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The ability to work effectively in a team is highly regarded by employers of accounting graduates, yet they have expressed concern that many university graduates lack teamwork skills. Furthermore, in the context of the accounting curriculum, a “conceptual vagueness” surrounds a workplace-relevant definition of teamwork. Drawing on the theoretical perspectives of the healthcare sector where teamwork skills are required to be taught and assessed as part of accreditation processes, this study investigates what teamwork means from the perspective of accounting employers.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of employers to acquire descriptions of teamwork observed from graduate recruits. Using an analyst triangulation process, resulting teamwork items were analysed and emerging themes were identified.

Teamwork in accounting work contexts were identified, confirmed and explained. Mapped against the healthcare teamwork theories, many teamwork items from the interview analysis clustered around the mutual support competency and the dimensions of traits and motives.

The study was restricted to employers collaborating in one university’s placement program. Further research could investigate more diverse employer groups, determine importance ranking of identified teamwork themes and seek explanations for differences among different employer groups.

An enhanced description of teamwork is significant in supporting student awareness and informing teaching innovations/assessments of this generic skill in the accounting curriculum.

The paper provides a unique contribution of evidence-based descriptions of teamwork expected of accounting graduates, thus addressing conceptual and practical ambiguity of the meaning of teamwork skills in the accounting profession.

The introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) has brought about renewed calls for the learning environment to foster a deep approach to learning by students. Given this, the purpose of this paper is to determine what aspects of the learning environment, as measured by the Course Experiences Questionnaire, created in two semester-long financial accounting classes, influence students’ approaches to learning, as perceived by Chinese accounting students.

A logistic regression model based on responses from 497 accounting students across two universities in China is used to address this issue.

The findings provide original empirical evidence of the Chinese accounting students’ expectations of deep learning. The main results showed that teaching quality and clear goals and standards were significantly associated with a deep approach to learning.

As two universities are included in the study, the findings are not necessarily generalisable to all accounting degree courses across China. There are practical implications for the teaching of IFRS in the financial accounting unit in China, and particularly for the two universities. Specifically, instructors need to foster students’ learning environment and inspire an enhanced approach to deep learning by focusing more on communicating their expected academic standards and improving their quality of teaching to reverse the passive approach taken by the vast majority of Chinese accounting students.

As one of the few studies from a Chinese accounting classroom context with respect to the learning approaches to teaching IFRS, this study will contribute to extend the existing knowledge of the learning environment of Chinese universities.

Publishing in scholarly journals is a practical necessity for academics. Put simply, this reality can be described as “publish or perish”. To be treated as a serious contender for tenure and promotion, scholarly research and activities directed towards publication are necessary aspects of faculty life. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into “dealing” with the editorial review process of publishing from the perspective of a relatively new author.

Using the lens of Q and R theory, a case study approach combined with critical reflection provides a documented tour to enable other authors to enhance their understanding of the publication process through including references to associated reviews and correspondence with a journal editor. The review extracts from the editor and authors’ responses are discussed within the context of a theoretical schema and timeline.

Drawing from the theoretical schema, the paper identifies 11 lessons learned along the way to publishing, and these are summarised as the 11 commandments of publishing.

Utilisation of the Q and R theory can assist researchers as they reflect on how to maximise their publication outcomes.

The 11 commandments provide a practical approach for those wanting to improve their understanding and likelihood of publishing success.

The originality of this paper is that it considers the publication process from a novice author who subsequently draws on the knowledge of more experienced co-authors. The findings are based on a theoretical schema that is transferable and able to be adopted by others to guide publication outcomes.

This paper aims to examine undergraduate students' attitudes towards the accounting profession, including accounting as a career, as a discipline, as a profession and perceptions of the work activities of accountants.

The data set used in this paper was collected via questionnaires. The present study compares several aspects of a prior study of Marriott and Marriott using the Accounting Attitude Scale developed by Nelson.

Overall, the paper supports the view that exposure to accounting at university does not enhance positive attitudes about accounting as a discipline, but reinforces rule‐memorisation, and lack of involvement with conceptual skills or judgement.

The paper only examines students' attitudes at one point in time and does not attempt to identify whether students' attitudes change over the period of their study. The paper can only speculate as to why there is a difference between local and international students' attitude towards the accounting profession. Third, the questionnaire is only administered at one institution. There is a scope to extend this study across institutions as well as conduct a longitudinal study. In order to validate the findings, further research via in‐depth interviews with students may help determine the factors that influence students' attitudes.

The results from this paper are expected to contribute to the body of research by providing accounting educators with insights into how the curriculum may influence students' attitudes towards the profession, together with implications as to how the profession should be promoted to undergraduate students.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying motivations of Australian and international students for studying accounting and entering the accounting profession.

The study reports results from a cohort of second‐year accounting students drawing on the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to assess intentions and behaviours in making decisions, particularly in relation to employment choice. The study utilises a validated attitude to accounting scale (AAS) which measures how the accounting profession is viewed by students generally, and more specifically, differences in attitudes towards accounting and the accounting profession between Australian and international students.

