al., 2009, p. 18). Yorke (2006, p. 8) de?ned employability as:
[. . .] a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes
graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations,
which bene?ts themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy.
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“Generic skills” are thus an inherent part of any discussion of “employability”.
Treleavan and Voola (2008) highlight the various interchangeable terms related to
generic skills, including inter alia: “key competencies”; “transferable skills”; “personal
transferable skills” (Treleaven and Voola, 2008); “professional skills”; “graduate
attributes”; “employability skills” (Curtis and McKenzie, 2002); and “soft skills”
(Business Industry and Higher Education Collaboration Council (BIHECC, 2007);
Freeman et al., 2008). Generic skills have also been referred to as “core skills”, or
“underpinning skills” (Mayer, 1992). In her terminology, Jones (2010) maintains the
connection between “graduate attributes” and “generic skills” by referring to all
generic skills as “generic attributes”. This practice is followed in this study.
The objective of this study was to establish the generic attributes required of
graduates of professional accounting programs who have to meet the challenges of the
profession over the next ten years. Interviews were conducted with various employers
and members of professional bodies to determine the generic attributes considered to be
important. The research conducted was national and geographically diverse, including
regional and metropolitan accounting employers, large and small ?rms, corporate,
public sector and not for pro?t. In summary, the study found that technical skills will
always be a priority in the development of a well-rounded accounting graduate. While
there was some difference in the manner in which each generic attribute was ranked, it
was clear that the employers surveyed in this study required communication and
presentation, teamwork and self-management attributes in the graduates they were
employing.
The paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence of the generic
attributes employers of accounting graduates consider important in the twenty-?rst
century. Another contribution of the paper is the observed differences in views of
employers across regional and urban higher education providers raising interesting
challenges for higher education providers.
The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2 the literature driving the research
questions is discussed. In Section 3 the research method is discussed, the results are
presented in Section 4, followed by a discussion of the ?ndings and conclusions in
Section 5.
2. Literature review
(i) De?ning graduate attributes
Graduate attributes are intended to be the qualities that prepare graduates to meet the
demands of being life-long learners, and agents for social good, and ready for personal
development in conditions of uncertainty and rapid global change (Ramsden et al.,
1986; Albrecht and Sack, 2000; Howieson, 2003; Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008). But
what are “graduate attributes”? The following de?nition of graduate attributes used to
be a generally accepted de?nition:
The qualities, skills and understanding a university community agrees its students should
develop during their time with the institution. These attributes include but go beyond the
disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge that has traditionally formed the core of most
university courses. They are qualities that also prepare graduates as agents of social good in an
unknown future (Bowdenet al., 2000; Barrie, 2006, p. 217; Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008, p. 280).
Increasingly, however, the various conceptualisations of these attributes,
the statements describing them, and even the graduate attributes agenda itself,
Desirable generic
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(Green et al., 2009) have come under critical scrutiny. Critics have pointed to graduate
attributes’ conceptual vagueness, and underlying unproven assumptions about their
relevance and transferability to the workplace. For example, Gallie et al. (2012, p. 40) in
relation to the UK asked: is teamwork as taught at university really relevant to the
workplace if the trend in the workplace is towards “a decline in the prevalence of
self-directive teamwork and a growth in teams largely dependent on external control”?
Critics have also highlighted de?nitional confusion and fuzziness (Curtis and
McKenzie, 2002; Treleavan and Voola, 2008; Sin and Reid, 2006, p. 5; White?eld and
Kloot, 2006, p. 24; Willcoxson et al., 2010), as well as poor theorisation (Green et al.,
2009). The outcome of this confusion is lack of a shared understanding of what is
meant by graduate attributes or as Barrie (2006, p. 234) observed: “we are not all
talking about the same thing when we talk about graduate attributes”.
The sustained criticism of the assumptions underlying the thinking about graduate
attributes and the graduate attributes agenda has produced some valuable insights.
Barrie (2006) for example, identi?ed and classi?ed the multiple conceptualisations by
academics of graduate attributes and dispelled the notion of a universal understanding,
which in turn explained the absence of a single “focus for teaching, learning and
assessment” and, consequently, of “uniform outcomes for graduates developing these
attributes” (Hughes and Barrie, 2010, p. 238). In a seminal article, Jones (2010) provided
an overview of how the culture of the discipline in which academics teach in?uences
their understanding of graduate (or generic) attributes and concluded that (contrary to
the de?nition cited above and others similar to it), graduate attributes are not trans
disciplinary (beyond the disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge), but highly
context-dependent and shaped by the disciplinary context in which they are taught.
Leveson’s (2000, p. 161) critique, citing Bradshaw (1992), highlighted the “different
ways in which academics and employers in [. . .] the UK and USA perceive and de?ne
generic skills” and also used Zaid and Abraham’s (1994) work to speci?cally illustrate
the difference between employers’ and academics’ understanding of “communication
skills”. She also pointed to Bradshaw’s (1992) conclusion that employers’ views of
graduate competencies differ from that of academics in that they “do not detach
competences from the circumstances of their use; they measure them only by the
results they produce” (Leveson, 2000, p. 162). Jones (2010, p. 7) returned to this theme:
The idea that there can be one de?ning term generic skills that encapsulates all the
aspirations of both the academy and employers should be shelved in favour of an
understanding of generic attributes that takes into account their relationship with context.
What is required by employers will vary from industry to industry.
There is largely an absence of research that speci?cally addresses the
relationship between contextual issues and generic skills. Therefore, it is premature
to conclude that “employers’ perceptions of generic skills in accounting education have
been well researched” or that there is a “list of skills that are generally agreed upon by
key stakeholders (for example, critical thinking, problem solving and communications
to name a few)” ( Jackling and Watty, 2010, p. 1). On the contrary, research should
continue in an attempt to identify employers’ perceptions of the attributes or skills they
require from accounting graduates at various stages of their career, but through a more
nuanced, context-sensitive lens.
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(ii) Employer expectations
The list of “accounting education initiatives” or interventions ( Jackling and De Lange,
2009, p. 382), as it stands in 2011, is long (see lists in Hassall et al., 2005, p. 380; Howieson,
2003, p. 71; Hancock et al., 2009, Vol. 1, p. 23-27; Jackling and De Lange, 2009, p. 382).
Even so, the claim of an “accounting graduates education gap” persists both in
Australia and elsewhere (Marshall et al., 2010; Grant Thornton, 2010; Jackling and
De Lange, 2009; Jackling and Watty, 2010; Paisey and Paisey, 2010), and employers
continue to ?nd accounting graduates not “work ready” (Bui and Porter, 2010; De Lange
et al., 2006; Howieson, 2003; Jackling and Sullivan, 2006; Jackling and Watty, 2010;
Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008). The de?cit is said to be in generic (non-technical) skills
(Bui and Porter, 2010; Grant Thornton, 2010; Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008),
which employers increasingly emphasise equally if not more so than specialist
accounting knowledge (CPA Australia and Institute of Chartered Accountants in
Australia, 2009; JacklingandWatty, 2010; Jones andAbraham, 2007; Jones andSin, 2003;
Sin et al., 2007).
