Digital Transformation of Accounting Profession: Post Covid-19 era

Abstract

The accounting profession faces significant challenges and noticeable changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The rising demand for digital talent and the need to ensure critical thinking skills are applied in making decisions have become the main challenges for accountants nowadays. A drastic change from the official site to working from home due to lockdown is an issue to be discussed. Therefore, based on case studies, this paper aims to discuss the effects of COVID-19 on the accounting profession. The selection of the case studies is based on the company awarded as Best Employer and Most Attractive Graduate Employers to Work in Malaysia in recent years. By focusing on the importance of digital and critical thinking, a framework is developed to show the transformation of the accounting profession over the last 50 years and future insights for the accounting talent in the current context. The findings show that the Accountant's traditional role of preparing a complete set of accounts is still vital and relevant. However, accountants need to equip themselves with digital and critical thinking skills to become future-fit accountants in the near future, especially in the post-COVID-19 era. Keywords: Digital Skills; Critical Thinking; Accounting Profession; Covid-19; Transformation eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7iSI8.3925