The study finds that students have a positive attitude towards accounting as a profession. However, there are significant differences between Australian and international students' levels of interest in accounting and attitudes towards the work of accountants.

It is recognised that the differences in attitudes towards accounting between Australian and international students may be linked with motivations to pursue accounting based on personal, cultural and social influences. A limitation of the study is that international students are treated as a homogeneous group.

The findings of the study have implications for marketing accounting education internationally; in particular, acknowledging the impact of different attitudes towards accounting by international students.

The study not only addresses motivation to study accounting but also attitudes towards the accounting profession. By applying the TRA, the study has identified that government policy may influence motivation of international students towards accounting and the accounting profession.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the perceptions of internship providers with respect to the employability skills of international accounting graduates that undertake a Professional Year Program (PYP) incorporating a 12-week (240 hour) internship.

The study involved a survey of internship providers that required open and closed responses addressing perceptions of the skill of interns and rating of satisfaction with the PYP program as an employment preparation program.

The results indicate that from the internship providers’ perspective the most highly developed skill of interns is team skills. However, over 40 percent of respondents indicated that interns had failed to demonstrate the capacity to be “work ready” with respect to business acculturation, capacity to handle unfamiliar problems and communication skills. One-third of respondents had ongoing concerns with the PYP as a means of preparing Australian educated international graduates for work in the accounting profession.

There was evidence of a need for a more cohesive theoretical underpinning of the internship program as a means of enhancing the transition from study to work.

This study was the first independent study to examine perceptions of a PYP incorporating an internship program to enhance the employability of international accounting graduates who seek professional recognition in Australia. The study provides insights of internship providers of the employability skills of international graduates. The results are timely given the emergence of the demand for relevant work experience enabling international students to enhance their employability globally.

This study investigates perceptions of the work of accountants held by first‐year accounting students as part of a national survey of accounting students. First‐year commerce students from five tertiary institutions were surveyed about their perceptions of the accounting profession as well as their intention to complete a major study of accounting at tertiary level. Influences on the formation of their perceptions formed an important part of the study. The results reported in this paper serve to illustrate that the majority of students surveyed had negative perceptions of accounting. The source of influences on perceptions indicated that perceptions were mainly derived from tertiary education experiences. As perceptions influence choice of major and career choice, the findings have important implications for accounting educators and professional accounting bodies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate group work perceptions of international and domestic accounting students. Although prior studies have demonstrated differences between domestic and international students in terms of their generic skill development, the present study explores this development via the use of a group work assessment task and offers practical suggestions for accounting instructors.

This paper utilises non-parametric tests (Mann-Whitney) and a thematic analysis to identify differences between the two accounting student cohorts.

The findings reveal that international accounting students were more optimistic about participating in group work and enjoyed higher levels of perceived generic skill development arising from the group work activity. However, domestic students gained more in terms of discipline-specific content knowledge while language barriers between the two cohorts were viewed as an obstacle to effective group work.

This study is based on the data collected from a single university and would benefit with replication at other institutions. For accounting educators of similar cohorts, suggestions are given as to how group work activities can be incorporated into an effective teaching practice.

The study contributes to the existing literature by examining differences between international and domestic accounting students’ attitudes of group work and their perceived generic skill development.

This study examines the performance of first year accounting students in a recently amalgamated tertiary institution which conducts a common accounting course across three campuses. Despite the uniformity in curriculum content there are distinct campus differences including tertiary entry cut off scores, teaching styles and contact hours. A multiple regression model has been employed to examine the impact on performance of student background (including tertiary entrance score, prior accounting knowledge, sex and motivation), perceptions of teaching and campus, in a first unit of accounting. The quantitative model is supplemented by qualitative data analysis of student perceptions of the course and the teaching. The findings of this study are that background variables including prior accounting knowledge, tertiary entrance score and motivation to study accounting are significant in explaining performance. Of the variables tested on student perceptions of teaching only one, memory, was significant in explaining performance of students. Differences were identified in student performance across campuses after controlling for student background and in the perceptions of teaching. Campus differences were attributed to the differences in contact hours on the three campuses. These findings have implications for accounting educators teaching first year accounting both in a single campus setting and those endeavouring to develop a common curriculum across campuses in the recently formed Unified National System.

This paper investigates the financial disclosure practices of corporate annual reports published in Asian countries including Bangladesh, Indonesian, Malaysia and the Middle East countries including Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The purpose of the study is to measure the financial disclosure diversity in these countries, with a view to developing a classification of their similarities and differences in respect to their compliance with International Accounting Standards (IAS). Annual reports of 126 public companies liisted on the countries' stock exchanges are the central data source, supplemented with other relevant information about financial disclosure practices in each country. A disclosure checklist adopted from all IASs and summarised in 306 individual items of financial disclosures is used as a means of extending an understanding of financial reporting in these countries. Results show the relative degree of conformity with IASs for each of the countries included in this study.