Since accounting employers face diverse circumstances across countries, within
countries and in different sectors of their industry, it stands to reason that they will also
vary in their ranking of the importance of graduate attributes. Several studies appear to
con?rm this. In a large study of UK and Spanish accounting employers (management
accountants), Hassall et al. (2005) found that they gave somewhat different rankings to
22 skill and knowledge attributes. For example, UK employers rated communication
skills (oral and written) as ?rst in importance, whereas the two skills that equally rated
?rst in importance to Spanish employers were a commitment to lifelong learning and a
comprehensive and global vision of the organisation. Signi?cantly, Hassall et al. (2005)
also found that small and medium accounting ?rms in Spain valued “vocational skills”
more so than large Spanish accounting ?rms, but this was not the case in the UK. These
?ndings, as the authors point out, contradicted the assumption of earlier studies
(Davis and Sherman, 1996; Burton and Sack, 1990) that these attributes were designed
primarily to meet the needs of large accounting ?rms. Bui and Porter (2010), in their a
holistic study of the expectation – performance gap in accounting education in
New Zealand, found a relationship between ?rm size and the speci?c balance between
technical and non-technical attributes that employers desired, as well as a relationship to
employers’ need for general graduate competence. They further established that
employers differed in their prioritising of graduate attributes, with small and medium
?rms:
.
prioritising interpersonal skills over presentation skills; and
.
showing greater tolerance of poor writing skills (Bui and Porter, 2010, p. 34).
In a study that included responses from 28 practitioners, Kavanagh and Drennan (2008)
found that the top three qualities required by employers in graduates were
analytical/problem solving, business awareness/real life experience and basic
accounting skills. By contrast, Jackling and De Lange (2009), interviewing 12 Human
Resource Managers, foundthat the overwhelmingmajorityof employers, whenrecruiting,
were guided by evaluations of “generic attributes” (here referred to as graduate attributes)
rather than technical skills. The three most valued graduate attributes were “team
skills, leadership and verbal communication capabilities” ( Jackling and De Lange, 2009,
p. 377).
Desirable generic
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This short review has demonstrated that there are a suf?cient number of recent
studies reporting inconsistent ?ndings to justify the following research question:
RQ. What are the key graduate attributes required by employers of an accounting
graduate, and at what level are they required at various stages of their career?
This paper reports on one phase of a larger study that investigates employers’ and
other stakeholders’ views on the identi?cation and understanding of the key
non-technical skills, the presence and importance of those skills at recruitment, in
training and in on-going employment[1]. (Accordingly, the focus of this paper is on
employers’ views).
3. Research method
The study, the results of which we report here in part, was an Australia-wide, Australian
Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded investigation into the non-technical
skills required of future accounting graduates. The project was entitled “Accounting for
the future: more than numbers” (Hancock et al., 2009) and was conducted by ?ve
researchers each based in a different state. The ?rst phase of the study, which is the main
focus of this paper, entailed conducting semi-structured interviews with three
professional accounting associations and 29 accounting employers froma wide range of
industry sectors: Big 4, mid-tier/niche and small regional and metropolitan-based
accounting ?rms; large corporations, public sector and not-for-pro?t enterprises. As
such it is one of the larger and more representative studies conducted in recent times. We
report results from the ?rst phase in this paper. The second phase of the broader study
captured undergraduates’ and recent graduates’ views of the relevance to professional
work of the non-technical skills developed at university by conducting semi-structured
interviews with individuals and four focus groups. The third phase surveyed accounting
educators in universities to establish how they ranked the importance of non-technical
skills and the development and assessment of these skills in the accounting program of
their university. 21 universities (23 academics) responded to the survey on behalf of their
accounting programs and the academics associated with these programs. The ?nal
phase was a survey of all Australian universities soliciting examples of innovative
strategies for developing non-technical skills in university accounting curricula[2]. The
21 universities responding to the survey in phase 3 also provided 18 different teaching
strategies for developing non-technical skills that respondents were willing to share.
The data collected in each phase of the project proved rich and informative and the
different phases provided a holistic approach to the study of the current state of
accounting education in Australia and engaged representatives of all stakeholder
groups.
Table I presents a summary of stakeholders who were interviewed in the ?rst phase
of the study.
The ?ve researchers participating in the project each sourced and conducted the
interviews of stakeholders in their own state between March and September 2008. They
all administered the same guide questions derived from the ?ndings of the ABDC
scoping study “Business as usual?” (Freeman et al., 2008, p. 6) which identi?ed issues
within professional accounting programs warranting separate investigation. During the
course of the interviews slight variations occurred to allowboth the informants and their
interviewers to probe important issues. As noted in Table I, a total of 32 people were
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interviewed consisting of three representatives of professional bodies and 29 accounting
employers. Demographic details were collected and the interviews concentrated on some
key themes. These themes focussed on recruitment and training given to graduates, the
nature of accounting work done by graduates when ?rst employed, the perceived work
readiness of graduates, future technical and non-technical skills required, and, ?nally,
whether universities or employers bore responsibility for developing graduates’
technical and non-technical skills.
The interviews varied in length from 50 to 90 minutes with most interviews with
professional bodies and employers yielding rich data. The interviews were
audio-recorded, and transcribed in full by a central professional transcriber, then
coded using the qualitative analysis software NVivo. The coding, by two members of the
team, was standardised to produce separate coding structures around each main theme
or tree (the topic of the guidingquestions). The coding structure (the subcategories under
each tree) can be illustrated, for example, in relation to training: a sub category was
acquisition of skills, within this sub-category the roles of employer and university,
aptitude of student, etc. were considered and then related to the attributes of the
informants (whether corporate, public sector, professional body, etc.).
4. Results
4.1 Key graduate attributes required by employers
A frequency analysis was conducted on the basis of recording the number of times
each attribute was mentioned across all the respondents. Based on the frequency
analysis, the key non-technical skills which employers rate as most important, in order
of total frequencies of comments are in the broad areas of communication, teamwork,
self-management, initiative, problem solving and planning. Frequencies of comments
on each of the skills/attributes are presented in Table II. While employers and
professional associations used these terms, further analysis revealed that employers in
different sectors of the accounting industry assigned quite different meanings to these
terms. Some of these differences are examined below.
Extracts from interviews in the next sections of the paper provide insight into what
employers understood the non-technical skills to mean. Frequencies of comments by
employers as to their evaluation of these skills are shown in Table III. For example, in
relation to communication skills, ten interviewees indicated this is a desirable skill,
seven were of the view graduates communication skills are satisfactory, nine believed
they are inadequate, and eight believed there are limitations with graduates
communication skills, which is clearly similar to inadequate.
Number Metropolitan Regional
Big 4 accounting ?rms 4
Mid-tier/niche accounting ?rms 5
Corporations 8
Public sector 4
Other employers 8
Total employers 29 21 8
Professional bodies 3 3 0
Total 32 24 8
Table I.
Categories of
interviewees including
metropolitan/regional
composition
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The following analysis focuses on the three most frequently cited desirable attributes
of communication skills, teamwork and self-management.
