Seven principles to ensure future-ready accounting graduates – a model for future research and practice

The business environment is changing and education at university business schools does not appear to keep pace. This paper aims to identify principles to guide educators in preparing accounting students for automation and artificial intelligence and sets an agenda for future research.

The seven principles are derived from an extensive literature review and the analysis of qualitative data from focus groups, thought leader discussions, interviews and workshops.

The derived seven Cs model includes: critical, conceptual thinking and the spirit of enquiry; complicate, grapple and fail; create, innovate and experience; concise communication; collaboration; consciousness, respectfulness and ethical fibre; and curiosity, lifelong learning and specialized generalists. An inclusive list of future research topics related to the seven Cs model is provided to aid researchers’ agendas.

Although every attempt was made to base this study purely on expert opinions, as reflected in journal articles, conference papers, interviews and focus groups, it is impossible to prevent author biases from slipping into the interpretation and reflection involved in creating the model. Readers will also find some overlap in terms of the accounting business competencies development model’s seven Cs, due to the inter-related nature of the concepts and because the various definitions of concepts have some habits of the mind and social competencies in common.

The seven principles will help business schools and higher education policymakers guide future education developments with a focus on new competencies and reframed skills, as opposed to new knowledge. The model ensures that scholars and graduates have insight into the essential knowledge, attributes and skills that apply to the diverse nature of accounting vocations and can adapt to unanticipated changes.

This new model can be used by business schools to ensure that graduates can fully contribute to a society impacted by automation and artificial intelligence by entering the workplace with the requisite skills. It also responds to critics’ fears about the role of business schools in preparing graduates for the future of work.

The paper contributes in two ways. First, rather than focussing on particular issues or the shortcomings of current education, it identifies broad-based principles from a literature review, interviews, focus groups and workshops. Second, it sets an agenda for future research.