The Value of Soft-Skills in the Accounting Profession: Perspectives of Current Accounting Students

Abstract

With employers increasingly demanding a greater range of softer skills such as effective communication, the paper is intended to identify current accounting students' perspectives on soft skills, identify their self-assessed competence in the respective soft skills, and suggest ways in which accounting students can gain soft skills. We assessed students' level of perception/knowledge of soft skills, its' importance and their selfassessment of their level of possession of these skills. With a sample size of 313 participants, we found that there were fewer gaps in what students perceived as being important in the accounting profession and how prepared they are in fulfilling the expectations. In addition, we found that the universities were placing more emphasis on developing these soft skills that have shown to be beneficial in students' careers.

Taking stock of South African accounting students pervasive skills development: Are we making progress?

“…From the fairly high mean scores indicated in Table 7, it is evident that all three role-players perceived all 12 the pervasive skills to be very important as the lowest mean score rating between all three role-players for all the skills was reported as 7.3 (see and influencing others' that appeared amongst the bottom three skills ranked by all three roleplayers, where mean scores of 8.32 (students), 7.30 (educators) and 7.74 (employers) were reported for 'leadership', and mean scores of 8.11 (students), 8.1 (educators) and 7.57 (employers) were reported for 'influencing others'. These findings correspond to those of research conducted by Jackson, Sibson and Riebe (2013, 14), as well as Lang (2009), who also reported consistently lower mean scores for the skill of 'influencing others', while Ramlall and Ramlall (2014) also identified a lack of leadership skills in accounting students. As there is a prevailing need for future managers and leaders who can negotiate and influence in an effective yet sensitive manner (Fisher 2011), new and innovative ways to teach leadership skills (such social intelligence, influencing others and conflict resolution) should be developed, evaluated and applied.…”

“…Internationally, the need and importance of pervasive skills development in accounting graduates has been voiced by various stakeholders including professional accounting bodies (Chartered Accountants of Canada 2007; IFAC 2010; CIMA 2014), accounting and businessrelated employer companies (Kavanagh and Drennan 2008;Milner and Hill 2008; Confederation of British Industry (CBI) 2011; Jackson and Chapman 2012; Robles 2012), academics (Gammie, Gammie and Cargill 2002;Kermis and Kermis 2010;Paisey and Paisey 2010), as well as accounting students (Stivers and Onifade 2013;Ramlall and Ramlall 2014).…”

“Future-proof your Degree”

“…This lack of understanding and resistance also meant sometimes that the students found it difficult to reflect on what they had gained, and therefore found it difficult to articulate the development of their "global citizenship" graduate attribute. Evidence from the literature supports the notion that the development of soft skills for students doing technical business subjects tends to be an issue (Ramlall and Ramlall, 2014). Pursuit of such skills therefore requires a delicate, measured and persistent approach.…”

Traceability of Intra- and Interpersonal Skills: From Education to Labor Market

“…Lindsey and Rice recapitulate that successful graduates should possess a high ratio of emotional-social intelligence against book smarts [65]. In fact, as many authors as Saravanan [66], Ramlall and Ramlall [67] or Alismail and McGuire [68], among others, resume, employers are increasingly demanding a greater range of soft skills. In fact, as Robles holds [62], candidates, who add value with their soft skills, have the ability to make the difference in obtaining and retaining the jobs for which they have been prepared.…”