4.1.1 Communication, presentation. There was a divergence of views about what
communication skills meant. Communication skills were viewed by different
interviewees as presentation skills, oral speaking skills, listening, negotiating and the
ability to provide feedback, and written communication skills including writing of
reports. Big 4 representatives emphasised the critical importance to accountants of “the
quality and the mastery of the written language”; “to write a report that you can put in
front of a client and the client can understand what they mean”, but also the signi?cance
of oral speaking skills (including “stand[ing] up [to] deliver a presentation to a group
Non-technical skills Frequencies of comments
Communication, presentation
Verbal skills, speaking, listening, negotiation and feedback 17
Written communication, reports 1
Teamwork, good interpersonal skills, ?t organisation ethos
Client relationship, focus, rapport, trust 16
Leadership 15
Managerial skills 16
Self-management
Ambition 6
Community involvement, social responsibility 5
Hard working, dedicated 11
Holistic, ?exible, able to deal with complexity, uncertainty, pressure 7
Intellectual capacity 2
Self-presentation, professional presence, behaviour 7
Well-rounded, mature, con?dent persons 16
Work independently, manage time 10
Initiative and enterprise
Business acumen, knowledge, planning, building 17
Vision, imagination, seeing the big picture, adding value 4
Ethics, discretionary behaviour 3
Problem solving
Applying theory into practice 11
Critical analysis, thinking skills 11
Technological competence 12
Planning and organising 11
Time, project management skills 2
Table II.
Types of non-technical
skills and frequencies
of comments
Desirable Satisfactory Inadequate Limitations Total
Communication, presentation 8 4 8 6 26
Initiative and enterprise 1 1 1 7
Planning and organising 0 1 2 2 5
Problem solving 4 0 4 5 13
Self-management 8 5 1 2 16
Teamwork, good interpersonal skills, ?t
organisation ethos 8 3 1 3 15
Technological competence 0 1 0 0 1
Table III.
Frequency of comments
about stakeholders’
evaluations of
non-technical Skills
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of individuals”, intelligibility and ability to talk to clients; “ability to hold a conversation
at a cocktail party”, and hold their own in “board room negotiations and discussions on
dif?cult topics”). Also included here were skills in languages other than English.
Some employers in the corporate sector rated presentation and written skills as
equally important; others, prioritised “verbal communication”, for example:
[. . .] good communication is always useful, verbal in particular. Most of our accountants don’t
tend to write that much, but written is also good, but really it is about being able to express
yourself well.
Others in the corporate sector perceived written communication skills in terms
of “analysing the information, adding value, insights, information”, negotiation, or
communicating appropriately “to know things but then know when to tell it”.
Communicating with team members and communicating across cultures was
highlighted while some limited written communication to clear and correct expression:
Yes, I guess with written communications we expect people to be able to write half decent
reports. When I say half decent, we don’t have any real regime around it, but it has got to be
presentable, readable. I don’t want something that goes under someone’s nose and they go,
jeez, I don’t know what I am looking at.
Niche (second tier) accounting ?rms valued written communication (“howto put together
a succinct proposal or letter”) but also oral skills, referred to by one respondent as
“consulting skills” and de?ned as including a range of skills (“how to listen, active
listening, howto get maximuminformation froma client”, howto chat to people they have
never met before; how to provide feedback). One respondent de?ned communication as
“the ability to communicate clearly and succinctly and to conduct themselves in a
professional manner” in line with the culture of the ?rm. Another explained
“communication” in terms of “the ability of having a professional conversation with a
[non-accountant] colleague and be as concise as possible”. “It is a people business, so it is
about communication”, observedanother respondent inthis group. Yet another summedit
up concisely: “I think there is workplace savvy and [. . .] client savvy”.
Small regional ?rms were concerned that accountants have communication skills
appropriate to their clientele:
Manyof our clients are countrypeople so[employees] have to get upto speedwiththe terminology
and be able to respond and explain clearly to them in simple terms what is happening.
Some small accounting ?rms prioritised oral speaking skills over written
communication. In response to the question: which generic attributes he would
prioritise, one respondent replied:
Ability to communicate with the clients because they all have a lot of direct contact. Eighty
per cent of the direct contact would go through them rather than me, particularly in terms of
getting answers on stuff, getting information.
Professional associations, re?ecting the collective experience of the industry,
emphasised both written and presentation skills – report writing, writing business
letters, re?ecting business culture and etiquette in communication style, as well as
presentation skills (more than PowerPoints) and facility with cross-cultural situations.
The information and re?ections on the generic attribute of “communication skills” as
provided by the various respondents suggests a conceptualisation of a range of social
Desirable generic
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skills beyond those of correct expression, whether written or oral. It is understood in
terms of marketing, client and collegial relationship building as well as ef?ciency and
the nature of the work. Moreover, employers’ understanding of it appears to be affected
by the speci?cs of their commercial needs, the needs of a particular clientele or market,
or, in relation to communicating with colleagues and team members, the culture and
needs of a particular work environment.
4.1.2 Teamwork. Employers suggested that in effective teams teamwork includes
good interpersonal skills in order to foster client relationships and trust in accordance
with the organisation’s ethics, as well as leadership and management:
We had big deadlines coming up and they all just stepped up. [. . .] it is not peer pressure, they
just feel committed to the team and their clients and they do those things.
Some employers commented on how teamwork skills are developed:
I think that’s a skill that I guess you only get through experience, the capacity to work with
various age groupings and with people who come from vastly different backgrounds. The
problem we have in universities is when you are working in groups you are probably
working with some of your mates; you have all come from the same place.
There were, however, quite different emphases and understandings of teamwork among
employers fromdifferent sectors of the industry. Big 4 employers perceived teamwork in
managerial terms (the ability to manage a team), or as a promotional path: for example,
effective work in a team(mentoring, helping people achieve a goal) led to promotion, ?rst
to senior team member, then to junior manager. One corporate employer considered
“rotating teamwork essential” as a training and probationary measure before appointing
people to a particular area of activity permanently; another assigned no importance to it at
all. Niche (second tier) accounting ?rms also perceived team work from a managerial
perspective (“able to run one’s team”) and as a training device:
We certainly send them out to clients pretty much straight away as part of a team. Our jobs
tend to be small to medium jobs so they tend to be working in teams of two or three [. . .]
Teams and teamwork were most important in the small ?rm sector. Small regional
?rms de?ned team skills as “being one of the family” but also included in their
de?nition a work ethic or commitment, equivalent to that of family members though
not all were family concerns:
We are a family company; we want people who are going to ?t in. So we look at how they are
going to “?t in” as a person so interpersonal skills, attitude to work, i.e. some want top money
straight away but don’t necessarily want to work the hours that are required. We like people
who live locally [. . .]
They have to ?t into the ethos of this company. They have to be part of a team. Different
people have different priorities and we acknowledge that there has to be a balance in their
working life. But at the same time, work ethic is very important.
Another small accounting ?rm described teamwork in terms of shared values:
In order for us to be able to work together we do need to be in synch, and that involves a
common set of behaviours that we would aim towards, whether you want to call them values
or core values or whatever it may, or the expectations that we have on our staff.
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Again, as in relation to communications, the conceptualisation of team work, its role in
an organisation, and the skills required, differ substantially among the various sectors
of the accounting industry.
4.1.3 Self-management. Employers had a very broad understanding of
self-management, viewing it as all of the attributes they valued in a mature
well-rounded competent and con?dent graduate. It included traits of ambition,
community and being socially responsible; hard work; dedication; a holistic and ?exible
approach; an ability to deal with complexity, uncertainty and pressure; intellectual
capacity; self-presentation; a professional presence; independence; and time management.
Employers were strongly of the opinion that grades were not all that was required and the
best recruits were those who combined study with other life experiences such as previous
part-time employment, or sporting and extra-curricular activities, especially those
entailing leadership responsibilities.
