Preparing accounting students to be responsible leaders

ABSTRACT

Accounting graduates progress to hold a variety of roles in society, often comprising positions of leadership. Yet studies continue to show that accounting graduates are underdeveloped in several competencies affiliated with leadership. These competencies are well-aligned with Responsible Leadership (RL) theory, and expectations of accounting education institutions globally. However, curriculum-level guidance targeting RL competency development in accounting students is lacking. The purpose of this study was therefore to identify guidelines for the accounting curriculum that support the development of RL competencies in accounting students. Thirteen interviews were conducted with South African CA leaders, to understand their post-university leadership development experiences and obtain their perspectives on how universities can better prepare accounting students to be responsible leaders. The study developed a model comprising seven core concepts which is named the RESPOND model. This model may assist accounting academics deliberating on adaptations to their curricula to achieve competencies synonymous with RL.

KEYWORDS:

• Responsible leadership
• curriculum
• leadership
• professional competencies
• accounting students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Also known as Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) or professional accountants.

2 State capture has been defined as ‘the efforts of firms to shape the laws, policies, and regulations of the state to their own advantage by providing illicit private gains to public officials’ (International Monetary Fund, 2001).

3 SAICA is however responsible for the two major assessments within the qualification process (SAICA, 2020), and for defining the competencies expected of new SAICA members.

4 Also known as ‘generic’, ‘soft’, ‘non-technical’ or ‘professional’ skills.

5 The training programme typically follows the academic programme in the CA(SA) qualification process. The training programme comprises three years of practical experience at a registered training office (SAICA, 2021a).

6 An enneagram is a widely-adopted model of nine different personality types, used to understand personality differences (Hook et al., 2020).

7 South African currency.

8 Vacation work is offered by many audit firms during students’ university holidays. The objective is mostly to expose accounting students to the firm's culture and provide them with some workplace experience. The firms utilise this time to get to know the students better, which could lead to a training contract offer for the students at the audit firm post-graduation.