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Stuebs et al. (2021, p. 38) note that soft skills “are essential for accountants to carry out their moral agency role in society.” Indeed, calls for aspiring accounting professionals to have well-developed soft skills have been ongoing for decades (American Accounting Association [Bedford] Committee on Future Structure, Content, and Scope of Accounting Education, 1986; Accounting Education Change Commission, 1990; Albrecht & Sack, 2000; Big 8 White Paper, 1989; Lawson et al., 2014; Pathways Commission, 2012). Despite these calls, the development of accounting students’ soft skills remains elusive (Fogarty, 2019; Rebele & St. Pierre, 2019). Perhaps this is not surprising as a commonly accepted, profession-specific definition of the term is lacking, as is consensus about the corresponding capabilities comprising accounting professionals’ soft skills. Instead, those in the accounting profession have treated the term soft skills much the way Justice Potter Stewart famously described hard-core pornography: “I know it when I see it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio 1964, p. 197). The problem, of course, is that such a description is individualistic and can lead to conflicts and inconsistencies not only in identifying the phenomenon (Baskin, 2018; Goldberg, 2010) but, more importantly, particularly in the case of soft skills, in taking steps to foster its development and measuring changes in it. Thus, understanding the term soft skills and its fundamental capabilities is a necessary prerequisite to the development of the soft skills deemed critical for future accounting professionals. In this chapter, the authors advance that understanding by developing an accounting-specific definition for soft skills and identifying a set of capabilities that comprise soft skills applicable to accounting professionals. The authors also discuss the implications of the work and conclude by recommending soft skills in accounting be referred to as professional competencies.

This chapter examines the integration of leadership topics into an accounting ethics course. Literature review, course review, student feedback. Both practitioners and educators have called for broader education of accounting students in general, and student learning of leadership and interpersonal skills in particular, to prepare students who are entering the profession. I have used the leadership topics and activities discussed in this chapter in a stand-alone ethics course in a graduate business program, but they could also be integrated into an undergraduate course. I provide details regarding course content and delivery, including a weekly schedule of accounting ethics and leadership readings, short cases, and leadership/ethics case research topics. Many of the leadership and ethics subjects in the course are expected to be addressed in the accounting workplace – exploring these topics helps better prepare students to confront future challenges. Although both practitioners and educators have called for broader education of accounting students in general, and student learning of leadership and interpersonal skills in particular, little progress has been made in this area. This chapter contributes to this area by highlighting the value of integrating leadership topics into an accounting ethics course.

Adaptive capacity has commonly been defined as the “general ability of institutions, systems, and individuals to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences” (http://www.greenfacts.org). Adaptive capacity is herein described as the ability to facilitate the process of adaptive team performance and the resulting outcome of team adaptation (see Stagl, Burke, Salas, & Pierce, this volume). More specifically, although often spoken of with regard to environmental and global changes, it is spoken of here with regard to the ability of individuals (and correspondingly teams) to recognize and understand contextual changes, dynamically revise and implement plans accordingly, and learn from each implementation so as to be better prepared in the future.

The growing use of teams to accomplish work in libraries has brought qualitative changes to the nature of work and leadership in library organizations. Collaborative work in team-based organizations and the rise of distributed leadership require different skills from traditional, hierarchically structured workplaces. The literature on team skills provides insight and direction for library human resources management practices. Growing research on emotional intelligence in the workplace also provides new guidance for selection and personnel practices. The literature in these areas can help library organizations more effectively select those who have the attributes needed to be successful in this new environment. It can also help library organizations shape training and developmental opportunities to enhance these critically needed skills.

Communication studies have expanded significantly around the globe in the last decades. Due to new channels of communication and more and more mediatised societies, the role of communication has gained significance. In contrast, communication does not seem to be a topic of high priority for many corporate leaders. They often still value communication as a mere support function.

This chapter explores communication courses of business schools in the United States and Europe. It is hypothesised that only if communication courses are recognised in such programmes the profession of business communicators will realise entry into the highest levels of corporate decision-making.

The main question is how far top-ranked Master of Business Administration (MBA) programmes integrate communication courses. This is investigated via website analysis and interviews. This chapter also provides explanations for the current status quo. The results will be of interest to all those responsible for shaping MBA curricula and give insights into how the communication discipline is viewed by leaders of business schools.

Historically, research in organizational behavior has denied and even denounced the presence and impact of emotions in the workplace. Today, after little more than 10 years of research on emotions in the workplace, organizational behavior scholars look to emotions as an important determinant of nearly every facet of workplace behavior. From interpersonal behavior, to team performance, and strategic decision-making in top management teams, researchers have argued that the role of emotions is fundamental to our understanding of these organizational processes. Research on emotions in the workplace has had a fast and furious growth, facilitated by a lack of critical reflection upon the limits of bounded emotionality as a framework for understanding individuals’ actions in organizations. It is undeniable that emotions influence some facets of organizational behavior. But the questions of interest in this chapter are, in which areas of organizational behavior do emotions play a critical role in the determination of individual and organizational outcomes and under what conditions?

Recently, ethical leadership has become a widely studied research topic. Simultaneously, many studies have begun to emphasise the role of interpersonal communication competence (ICC) in successful leadership. However, there has been little discussion on the links between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. To address this research gap, this study aims to compare and combine the research traditions of ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. The study is based on two literature reviews examining (a) ethical leadership (substudy 1; N = 27) and (b) leaders’ ICC (substudy 2; N = 18). The research questions are as follows: (a) How are the requirements of leaders’ ICC noticed in the literature of ethical leadership? (substudy 1) (b) How are the requirements of ethical leadership noticed in the literature of leaders’ ICC? (substudy 2) The findings reveal that (a) studies in ethical leadership rarely pay attention to leaders’ ICC and (b) studies in leaders’ ICC do not often discuss ethical aspects of ICC, at least explicitly. While a larger sample would have been preferred, the study contributes to previous research by addressing a research gap between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC and suggests integrating these research traditions to better understand the nature of ethics and ICC in leadership. By promoting novel interdisciplinary research perspectives, the study provides a foundation for further research and development of (a) a competence-based approach to ethical leadership and (b) an ethics-focused approach to competent leadership communication.