Again, there were some differences in the way employers from different sectors
perceived the self-management. To employers within the Big 4, it was a matter of “how
do you manage other people or howdo you set your own personal goals”. They perceived
involvement in “various things, whether it is [. . .] sporting endeavours or clubs or
whatever, as a measure of [. . .] breadth of interest and maturity” as well as leadership
and communication skills. Examining the history of such involvements, was part of the:
[. . .] process of trying to assess whether somebody is self aware and a developer and
somebody who is going to grow in a role or whether they are just doing something because
they need the money.
In the corporate accounting sector, employers referred to prospective employees’
“interpersonal skills, their time management skills, their networking skills, their
self-motivation, knowing what needs to be done”. For example:
[. . .] there is the understanding that you will come in and you’ll work and no one is going to
hold your hand all day which some expect, and then there is the other bit of really being able
to, not analyse the business, but understand where its strengths and weaknesses are, even
from scratch.
Niche or second tier accounting ?rms referred to being focused, and the ability “to pick
up and run with it” even if initially the employee had little understanding. One
employer in this sector expressed self-management in terms of “balancing expectations
with the needs [of the workplace]”, a [. . .] “right attitude”. Professional associations
perceived self-management in the terms below:
[. . .] how they best manage their time because there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to do
what you need to do, so that ability to prioritise and do what needs to be done and not
procrastinate.
It appears that while all employers set great store by the extra-curricular activities in
which prospective employees had engaged, they used it as a measure for somewhat
different things and the meaning of self-management, like other generic attributes, can
be seen to be shaped by the needs of particular workplaces.
In summary, technical skills will always be a priority in the development of a
well-roundedaccountinggraduate. While there was some difference inthe manner inwhich
each generic attribute was ranked, it was clear that the employers surveyed in this study
required communication and presentation, teamwork and self-management attributes
Desirable generic
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in the graduates they were employing. Most ?rms had training programs in place to
progress the development of required attributes at different levels. However, in the case of
small regional accounting ?rms the requirement for graduates “to hit the ground running”
was more pronounced due to the ?rms’ reduced capacity and means to provide training.
5. Conclusion and recommendations
This paper reports on the ?rst phase of a larger project and contributes to the accounting
literature which advocates a re-examination of the approach to the graduate attribute
agenda that recognises that the demand for particular generic skills will be context
speci?c. This original study has already impacted the discourse in the development of
benchmarks for accounting in Australia. In 2011, the ALTC published the Learning and
Teaching Academic Standards for Accounting (Hancock et al., 2010). The standards set
minimum threshold learning outcomes for Bachelor and Master level degrees in
Accounting for all Australian Higher Education Providers (Freeman and Hancock,
2011). The process to develop the standards included widespread engagement with all
stakeholders including employers and was also informed by the results of the study
reported in this paper. The ?ve threshold learning outcomes include the ability to
exercise judgement, communication skills, teamwork, and self-management, in addition
to disciplinary knowledge. Our ?ndings also illustrate the contextual element in the
various de?nitions and understandings of generic attributes by employers in diverse
sectors of the accounting industry. The differences are attributable to the work
undertaken in each of the sectors, the capacity of ?rms to train and develop generic
attributes, and the speci?c outcomes these employers desired to obtain from their
workforce and its endeavours. Given the differences among the sectors, studies drawing
on other combinations of the sector may obtain different results. This proposition goes
some way towards supporting published ?ndings and also explaining differences in
rankings of generic attributes by other researchers. The most important conclusion from
this study, however, is that demands on universities to deliver work ready graduates
should be subjected to the question: work ready for whom?
Acknowledgements
The paper reports on one phase of a project which received funding from the Carrick
Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (the predecessor to the
Australian Learning and Teaching Council). The project team acknowledges the
support of Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC).
Notes
1. The section on research method provides a short description of other phases of the study.
2. Results of the second and later phases will be reported in future papers.
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About the authors
Irene Tempone (Associate Professor) PhD (SUT) BCom (Melb), DipEd (Melb), FCPA is Head of
Accounting, Economics, Finance and Lawin the Faculty of Business and Enterprise at Swinburne
University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria. She was an inaugural member of the Australian
Business Deans Council (ABDC) Teaching and Learning Network. She has been involved in
curriculum development, accounting education and program review throughout her career.
Irene Tempone is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Marie Kavanagh is a Professor of Accounting and Associate Director (USQ, Spring?eld) at
the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.
Dr Naomi Segal is a Lecturer in Business at Curtin University, Australia.
Phil Hancock is a Professor and the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning at the UWA
Business School, University of Western Australia.
Bryan Howieson MCom, FCPA is Associate Professor in the School of Commerce at the
University of Adelaide, Australia.
Professor Jenny Kent is the Associate Head of the School of Accounting and Finance, Charles
Sturt University, New Zealand.
Desirable generic
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doc_618326829.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to determine the requirements of accounting graduates in
relation to generic attributes. Employers have consistently maintained that graduates are deficient in
this area. This Australia-wide, all-sector study addresses the issue by examining what employers
mean when they make demands for universities and academics to deliver work-ready graduates.
Accounting Research Journal
Desirable generic attributes for accounting graduates into the twenty-first century: The
views of employers
Irene Tempone Marie Kavanagh Naomi Segal Phil Hancock Bryan Howieson, and J enny Kent
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(2012),"Desirable generic attributes for accounting graduates into the twenty-first century", Accounting
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Desirable generic attributes for
accounting graduates into the
twenty-?rst century
The views of employers
Irene Tempone
Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology,
Hawthorn, Australia
Marie Kavanagh
School of Accounting Economics and Finance, University of Southern
Queensland, Spring?eld, Australia
Naomi Segal
Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Phil Hancock
Accounting and Finance, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Bryan Howieson
Business School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia, and
Jenny Kent
School of Accounting and Finance, Charles Sturt University,
Wagga Wagga, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the requirements of accounting graduates in
relation to generic attributes. Employers have consistently maintained that graduates are de?cient in
this area. This Australia-wide, all-sector study addresses the issue by examining what employers
mean when they make demands for universities and academics to deliver work-ready graduates.
Design/methodology/approach – Interviews (recorded, transcribed and analysed with NVivo)
with employers, and accounting professional bodies were conducted to ascertain their views of their
needs of accounting graduates into the future.
Findings – Employers held the generic attributes of communication, teamwork and self-management
to be the most critical for graduates in the three areas of recruitment, training and ongoing employment.
Demands on universities to deliver work-ready graduates are not homogeneous. Employers in different
sectors construe the meaning of generic attributes in line with their speci?c needs.
Originality/value – The study was an original piece of work that gauged the opinions of
professional accounting bodies and employers of accounting graduates across Australia and in all
sectors of the accounting profession. The value of the study is to inform academics as to the ranked
importance of generic attributes but also alert themto the different meanings that are assigned to these
skills by employers in different sectors.
