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This paper aims to seek accounting graduates' perspectives on the demand for accounting in their workplaces, on the gaps in accounting education (AE), and on the future of the accounting profession, inspired by the new definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021, 2022, 2023a), to adopt a strong focus on sustainable development goals (SDGs) in AE to inculcate tertiary students with the skills that lead them to approach and apply accounting as a multidimensional technical, social and moral (TSM) practice.

The online qualitative survey was distributed to 100 randomly selected New Zealand accounting graduates in order to gather insights from their workplaces. All responses from the 30 graduates who completed the questionnaire underwent qualitative analysis using Leximancer software, which automatically identifies high-level concepts and insights and offers interactive visualizations without bias.

The graduates’ experiences underscore the ongoing significance of technical skills in the New Zealand workplace. They emphasized the lack of non-technical skills training, stressed the necessity of diverse business knowledge and highlighted the importance of automation and digital skills.

The implications for transforming AE involve adopting an activist approach to integrate a TSM perspective into teaching and learning and being open to an interdisciplinary approach to expose tertiary students to the impact of accounting on sustainable development, including collaboration with professional bodies for real-world experiences.

The importance of engaging with SDG-related narratives is stressed to stimulate further discussion, debate and research aimed at identifying practical solutions for AE as a facilitator for SDGs in realizing accounting as a TSM practice.

We explore the validity of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) scores and grade point averages (GPAs) for predicting comprehensive student performance in an accelerated-cohort masters of accountancy (MA) program from 2002 through 2009. We confirm findings of prior studies that graduate accounting student performance increases in GMAT scores and undergraduate GPAs; however, undergraduate GPA is significant only for U.S. students. International student performance is overwhelmingly explained by language ability, as measured by GMAT verbal and analytical writing scores. When performance is defined as job placement with a public accounting firm after graduation, we find no significant association between performance and either GMAT scores or undergraduate GPA. Additionally, the factors that are significantly associated with obtaining a job in public accounting differ for U.S. and international students. These findings may have implications for admission decisions and curriculum design of U.S. graduate accounting programs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and gain recent insights into the extent to which skills expectation gap exists from the perspective of employers in a Pacific Island country, including the competencies perceived essential within the work context of accountants and the support provided by employers to accounting graduates to address the skills expectation gap.

Using the expectation–performance gap framework developed by Bui and Porter (2010), this study collects and analyses data via semi-structured interviews with employers at chartered accounting firms, large- and medium-sized commercial and industrial firms in Fiji.

Majority of the employers indicated that graduates from the Fijian universities are adequately prepared and have acquired the necessary attributes to perform at the workplace. However, employers expect universities to do a little more in terms of developing confidence and improving ability to apply theoretical knowledge to practice. The findings also outline that the institutional-, social- and student-related constraints directly affect the quality of graduates, which are not in control of academics.

It is noted that graduate capabilities are developed over two different learning environments. This study focused on how universities prepared graduates to perform at the workplace from the perspective of employers. This serves as a basis for future research to investigate effectiveness of trainings provided by employers to graduates to enable them into becoming successful accounting professionals.

This study adds clarifications to the debate on academic–practice gap by providing recent insights into the extent to which graduates demonstrate capabilities to perform in the accounting profession, the prevailing issues with graduate capabilities and the employers’ contribution towards strengthening graduate capabilities.

The purpose of this study is to examine students who have recently graduated from the standard 120 credit accountancy program and compare and contrast their ethical perceptions with students who have recently graduated from the AICPA-mandated 150 credit accountancy program which includes 30 extra credits with a focus on ethics.

Recent graduated accounting students from selected Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business were asked to fill out a cross-sectional survey based on Victor and Cullen's Ethical Climate Questionnaire (ECQ) to determine whether a difference exists between the two groups' ethical perceptions. The nine hypotheses derived from the ECQ were tested using an independent sample t-test and Levene's test for the homogeneity of the variances between the two groups.

Compared with graduates of the 120 credit program, 150 credit program graduates scored significantly higher in ethical perceptions on five domains: Company Profit, Friendship, Team Interest, Personal Morality, and Rules, when testing at a confidence level of 95 percent. The two groups were not significantly different in the domains of Self-Interest, Efficiency, Social Responsibility, or Laws.

The paper includes implications for the need to encourage ethical intervention through education in the accounting curriculum. This study is part of a growing body of research for teaching ethics within the accounting profession.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study business ethics. Corporate scandals in the late 1990s and early this century led to a decline in the public's trust of the accounting profession. Since that time, the government, companies, and universities have attempted to rebuild that trust through a number of methods, such as passing laws requiring better regulation and more disclosure as well as requiring improved ethics education for future accountants.

Purpose – This study analyses the various skills needed by today's accounting graduates in order to be suitable for the Ghanaian banking industry.

Design/methodology/approach – The study adopted a simple random sampling technique to select 15 of the 27 banks currently in the banking industry, a sample selected as first part of a total banking industry study. Questionnaires were used, supported with interviews, to collect the data from the responding 13 banks.

