Abstract
Purpose - Over the years, the context of work for accounting professionals has changed dramatically. In the present time, the accounting profession has witnessed the existence of a gap between the current and desired skills in the accounting field. The study intends to review the literature on the dynamic relationship between cost accounting curriculum content and performance of accountants in South Africa. Design– The paper used a desk study review methodology where relevant empirical literature was reviewed to identify main themes and to extract knowledge gaps.Findings – It was found that studies on the competence of cost accountants are few; the existing studies are not conclusive because they found either a positive relationship, negative relation or no significant relation at all. In addition, methodological gaps and contextual gaps exist since most studies are qualitative in nature and are from developing economies while few are from South Africa. This implies that this area has not been deeply explored thus paving the way for further research. Originality/value – The paper offers a guidance on classification of competencies acquired by cost accounting graduates and identifies a knowledge gap on to which further studies can be conducted. In addition, the paper results will have practical and policy implications as far as modeling curriculum development of cost accounting education is concerned. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n25p108
Highlights
Background of StudyOver the years, the context of work for accounting professionals has changed dramatically
The results from this study show that students in their final year of study who are exposed to greater communication demands, do not on average have higher levels of communication apprehension than their peers in earlier studies
Regression results showed that student satisfaction with virtual learning environment (VLE) was significantly associated with providing lecture notes online, use of a bulletin board, online assessment, and other tools such as chat or video
Summary
Background of StudyOver the years, the context of work for accounting professionals has changed dramatically. Many practicing management accountants have moved to service the information needs of managers who have developed interests in sustainable business, stakeholder management, integrated reporting and a host of new techniques (Burns & Vaivio, 2001; Scapens, 2006; Tan, Fowler & Hawkes, 2004; Sharma, Lawrence & Lowe, 2010). Tan, et al(2004) point out that the cost accounting curriculum has not kept up with practice. A range of new cost accounting techniques have emerged since the 1970s, for example, activity based costing, costs of quality reporting and strategic management accounting. While new techniques are being adopted in practice, the traditional management accounting concepts have not been completely abandoned (Tan et al, 2004)
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