Keywords Generic attributes, Accounting graduates, Communication, Team working,
Self-management, Australia, Students
Paper type Research paper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1030-9616.htm
Desirable generic
attributes
41
Accounting Research Journal
Vol. 25 No. 1, 2012
pp. 41-55
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1030-9616
DOI 10.1108/10309611211244519
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1. Introduction
Much has been written about the changed global business environment in which
contemporary accountants work and the consequent changes in accountants’ role. The
contemporary business environment is characterised by an increased pace and extent of
change as well as increased uncertainty, increased competition, shorter life-cycles for
products and shorter competitive advantage. These changes are in addition to the
increased importance of innovation; new industries, new technologies and new
professional services. The impact of a changing environment is compounded by a more
decisive role for management, a greater role for human resource management, greater
complexityof business transactions, newregulatoryrequirements, demographic changes
affecting work, as well as a greater emphasis on customer satisfaction and stakeholders’
demands (Albrecht and Sack, 2000 cited in Jones, 2010, p. 9; Howieson, 2003).
The role of the accounting profession within this new environment is to be
“generalists with specialist knowledge” or “knowledge specialists” (Howieson, 2003;
Jackling and De Lange, 2009), advising and consulting ( Jones and Abraham, 2007), or
even becoming business partners, rather than, as in the past, primarily being limited to
ensuring compliance. Accountants are required to meet a broader and more complex
set of skill demands both at recruitment and in their advanced career. However, careers
are no longer adequately depicted by vertical advancement within one organisation,
work is no longer characterised by a ?nite and ?xed set of tasks, and competencies or
skills acquired for one job may not be suf?cient for a long period (McMahon et al.,
2003). Bridgstock (2009, p. 34) suggests that the university graduate will:
[. . .] therefore also need higher order “meta” work skills – the abilities required to
continuously recognise and capitalise on employment and training and related opportunities
in order to integrate these with other aspects of the individual’s life.
Employability sits within, but is not identical to “graduate attributes”. Bowden et al.’s
(2000) commonly cited de?nition of graduate attributes tends to encompass two main
types of attributes: those which relate to an individual’s capacity for citizenship and the
ability to contribute towards a well-functioning society (Rychen and Salganik, 2005;
Bowden et al., 2000); and those which relate to an individual’s capacity to obtain and
maintain work (Harvey, 2001; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005), that is, his or her
“employability”. It is the employability agenda which has gained in pro?le in recent years
with“generic skills” beingde?nedas “those transferable skills, essential for employability
whichare relevant at different levels for most” (Kearns, 2001, p. 6). AccordingtoSmithet al.
(2009, p. 18), employability is a multidimensional notion:
[. . .] it can be considered fromthe subjective perspective of the student or graduate in terms of
his or her con?dence and preparedness for the world-of-work (e.g. abilities, interests, skills,
knowledge, self-concept, health).
It is also possible to consider “employability” from “an objective perspective of
government and policy-makers, employers, and universities, all of which take stock of
graduate outcomes” (Smith et al., 2009, p. 18). Yorke (2006, p. 8) de?ned employability as:
[. . .] a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes
graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations,
which bene?ts themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy.
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“Generic skills” are thus an inherent part of any discussion of “employability”.
Treleavan and Voola (2008) highlight the various interchangeable terms related to
generic skills, including inter alia: “key competencies”; “transferable skills”; “personal
transferable skills” (Treleaven and Voola, 2008); “professional skills”; “graduate
attributes”; “employability skills” (Curtis and McKenzie, 2002); and “soft skills”
(Business Industry and Higher Education Collaboration Council (BIHECC, 2007);
Freeman et al., 2008). Generic skills have also been referred to as “core skills”, or
“underpinning skills” (Mayer, 1992). In her terminology, Jones (2010) maintains the
connection between “graduate attributes” and “generic skills” by referring to all
generic skills as “generic attributes”. This practice is followed in this study.
The objective of this study was to establish the generic attributes required of
graduates of professional accounting programs who have to meet the challenges of the
profession over the next ten years. Interviews were conducted with various employers
and members of professional bodies to determine the generic attributes considered to be
important. The research conducted was national and geographically diverse, including
regional and metropolitan accounting employers, large and small ?rms, corporate,
public sector and not for pro?t. In summary, the study found that technical skills will
always be a priority in the development of a well-rounded accounting graduate. While
there was some difference in the manner in which each generic attribute was ranked, it
was clear that the employers surveyed in this study required communication and
presentation, teamwork and self-management attributes in the graduates they were
employing.
The paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence of the generic
attributes employers of accounting graduates consider important in the twenty-?rst
century. Another contribution of the paper is the observed differences in views of
employers across regional and urban higher education providers raising interesting
challenges for higher education providers.
The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2 the literature driving the research
questions is discussed. In Section 3 the research method is discussed, the results are
presented in Section 4, followed by a discussion of the ?ndings and conclusions in
Section 5.
2. Literature review
(i) De?ning graduate attributes
Graduate attributes are intended to be the qualities that prepare graduates to meet the
demands of being life-long learners, and agents for social good, and ready for personal
development in conditions of uncertainty and rapid global change (Ramsden et al.,
1986; Albrecht and Sack, 2000; Howieson, 2003; Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008). But
what are “graduate attributes”? The following de?nition of graduate attributes used to
be a generally accepted de?nition:
The qualities, skills and understanding a university community agrees its students should
develop during their time with the institution. These attributes include but go beyond the
disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge that has traditionally formed the core of most
university courses. They are qualities that also prepare graduates as agents of social good in an
unknown future (Bowdenet al., 2000; Barrie, 2006, p. 217; Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008, p. 280).
Increasingly, however, the various conceptualisations of these attributes,
the statements describing them, and even the graduate attributes agenda itself,
Desirable generic
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(Green et al., 2009) have come under critical scrutiny. Critics have pointed to graduate
attributes’ conceptual vagueness, and underlying unproven assumptions about their
relevance and transferability to the workplace. For example, Gallie et al. (2012, p. 40) in
relation to the UK asked: is teamwork as taught at university really relevant to the
workplace if the trend in the workplace is towards “a decline in the prevalence of
self-directive teamwork and a growth in teams largely dependent on external control”?
Critics have also highlighted de?nitional confusion and fuzziness (Curtis and
McKenzie, 2002; Treleavan and Voola, 2008; Sin and Reid, 2006, p. 5; White?eld and
Kloot, 2006, p. 24; Willcoxson et al., 2010), as well as poor theorisation (Green et al.,
2009). The outcome of this confusion is lack of a shared understanding of what is
meant by graduate attributes or as Barrie (2006, p. 234) observed: “we are not all
talking about the same thing when we talk about graduate attributes”.
The sustained criticism of the assumptions underlying the thinking about graduate
attributes and the graduate attributes agenda has produced some valuable insights.
Barrie (2006) for example, identi?ed and classi?ed the multiple conceptualisations by
academics of graduate attributes and dispelled the notion of a universal understanding,
which in turn explained the absence of a single “focus for teaching, learning and
assessment” and, consequently, of “uniform outcomes for graduates developing these
attributes” (Hughes and Barrie, 2010, p. 238). In a seminal article, Jones (2010) provided
an overview of how the culture of the discipline in which academics teach in?uences
their understanding of graduate (or generic) attributes and concluded that (contrary to
the de?nition cited above and others similar to it), graduate attributes are not trans
disciplinary (beyond the disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge), but highly
context-dependent and shaped by the disciplinary context in which they are taught.
