Leadership-in-teams, ready, willing and able: perspectives of international accounting students
ISSN: 2049-372X
Article publication date: 16 October 2020
Issue publication date: 5 April 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons why international accounting students in higher education in Australia do not accept leadership roles in academic teams, considering the importance employers attach to leadership and teamwork graduate attributes.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting the Keating et al. (2014) ready, willing and able (RWA) leadership framework, this qualitative study uses a narrative textual approach to analyse the data from responses to open-ended questions recorded in interviews with a sample of Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) students (N = 12) undertaking leadership-in-team roles in a management and cost Accounting unit (N = 110) within an Australian higher education accounting program.
Findings
The results of this study suggest that a lack of past work experience disadvantages accounting students in being ‘ready’ to adopt leadership roles in teams. Self-interested behaviour results in students not being ‘willing’ to adopt leadership roles. Students perceive business simulation and work-integrated learning activities to hold the potential to improve their ‘ability’ to lead.
Practical implications
The study offers a conceptual schema for student leadership development, suggesting that accounting curricula in higher education should include the assessment of scaffolded leadership development activities. Mentorship roles in academic teams should also be explored.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first application of the RWA framework to explore accounting students’ predisposition to accepting leadership roles in teams. Informed by the student narrative, the authors offer a future focused RWA schema as a practical guide for educators to embed leadership development in the accounting curriculum.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge that these findings are limited by self-selection and are likely biased towards the more experienced/extroverted students in our cohort. They hasten to add that this study suffers from a limited sampling frame; therefore, the generalisability of results should be approached with caution. To address these limitations and in light of the urgent need for strong and innovative leaders in political, business and accounting education, the researchers call for support of our findings by surveying and interviewing a broader cohort of accounting students, across a number of jurisdictions, in a more robust trial by applying the RWA schema presented in this study.
Citation
Oosthuizen, H., De Lange, P., Wilmshurst, T. and Beatson, N. (2021), "Leadership-in-teams, ready, willing and able: perspectives of international accounting students", Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 161-182. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEDAR-05-2019-0499
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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