Findings – The study revealed that variables (in order of preference) such as; positive attitude, communication skills, strong work ethics, team work, good interpersonal skills, analytical and problem-solving skills, flexibility and adaptability, management and organizational skills and strong IT skills are some of the key skills employers expect accounting graduates to have in order for them to be deemed ready for the banking industry.

Research limitation – The only targeted respondents were the human resource and branch managers. The result could have been different if the sample had been widened to cover a greater number of the banks in the industry and included other responding groups like accountants.

Practical implications – The findings offer guidance to those involved in the training of accountants in tertiary institutions and graduates of accounting seeking to develop skills necessary for the banking industry.

Originality/value – This is a major contributor to skills-analysis-requirement of specific jobs, looking at the banking industry. The case can be extended for other job-specific industries like insurance.

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.

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.

Employers held the generic attributes of communication, team work 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 specific needs.

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 them to the different meanings that are assigned to these skills by employers in different sectors.

This study aims to examine to what extent and how effective sustainability education has been at the tertiary accounting education level. The New Zealand (NZ) Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment identified that sustainability education, as part of university education, is important, though NZ universities currently perform poorly in this area. This study looks at the important issue of sustainability education in the context of the emerging field of ecological economics and new understanding in business role and function of society where accounting education represents the precondition in meeting the challenges successfully.

A mixed method approach was used for this investigation combining quantitative and qualitative research methods to provide more depth to the analysis. Both interviews and online surveys were conducted to determine the perceptions held by both academics and graduates, of the extent and adequacy of sustainability education with NZ university degrees. An extensive review of the literature and the overview of the web sites of the different universities formed the qualitative part of the mixed method research approach to the investigation to determine the state of sustainability education in accounting courses at NZ universities.

There were mixed views on the current state of sustainability education within NZ university accounting courses. Although there was a general consensus with both groups of participants that a start has been made, the integration is not wide enough and the sustainability education is not in sufficient depth. There were mixed feelings regarding the role that accountants should play in sustainability reporting; however, there was a general consensus around the fact that accountants do have a role to play. Both groups of participants indicated that it is important for sustainability education to be included in accounting courses at NZ universities. Based on the research findings, it appears that universities have to maintain or provide an optional higher undergraduate or post-graduate level paper in sustainability accounting. Evidence from lecturers' personal experience suggest that these courses better develop a student's knowledge of sustainability as they have time to take an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and take a look at “big issues” like how accounting can either support or hinder sustainability directions for businesses and society.

The role that accounting educators play in integrating sustainability education at universities has been a contentious issue with a seemingly large gap between what research has defined as best education practice and what is currently being taught around the world. Although sustainability has formed the subject of extensive research over a number of years, there has been no work performed on the current state of sustainability education in accounting courses at NZ universities. Given the future challenges that NZ managers (and accountants) will face, it is important that universities which form a vital part of NZ society, equip managers (and accountants) to meet these demands. This study on perceptions of different stakeholders in relation to education for sustainable development, therefore, provides really important arguments for why there has to be further developments in this crucial area. The findings indicate that sustainability education by accounting educators is on a very much ad hoc basis. Further research needs to be conducted to drive better educational directions in sustainable development in universities.

Accounting doctoral programs have been ranked in the past based on publishing productivity and graduate placement. This chapter provides descriptions of accounting doctoral programs on a wider range of characteristics. These results may be particularly useful to doctoral applicants as well as to doctoral program directors, accreditation bodies, and search committees looking to differentiate or benchmark programs. They also provide insight into the current shortage of accounting doctoral graduates and future areas of research.

Doctoral programs can be differentiated on more variables than just research productivity and initial placement. Doctoral programs vary widely with respect to the following characteristics: the rate at which doctorates are conferred on women and minorities, the placement of graduates according to Carnegie classification, AACSB accreditation, the highest degree awarded by employing institution (bachelors, masters, doctorate), the extent to which graduates leave the USA, work in industry, are appointed to administrative positions, and hold endowed positions.

This study aims to examine the ICT skills needed by a fresh accounting graduate when first joining a tax firm; to find out usage of electronic tax (e‐tax) applications in tax practice; to assess the rating of senior tax practitioners on fresh graduates' ICT and e‐tax applications skills; and to solicit tax practitioners' opinion regarding integrating ICT skills and tax software into a tax course.

An online survey method was used to collect the data. An online survey was distributed to 385 tax practitioners who worked in the accounting/tax firms that participated in the university's internship programs. A total of 112 usable questionnaires were analyzed.

The survey found that the three most important ICT skills with which fresh graduates should be familiar before graduating were spreadsheet software, word‐processing software, and e‐mail. The result shows that the usage of e‐tax applications is still not pervasive in tax practice. Overall, senior tax practitioners rated fresh accounting graduates' ICT skills as “average”. Both senior (75 percent) and junior (73.7 percent) tax practitioners agreed that ICT skills and tax software should be integrated in the tax course offered by the universities.

This study has provided insights to policy makers and tax educators to revamp the existing tax curriculum, and to introduce learning tax software in classes, and to place more emphasis in imparting ICT skills in tax education.

Scholarly study on tax education and ICT is scant. Little is known about whether the existing tax education is adequate in meeting the needs of the employers in the job market. This paper has emerged to fill a knowledge gap.