Leveson’s (2000, p. 161) critique, citing Bradshaw (1992), highlighted the “different
ways in which academics and employers in [. . .] the UK and USA perceive and de?ne
generic skills” and also used Zaid and Abraham’s (1994) work to speci?cally illustrate
the difference between employers’ and academics’ understanding of “communication
skills”. She also pointed to Bradshaw’s (1992) conclusion that employers’ views of
graduate competencies differ from that of academics in that they “do not detach
competences from the circumstances of their use; they measure them only by the
results they produce” (Leveson, 2000, p. 162). Jones (2010, p. 7) returned to this theme:
The idea that there can be one de?ning term generic skills that encapsulates all the
aspirations of both the academy and employers should be shelved in favour of an
understanding of generic attributes that takes into account their relationship with context.
What is required by employers will vary from industry to industry.
There is largely an absence of research that speci?cally addresses the
relationship between contextual issues and generic skills. Therefore, it is premature
to conclude that “employers’ perceptions of generic skills in accounting education have
been well researched” or that there is a “list of skills that are generally agreed upon by
key stakeholders (for example, critical thinking, problem solving and communications
to name a few)” ( Jackling and Watty, 2010, p. 1). On the contrary, research should
continue in an attempt to identify employers’ perceptions of the attributes or skills they
require from accounting graduates at various stages of their career, but through a more
nuanced, context-sensitive lens.
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(ii) Employer expectations
The list of “accounting education initiatives” or interventions ( Jackling and De Lange,
2009, p. 382), as it stands in 2011, is long (see lists in Hassall et al., 2005, p. 380; Howieson,
2003, p. 71; Hancock et al., 2009, Vol. 1, p. 23-27; Jackling and De Lange, 2009, p. 382).
Even so, the claim of an “accounting graduates education gap” persists both in
Australia and elsewhere (Marshall et al., 2010; Grant Thornton, 2010; Jackling and
De Lange, 2009; Jackling and Watty, 2010; Paisey and Paisey, 2010), and employers
continue to ?nd accounting graduates not “work ready” (Bui and Porter, 2010; De Lange
et al., 2006; Howieson, 2003; Jackling and Sullivan, 2006; Jackling and Watty, 2010;
Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008). The de?cit is said to be in generic (non-technical) skills
(Bui and Porter, 2010; Grant Thornton, 2010; Kavanagh and Drennan, 2008),
which employers increasingly emphasise equally if not more so than specialist
accounting knowledge (CPA Australia and Institute of Chartered Accountants in
Australia, 2009; JacklingandWatty, 2010; Jones andAbraham, 2007; Jones andSin, 2003;
Sin et al., 2007).
Since accounting employers face diverse circumstances across countries, within
countries and in different sectors of their industry, it stands to reason that they will also
vary in their ranking of the importance of graduate attributes. Several studies appear to
con?rm this. In a large study of UK and Spanish accounting employers (management
accountants), Hassall et al. (2005) found that they gave somewhat different rankings to
22 skill and knowledge attributes. For example, UK employers rated communication
skills (oral and written) as ?rst in importance, whereas the two skills that equally rated
?rst in importance to Spanish employers were a commitment to lifelong learning and a
comprehensive and global vision of the organisation. Signi?cantly, Hassall et al. (2005)
also found that small and medium accounting ?rms in Spain valued “vocational skills”
more so than large Spanish accounting ?rms, but this was not the case in the UK. These
?ndings, as the authors point out, contradicted the assumption of earlier studies
(Davis and Sherman, 1996; Burton and Sack, 1990) that these attributes were designed
primarily to meet the needs of large accounting ?rms. Bui and Porter (2010), in their a
holistic study of the expectation – performance gap in accounting education in
New Zealand, found a relationship between ?rm size and the speci?c balance between
technical and non-technical attributes that employers desired, as well as a relationship to
employers’ need for general graduate competence. They further established that
employers differed in their prioritising of graduate attributes, with small and medium
?rms:
.
prioritising interpersonal skills over presentation skills; and
.
showing greater tolerance of poor writing skills (Bui and Porter, 2010, p. 34).
In a study that included responses from 28 practitioners, Kavanagh and Drennan (2008)
found that the top three qualities required by employers in graduates were
analytical/problem solving, business awareness/real life experience and basic
accounting skills. By contrast, Jackling and De Lange (2009), interviewing 12 Human
Resource Managers, foundthat the overwhelmingmajorityof employers, whenrecruiting,
were guided by evaluations of “generic attributes” (here referred to as graduate attributes)
rather than technical skills. The three most valued graduate attributes were “team
skills, leadership and verbal communication capabilities” ( Jackling and De Lange, 2009,
p. 377).
Desirable generic
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This short review has demonstrated that there are a suf?cient number of recent
studies reporting inconsistent ?ndings to justify the following research question:
RQ. What are the key graduate attributes required by employers of an accounting
graduate, and at what level are they required at various stages of their career?
This paper reports on one phase of a larger study that investigates employers’ and
other stakeholders’ views on the identi?cation and understanding of the key
non-technical skills, the presence and importance of those skills at recruitment, in
training and in on-going employment[1]. (Accordingly, the focus of this paper is on
employers’ views).
3. Research method
The study, the results of which we report here in part, was an Australia-wide, Australian
Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded investigation into the non-technical
skills required of future accounting graduates. The project was entitled “Accounting for
the future: more than numbers” (Hancock et al., 2009) and was conducted by ?ve
researchers each based in a different state. The ?rst phase of the study, which is the main
focus of this paper, entailed conducting semi-structured interviews with three
professional accounting associations and 29 accounting employers froma wide range of
industry sectors: Big 4, mid-tier/niche and small regional and metropolitan-based
accounting ?rms; large corporations, public sector and not-for-pro?t enterprises. As
such it is one of the larger and more representative studies conducted in recent times. We
report results from the ?rst phase in this paper. The second phase of the broader study
captured undergraduates’ and recent graduates’ views of the relevance to professional
work of the non-technical skills developed at university by conducting semi-structured
interviews with individuals and four focus groups. The third phase surveyed accounting
educators in universities to establish how they ranked the importance of non-technical
skills and the development and assessment of these skills in the accounting program of
their university. 21 universities (23 academics) responded to the survey on behalf of their
accounting programs and the academics associated with these programs. The ?nal
phase was a survey of all Australian universities soliciting examples of innovative
strategies for developing non-technical skills in university accounting curricula[2]. The
21 universities responding to the survey in phase 3 also provided 18 different teaching
strategies for developing non-technical skills that respondents were willing to share.
The data collected in each phase of the project proved rich and informative and the
different phases provided a holistic approach to the study of the current state of
accounting education in Australia and engaged representatives of all stakeholder
groups.
Table I presents a summary of stakeholders who were interviewed in the ?rst phase
of the study.
The ?ve researchers participating in the project each sourced and conducted the
interviews of stakeholders in their own state between March and September 2008. They
all administered the same guide questions derived from the ?ndings of the ABDC
scoping study “Business as usual?” (Freeman et al., 2008, p. 6) which identi?ed issues
within professional accounting programs warranting separate investigation. During the
course of the interviews slight variations occurred to allowboth the informants and their
interviewers to probe important issues. As noted in Table I, a total of 32 people were
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interviewed consisting of three representatives of professional bodies and 29 accounting
employers. Demographic details were collected and the interviews concentrated on some
key themes. These themes focussed on recruitment and training given to graduates, the
nature of accounting work done by graduates when ?rst employed, the perceived work
readiness of graduates, future technical and non-technical skills required, and, ?nally,
whether universities or employers bore responsibility for developing graduates’
technical and non-technical skills.
