IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vls/finstu/v24y2020i2p64-90.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Skill Gap Perceived Between Employers And Accounting Graduates In Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • GETAHUN, Mohammed

    (Department of Accounting & Finance, Jimma University, Ethiopia.)

  • MERSHA, Deresse

    (Department of Accounting & Finance, Jimma University, Ethiopia.)

Abstract

In the last decade, many researchers have criticized university accounting education programs for focusing more on the teaching of technical accounting and not on emphasizing accounting skill development. The aim of this study is to identify the knowledge subjects, skills & attitude needed for a graduate accountant in respect of employee’s perceptions and employer expectations. Data were obtained from 236 employees and 118 employers from various organizations using a survey are compared with the perceived needs of a sample of employees and employers in Ethiopia. The findings indicate that there is an agreement between the perceptions of both groups, some significant gap still exists. These skills, knowledge and attitudes are relevant to preparing the graduates for careers as professional accountant such as communication & language skills, financial accounting & financial reporting knowledge, and professional competence and due care were the most important for accountants in work place rate by both the employers and graduate’s students. The results of study provide better information for academics, Employers, and students graduated in accounting, in bridging the perceived skills gap between employers and graduates. Moreover, study suggest that academician, unemployment, and employers of graduate students’ better understanding the importance of the skills required in the current market needs, and higher university institutions to improve their curriculum in promotion quality graduates.

Suggested Citation

  • GETAHUN, Mohammed & MERSHA, Deresse, 2020. "Skill Gap Perceived Between Employers And Accounting Graduates In Ethiopia," Studii Financiare (Financial Studies), Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 24(2), pages 64-90, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:vls:finstu:v:24:y:2020:i:2:p:64-90
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.icfm.ro/RePEc/vls/vls_pdf/vol24i2p64-90.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeacle, Ingrid, 2008. "Beyond the boring grey: The construction of the colourful accountant," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 19(8), pages 1296-1320.
    2. World Bank, 2007. "Ethiopia : Accounting and Auditing," World Bank Publications - Reports 12244, The World Bank Group.
    3. Shirley Carr & Frances Chua & Hector Perera, 2006. "University Accounting Curricula: The Perceptions of an Alumni Group," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 359-376.
    4. Mark McCartney & Ronald Marden & Lorinda Adair, 2002. "Topical coverage in internal auditing: academic versus practitioner perceptions," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(4), pages 311-329.
    5. Marie H. Kavanagh & Lyndal Drennan, 2008. "What skills and attributes does an accounting graduate need? Evidence from student perceptions and employer expectations," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 48(2), pages 279-300, June.
    6. Harshini P. Siriwardane & Chris H. Durden, 2014. "The Communication Skills of Accountants: What we Know and the Gaps in our Knowledge," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 119-134, April.
    7. Nadana Abayadeera & Kim Watty, 2016. "Generic skills in accounting education in a developing country: Exploratory evidence from Sri Lanka," Asian Review of Accounting, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 24(2), pages 149-170, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexandra Domingos & Manuela Sarmento, 2022. "COVID-19’s Implications for Accounting Courses’ Competence Development: The Case of Portugal," International Journal of Higher Education, Sciedu Press, vol. 11(4), pages 177-177, August.
    2. Monique Micallef & Cheryl Mifsud & Lauren Ellul & Peter J. Baldacchino & Simon Grima, 2023. "The Skill Set Required in the Accounting Workplace: Perspectives of Accounting Graduates and Warrant Holders," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(4), pages 117-145.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pan, Peipei & Perera, Hector, 2012. "Market relevance of university accounting programs: Evidence from Australia," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 91-108.
    2. Peggy Coady & Seán Byrne & John Casey, 2018. "Positioning of emotional intelligence skills within the overall skillset of practice-based accountants: employer and graduate requirements," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 94-120, January.
    3. Andon, Paul & Chong, Kar Ming & Roebuck, Peter, 2010. "Personality preferences of accounting and non-accounting graduates seeking to enter the accounting profession," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 253-265.
    4. Hamood Mohammed Al-Hattami, 2021. "University Accounting Curriculum, IT, and Job Market Demands: Evidence From Yemen," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, April.
    5. Nanja Kroon & Maria do Céu Alves, 2023. "Fifteen Years of Accounting Professional’s Competencies Supply and Demand: Evidencing Actors, Competency Assessment Strategies, and ‘Top Three’ Competencies," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-23, February.
    6. Siriwardane, H.P. & Low, K.-Y. & Blietz, D., 2015. "Making entry-level accountants better communicators: A Singapore-based study of communication tasks, skills, and attributes," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 332-347.
    7. Plant, Kato & Barac, Karin & Sarens, Gerrit, 2019. "Preparing work-ready graduates – skills development lessons learnt from internal audit practice," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 33-47.
    8. Tracey J. Riley & Kathleen A. Simons, 2016. "The written communication skills that matter most for accountants," Accounting Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(3), pages 239-255, June.
    9. Komarev, Iliya & Preobragenskaya, Galina, 2022. "A framework of market-relevant accounting competencies for the Gulf Cooperation countries (GCC)," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    10. Bernadette Smith & William Maguire & Helen Haijuan Han, 2018. "Generic skills in accounting: perspectives of Chinese postgraduate students," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(2), pages 535-559, June.
    11. Bitbol-Saba, Nathalie & Dambrin, Claire, 2019. "“It’s not often we get a visit from a beautiful woman!” The body in client-auditor interactions and the masculinity of accountancy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    12. Popoola, Oluwatoyin Muse Johnson & Ahmad, Ayoib B Che & Kehinde, Oyewumi Hassan, 2016. "Determinants of Internal Audit Task Performance in Nigerian Tertiary Institutions: A Conceptual Approach," MPRA Paper 75944, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Amondarain, Josune & Aldazabal, M. Edurne & Espinosa-Pike, Marcela, 2023. "Gender differences in the auditing stereotype and their influence on the intention to enter the profession," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    14. Diaeldin Osman & Conor O’Leary & Mark Brimble & Dave Thompson, 2019. "Factor That Impact Attrition And Retention Rates Among Accountancy Diploma Students: Evidence From Saudi Arabia," Business Education and Accreditation, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 11(1), pages 89-110.
    15. Carla Carvalho & Ana Carlos Almeida, 2022. "The Adequacy of Accounting Education in the Development of Transversal Skills Needed to Meet Market Demands," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-18, May.
    16. Maria-Silvia Fota & Nicoleta-Elena Cristea & Alexandru Ureche & Nadia Albu, 2024. "Accountants’ Competencies for Sustainability Reporting: An Exploratory Study," Journal of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Faculty of Accounting and Management Information Systems, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 446-460, June.
    17. Daoust, Laurence, 2020. "Playing the Big Four recruitment game: The tension between illusio and reflexivity," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    18. Charles H. Cho & Matias Laine & Robin W. Roberts & Michelle Rodrigue, 2018. "The Frontstage and Backstage of Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Evidence from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Bill," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 865-886, October.
    19. Aldo Pavan & Isabella Fadda, 2017. "Increasing the value of accounting research: An Italian perspective," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2017(2), pages 29-42.
    20. NICOLAESCU Cristina & DAVID Delia & FARCAS Pavel, 2017. "Professional And Transversal Competencies In The Accounting Field Do Employers’ Expectations Fit Students’ Perceptions? Evidence From Western Romania," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 12(3), pages 126-140, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Professional Accountant; Employers; skills; Ethiopia Pages: 64-90;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M4 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vls:finstu:v:24:y:2020:i:2:p:64-90. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Daniel Mateescu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfiarro.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.