Cloud Business and Closing the Gap Between Accounting Theory and Practice: A Case Study of Accountingpod

Abstract

Wells (2018) called for accounting education practitioners to use textbook and teaching material which better reflects “the wider context . . . and the influence of technology on accounting process as currently practiced” (pg. 40). The business sector has adopted cloud technologies and needs appropriately skilled knowledge workers. Using data from a ‘proof of concept’ online competition and university ‘content as a service’ [CAAS] delivery, this paper reports on how cloud technology facilitated educator and student connection to current practice and enabled innovative pedagogies for accounting education. The findings show that when accounting students were exposed to real-world data, context and real-time business technologies, they saw the connections to their future work or entrepreneurship. Cloud learning solutions across cloud business platforms bridged this gap for them between accounting theory and practice. The dynamic online accounting teaching tool will be explored during this presentation in light of these findings.