The interviews varied in length from 50 to 90 minutes with most interviews with
professional bodies and employers yielding rich data. The interviews were
audio-recorded, and transcribed in full by a central professional transcriber, then
coded using the qualitative analysis software NVivo. The coding, by two members of the
team, was standardised to produce separate coding structures around each main theme
or tree (the topic of the guidingquestions). The coding structure (the subcategories under
each tree) can be illustrated, for example, in relation to training: a sub category was
acquisition of skills, within this sub-category the roles of employer and university,
aptitude of student, etc. were considered and then related to the attributes of the
informants (whether corporate, public sector, professional body, etc.).
4. Results
4.1 Key graduate attributes required by employers
A frequency analysis was conducted on the basis of recording the number of times
each attribute was mentioned across all the respondents. Based on the frequency
analysis, the key non-technical skills which employers rate as most important, in order
of total frequencies of comments are in the broad areas of communication, teamwork,
self-management, initiative, problem solving and planning. Frequencies of comments
on each of the skills/attributes are presented in Table II. While employers and
professional associations used these terms, further analysis revealed that employers in
different sectors of the accounting industry assigned quite different meanings to these
terms. Some of these differences are examined below.
Extracts from interviews in the next sections of the paper provide insight into what
employers understood the non-technical skills to mean. Frequencies of comments by
employers as to their evaluation of these skills are shown in Table III. For example, in
relation to communication skills, ten interviewees indicated this is a desirable skill,
seven were of the view graduates communication skills are satisfactory, nine believed
they are inadequate, and eight believed there are limitations with graduates
communication skills, which is clearly similar to inadequate.
Number Metropolitan Regional
Big 4 accounting ?rms 4
Mid-tier/niche accounting ?rms 5
Corporations 8
Public sector 4
Other employers 8
Total employers 29 21 8
Professional bodies 3 3 0
Total 32 24 8
Table I.
Categories of
interviewees including
metropolitan/regional
composition
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The following analysis focuses on the three most frequently cited desirable attributes
of communication skills, teamwork and self-management.
4.1.1 Communication, presentation. There was a divergence of views about what
communication skills meant. Communication skills were viewed by different
interviewees as presentation skills, oral speaking skills, listening, negotiating and the
ability to provide feedback, and written communication skills including writing of
reports. Big 4 representatives emphasised the critical importance to accountants of “the
quality and the mastery of the written language”; “to write a report that you can put in
front of a client and the client can understand what they mean”, but also the signi?cance
of oral speaking skills (including “stand[ing] up [to] deliver a presentation to a group
Non-technical skills Frequencies of comments
Communication, presentation
Verbal skills, speaking, listening, negotiation and feedback 17
Written communication, reports 1
Teamwork, good interpersonal skills, ?t organisation ethos
Client relationship, focus, rapport, trust 16
Leadership 15
Managerial skills 16
Self-management
Ambition 6
Community involvement, social responsibility 5
Hard working, dedicated 11
Holistic, ?exible, able to deal with complexity, uncertainty, pressure 7
Intellectual capacity 2
Self-presentation, professional presence, behaviour 7
Well-rounded, mature, con?dent persons 16
Work independently, manage time 10
Initiative and enterprise
Business acumen, knowledge, planning, building 17
Vision, imagination, seeing the big picture, adding value 4
Ethics, discretionary behaviour 3
Problem solving
Applying theory into practice 11
Critical analysis, thinking skills 11
Technological competence 12
Planning and organising 11
Time, project management skills 2
Table II.
Types of non-technical
skills and frequencies
of comments
Desirable Satisfactory Inadequate Limitations Total
Communication, presentation 8 4 8 6 26
Initiative and enterprise 1 1 1 7
Planning and organising 0 1 2 2 5
Problem solving 4 0 4 5 13
Self-management 8 5 1 2 16
Teamwork, good interpersonal skills, ?t
organisation ethos 8 3 1 3 15
Technological competence 0 1 0 0 1
Table III.
Frequency of comments
about stakeholders’
evaluations of
non-technical Skills
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of individuals”, intelligibility and ability to talk to clients; “ability to hold a conversation
at a cocktail party”, and hold their own in “board room negotiations and discussions on
dif?cult topics”). Also included here were skills in languages other than English.
Some employers in the corporate sector rated presentation and written skills as
equally important; others, prioritised “verbal communication”, for example:
[. . .] good communication is always useful, verbal in particular. Most of our accountants don’t
tend to write that much, but written is also good, but really it is about being able to express
yourself well.
Others in the corporate sector perceived written communication skills in terms
of “analysing the information, adding value, insights, information”, negotiation, or
communicating appropriately “to know things but then know when to tell it”.
Communicating with team members and communicating across cultures was
highlighted while some limited written communication to clear and correct expression:
Yes, I guess with written communications we expect people to be able to write half decent
reports. When I say half decent, we don’t have any real regime around it, but it has got to be
presentable, readable. I don’t want something that goes under someone’s nose and they go,
jeez, I don’t know what I am looking at.
Niche (second tier) accounting ?rms valued written communication (“howto put together
a succinct proposal or letter”) but also oral skills, referred to by one respondent as
“consulting skills” and de?ned as including a range of skills (“how to listen, active
listening, howto get maximuminformation froma client”, howto chat to people they have
never met before; how to provide feedback). One respondent de?ned communication as
“the ability to communicate clearly and succinctly and to conduct themselves in a
professional manner” in line with the culture of the ?rm. Another explained
“communication” in terms of “the ability of having a professional conversation with a
[non-accountant] colleague and be as concise as possible”. “It is a people business, so it is
about communication”, observedanother respondent inthis group. Yet another summedit
up concisely: “I think there is workplace savvy and [. . .] client savvy”.
Small regional ?rms were concerned that accountants have communication skills
appropriate to their clientele:
Manyof our clients are countrypeople so[employees] have to get upto speedwiththe terminology
and be able to respond and explain clearly to them in simple terms what is happening.
Some small accounting ?rms prioritised oral speaking skills over written
communication. In response to the question: which generic attributes he would
prioritise, one respondent replied:
Ability to communicate with the clients because they all have a lot of direct contact. Eighty
per cent of the direct contact would go through them rather than me, particularly in terms of
getting answers on stuff, getting information.
Professional associations, re?ecting the collective experience of the industry,
emphasised both written and presentation skills – report writing, writing business
letters, re?ecting business culture and etiquette in communication style, as well as
presentation skills (more than PowerPoints) and facility with cross-cultural situations.
The information and re?ections on the generic attribute of “communication skills” as
provided by the various respondents suggests a conceptualisation of a range of social
Desirable generic
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skills beyond those of correct expression, whether written or oral. It is understood in
terms of marketing, client and collegial relationship building as well as ef?ciency and
the nature of the work. Moreover, employers’ understanding of it appears to be affected
by the speci?cs of their commercial needs, the needs of a particular clientele or market,
or, in relation to communicating with colleagues and team members, the culture and
needs of a particular work environment.
4.1.2 Teamwork. Employers suggested that in effective teams teamwork includes
good interpersonal skills in order to foster client relationships and trust in accordance
with the organisation’s ethics, as well as leadership and management:
We had big deadlines coming up and they all just stepped up. [. . .] it is not peer pressure, they
just feel committed to the team and their clients and they do those things.
