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Since at least the 1980s, the accounting profession has discussed and written about the gap between academics and the practice of accounting. More recently, accounting academics have joined the call for increased faculty engagement with the accounting profession. As a result, the 2018 Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB) Eligibility Procedures and Standards for Accounting Accreditation include “Engagement” as a significant pillar of the new standards. The objective is to challenge accounting department faculty to engage more intentionally with accounting practitioners. Accounting Advisory Councils might represent an important opportunity to achieve such engagement. The authors conducted a survey to gain an understanding of advisory councils and how they might address the concerns of the accounting profession for more interaction and collaboration between the academy and the profession. It is encouraging that 96% of our AACSB accounting accredited respondents indicated that they have a functioning Accounting Advisory Council and that they believe the Council is very valuable in support of the department’s mission. In addition, the accounting department leaders reported a very high level of engagement with council members outside regular meetings. The survey results of this chapter provide additional insights on organization, membership, and engagement regarding Accounting Advisory Councils.

Despite formal ethics education and ethics-related continuing professional education (CPE) requirements, professional accountants continue to play a central role in enabling corporations to make unethical business decisions and take unethical business actions. Several jurisdictions in the United States require ethics education for licensure, but often the focus is on memorizing rules and regulations, rather than on providing tools to improve the moral practice of professionals and to help them resolve ethical dilemmas. The authors analyzed recent state Certified Public Accountant (CPA) society course offerings and found much more emphasis on memorization than on ethical reasoning to satisfy State CPA CPE requirements. To improve accountants’ ethical awareness and behavior, CPE providers should stress ethical reasoning rather than merely memorizing rules. Such changes will make future and present accountants and auditors more ethically aware, and thus more likely to improve their ethical decision-making. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that effective ethics education and training should start in the classroom with help from departmental advisory councils. Ethics courses offered in accounting programs as well as those offered by CPE providers can leverage the experience of members of advisory councils to create programs that resonate with professionals and foster lifelong ethical awareness and ethical reasoning skills.

This study aims to examine the (overt) arguments and (covert) myths the Business Accounting Council (BAC) members have used to lobby over controversial accounting issues, such as the application of fair value accounting (FVA) and the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Japan.

The authors used a content analysis to examine 85 statements included in multiperiod BAC meeting minutes and 68 articles prepared by International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) representatives from Japan.

The results reveal that together with the arguments, myths were created and amplified by opponents of FVA and the Financial Services Agency to hide the latter’s strong regulatory power. They created these myths, using covert stories of the importance of manufacturing activities and tax accounting (for small- and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs]), to oppose mandatory IFRS adoption in Japan and, thus, to maintain vested rights in preparing the Japanese generally accepted accounting principles and Japanese accounting standards for SMEs.

First, this study contributes to the lobbying literature by focusing on the coalition (network) effect of influential stakeholder groups. Second, although lobbying activities have been investigated mostly using comment letters, this study reviews multiperiod BAC meeting minutes and articles prepared by IASB representatives from Japan. Third, the study examines both overt arguments and covert myths, both of which are important in unmasking the fundamental structures of power within influential organizations, such as government agencies and standard-setters.

In today’s marketplace, accountants must understand and master Big Data and data analytics, and many educators have devised approaches to help students acquire these critical skills. At our university, we have worked closely with our accounting advisory council to develop an adaptable classroom case where students not only gain a broad understanding of what data analytics means to the profession but also what specific tools are available to analyze an accounting-centered problem – cash collections. Using patterns and behaviors discovered in their data analyses, students develop collection procedures and controls for a case firm. Such a project begins to fulfill the profession’s initiative that accountants must exploit Big Data and data analytics for organizational growth and opportunity.

The accounting profession has consistently called for educators to assist in developing accounting students' skills beyond technical knowledge. As a result, our institution has emphasized professional skills such as oral and written communication, teamwork, research, and time management alongside technical content. Yet, our students have had difficulty making the transition from school to work, that is, from backpack to briefcase. Specifically, they lacked a sense of professional identity and an awareness of the accounting profession's roles in business and society. To address this issue, we created a professional development program to transform students from uninformed freshmen to graduates who understand what it means to be an accounting professional. The chapter describes activities that encourage the development of a sense of professional purpose. Limited assessment of the innovation suggests increased student enthusiasm for the major as well as improved perceptions of professional success. The chapter also suggests means by which other accounting programs might reevaluate and revise their own activities to assist students as they transition to accounting professionals.

This chapter discusses the utilization of professional accounting career panels as a cocurricular student recruitment and development activity. These career panels provide an opportunity for students to interact with the members of our Accounting Advisory Council and recent accounting graduates to learn more about the accounting profession and the career opportunities available to accounting majors. We address two questions in this chapter: (1) Can professionals be used to better inform students about the accounting profession? and (2) Can this approach be used to increase the degree to which students will consider accounting as a major? The analysis of the responses to questions elicited in the postcareer panel questionnaire indicates that students learned a significant amount from the experience. In addition, the data show that students from principles-level accounting courses who participated significantly increased the degree to which they would consider accounting as a major.