Digital transformation for teaching management accounting: training with a simulation in an authentic professional environment

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the use of digital transformation for teaching management accounting through the implementation of training with a simulation in an authentic professional environment. Technology makes it possible to bring professional reality into the classroom, thereby enhancing the work-integrated experience of students. The authors present the training developed for third year undergraduates in Management Accounting course and the analysis of how students perceive the learning outcomes of this experiential activity. The study used quantitative and qualitative analysis from a survey of 254 respondents. The findings suggest that learning through tasks simulated in a real workplace positively influences students’ perceptions of their readiness for professional activity in terms of their technical, intellectual, organisational, personal, and interpersonal skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Work-integrated learning
• experiential learning activity
• simulation
• professional skills in accounting
• management accounting

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Anaplan is employed by businesses for financial and operational planning and business process modelling. Anaplan entered the business planning market in 2006. It is now an international company with headquarters in San Francisco and offices in the UK, France, Sweden, Benelux, and Singapore. Visually, the workspace of the software package resembles Excel spreadsheets, but Anaplan undoubtedly has great advantages over the traditional technology of a table editor: the ability to scale indefinitely, a more user-friendly interface and higher adaptability to changes. These properties of Anaplan make it well-suited to be used in the classroom, since the study of this IT does not require time, and students can concentrate on mastering professional skills that are in great demand in modern business: strategic vision, teamwork, integrated thinking, etc. https://www.Anaplan.com/

2 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CERF) https://www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages/table-1-cefr-3.3-common-reference-levels-global-scale

3 Grading scheme of the Financial University

Table

4 In connection with the adoption of the ‘Global Management Accounting Principles’, developed and published by the international professional organisation of accounting analysts CIMA together with AICPA, a new object is included in the Management Accounting syllabus – the business model of an organisation, considered as the basis for the activities of any organisation and defined as a tool by which companies create and increase the value of the business.