Accounting Students' Perception on Skills and Attributes Required Becoming Management Accountant

Abstract

Management accounting is the one of the most important knowledge or practice in the accounting industry and in many companies, especially manufacturing companies. Through decades of civilization and evolution of management accounting, the roles and responsibilities of management accountant keep changing and have been deemed as important and challenging for many businesses in this modern era of globalization. The rising importance of management accountant role have prompted this research to happen as the objective of this research is to determine accounting students' perception on skills and attributes required to become management accountant, in which students' opinions are believed to be an empirical root for their own performances in the future. The study focused on the 4 independent factors - integrity; leadership skills; intellectual skills; and communication skill. These 4 independent variables are tested to determine its significance for the dependent variable - management accountant role. A total of 250 questionnaires were divided and evenly distributed to UCSI University and Taylor's University. However, only a total of 217 respondents of accounting students were recorded. The collected data and information were analysed using tables and analysing tools from SPSS system. The discussion of result analysis showed that integrity, leadership skills, intellectual skills and communication skills have positive relationship with the management account role. In the end of discussion on research findings, leadership skills have been deemed as not significantly required to become management accountant while intellectual skill is the most significant skill required to become management accountant, followed by integrity and communication skills. The results of this study are expected to bring contribution to the accounting industry, relevant companies, educational institutions, students and also future researchers.