Some employers commented on how teamwork skills are developed:
I think that’s a skill that I guess you only get through experience, the capacity to work with
various age groupings and with people who come from vastly different backgrounds. The
problem we have in universities is when you are working in groups you are probably
working with some of your mates; you have all come from the same place.
There were, however, quite different emphases and understandings of teamwork among
employers fromdifferent sectors of the industry. Big 4 employers perceived teamwork in
managerial terms (the ability to manage a team), or as a promotional path: for example,
effective work in a team(mentoring, helping people achieve a goal) led to promotion, ?rst
to senior team member, then to junior manager. One corporate employer considered
“rotating teamwork essential” as a training and probationary measure before appointing
people to a particular area of activity permanently; another assigned no importance to it at
all. Niche (second tier) accounting ?rms also perceived team work from a managerial
perspective (“able to run one’s team”) and as a training device:
We certainly send them out to clients pretty much straight away as part of a team. Our jobs
tend to be small to medium jobs so they tend to be working in teams of two or three [. . .]
Teams and teamwork were most important in the small ?rm sector. Small regional
?rms de?ned team skills as “being one of the family” but also included in their
de?nition a work ethic or commitment, equivalent to that of family members though
not all were family concerns:
We are a family company; we want people who are going to ?t in. So we look at how they are
going to “?t in” as a person so interpersonal skills, attitude to work, i.e. some want top money
straight away but don’t necessarily want to work the hours that are required. We like people
who live locally [. . .]
They have to ?t into the ethos of this company. They have to be part of a team. Different
people have different priorities and we acknowledge that there has to be a balance in their
working life. But at the same time, work ethic is very important.
Another small accounting ?rm described teamwork in terms of shared values:
In order for us to be able to work together we do need to be in synch, and that involves a
common set of behaviours that we would aim towards, whether you want to call them values
or core values or whatever it may, or the expectations that we have on our staff.
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Again, as in relation to communications, the conceptualisation of team work, its role in
an organisation, and the skills required, differ substantially among the various sectors
of the accounting industry.
4.1.3 Self-management. Employers had a very broad understanding of
self-management, viewing it as all of the attributes they valued in a mature
well-rounded competent and con?dent graduate. It included traits of ambition,
community and being socially responsible; hard work; dedication; a holistic and ?exible
approach; an ability to deal with complexity, uncertainty and pressure; intellectual
capacity; self-presentation; a professional presence; independence; and time management.
Employers were strongly of the opinion that grades were not all that was required and the
best recruits were those who combined study with other life experiences such as previous
part-time employment, or sporting and extra-curricular activities, especially those
entailing leadership responsibilities.
Again, there were some differences in the way employers from different sectors
perceived the self-management. To employers within the Big 4, it was a matter of “how
do you manage other people or howdo you set your own personal goals”. They perceived
involvement in “various things, whether it is [. . .] sporting endeavours or clubs or
whatever, as a measure of [. . .] breadth of interest and maturity” as well as leadership
and communication skills. Examining the history of such involvements, was part of the:
[. . .] process of trying to assess whether somebody is self aware and a developer and
somebody who is going to grow in a role or whether they are just doing something because
they need the money.
In the corporate accounting sector, employers referred to prospective employees’
“interpersonal skills, their time management skills, their networking skills, their
self-motivation, knowing what needs to be done”. For example:
[. . .] there is the understanding that you will come in and you’ll work and no one is going to
hold your hand all day which some expect, and then there is the other bit of really being able
to, not analyse the business, but understand where its strengths and weaknesses are, even
from scratch.
Niche or second tier accounting ?rms referred to being focused, and the ability “to pick
up and run with it” even if initially the employee had little understanding. One
employer in this sector expressed self-management in terms of “balancing expectations
with the needs [of the workplace]”, a [. . .] “right attitude”. Professional associations
perceived self-management in the terms below:
[. . .] how they best manage their time because there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to do
what you need to do, so that ability to prioritise and do what needs to be done and not
procrastinate.
It appears that while all employers set great store by the extra-curricular activities in
which prospective employees had engaged, they used it as a measure for somewhat
different things and the meaning of self-management, like other generic attributes, can
be seen to be shaped by the needs of particular workplaces.
In summary, technical skills will always be a priority in the development of a
well-roundedaccountinggraduate. While there was some difference inthe manner inwhich
each generic attribute was ranked, it was clear that the employers surveyed in this study
required communication and presentation, teamwork and self-management attributes
Desirable generic
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in the graduates they were employing. Most ?rms had training programs in place to
progress the development of required attributes at different levels. However, in the case of
small regional accounting ?rms the requirement for graduates “to hit the ground running”
was more pronounced due to the ?rms’ reduced capacity and means to provide training.
5. Conclusion and recommendations
This paper reports on the ?rst phase of a larger project and contributes to the accounting
literature which advocates a re-examination of the approach to the graduate attribute
agenda that recognises that the demand for particular generic skills will be context
speci?c. This original study has already impacted the discourse in the development of
benchmarks for accounting in Australia. In 2011, the ALTC published the Learning and
Teaching Academic Standards for Accounting (Hancock et al., 2010). The standards set
minimum threshold learning outcomes for Bachelor and Master level degrees in
Accounting for all Australian Higher Education Providers (Freeman and Hancock,
2011). The process to develop the standards included widespread engagement with all
stakeholders including employers and was also informed by the results of the study
reported in this paper. The ?ve threshold learning outcomes include the ability to
exercise judgement, communication skills, teamwork, and self-management, in addition
to disciplinary knowledge. Our ?ndings also illustrate the contextual element in the
various de?nitions and understandings of generic attributes by employers in diverse
sectors of the accounting industry. The differences are attributable to the work
undertaken in each of the sectors, the capacity of ?rms to train and develop generic
attributes, and the speci?c outcomes these employers desired to obtain from their
workforce and its endeavours. Given the differences among the sectors, studies drawing
on other combinations of the sector may obtain different results. This proposition goes
some way towards supporting published ?ndings and also explaining differences in
rankings of generic attributes by other researchers. The most important conclusion from
this study, however, is that demands on universities to deliver work ready graduates
should be subjected to the question: work ready for whom?
Acknowledgements
The paper reports on one phase of a project which received funding from the Carrick
Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (the predecessor to the
Australian Learning and Teaching Council). The project team acknowledges the
support of Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC).
Notes
1. The section on research method provides a short description of other phases of the study.
2. Results of the second and later phases will be reported in future papers.
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About the authors
Irene Tempone (Associate Professor) PhD (SUT) BCom (Melb), DipEd (Melb), FCPA is Head of
Accounting, Economics, Finance and Lawin the Faculty of Business and Enterprise at Swinburne
University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria. She was an inaugural member of the Australian
Business Deans Council (ABDC) Teaching and Learning Network. She has been involved in
curriculum development, accounting education and program review throughout her career.
Irene Tempone is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Marie Kavanagh is a Professor of Accounting and Associate Director (USQ, Spring?eld) at
the University of Southern Queensland, Australia.
Dr Naomi Segal is a Lecturer in Business at Curtin University, Australia.
Phil Hancock is a Professor and the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning at the UWA
Business School, University of Western Australia.
Bryan Howieson MCom, FCPA is Associate Professor in the School of Commerce at the
University of Adelaide, Australia.
Professor Jenny Kent is the Associate Head of the School of Accounting and Finance, Charles
Sturt University, New Zealand.
Desirable generic
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