The research shows the high importance attributed by the seven regional development
officers interviewed in South Australia to the role of the physical presence of
accountancy practices and accountants in rural locations for reasons of competition,
morale and direct and indirect engagement with community members. The
identified importance is linked to the various aspects of the notion of sustainable
rural communities, economic, social and environmental. The key is to link the
research results back to the main problem of rural community developers maintaining
and developing, or sustaining, rural communities in the face of urban attraction.
Accountants and their accountancy practices form a part of the holistic rural
communities in which they are located. Hence if they reduce their presence or assume
out of area arms-length provision of services the social importance of their presence is
lost and rural communities become the poorer as a result.
In the context of modern accountancy practices and accountants whose professional
services have a growing focus on metropolitan location and out of area provision of
professional services, the difficulty for regional development officers is in ensuring
establishment and continuation of physical practices with the accountant being
present for regular, urgent as needed discussions. Rural policy makers face this
challenge of combining with policy makers, professional accountancy bodies and
accountants to ensure the presence of accounting firms in the future. With an aging
workforce and declining rural populations, succession within existing firms, especially
small, one or two person operations, is anything but assured. The sustainability of
rural communities requires, amongst other things, the strengthening of local
economies, and the presence of local accounting firms, rather than visitors from major
cities. The evidence presented here suggests that accounting firms, by their mere
presence in rural communities, has an impact on the morale of local residents and
business owners, as a demonstration of the strength of their communities and regions.
Accounting firms with a local commercial presence may provide a competitive
advantage between regions in effort to attract new residents. The integrated nature of
contributions of accountants and their practices to communities and their
sustainability merits further examination.
The role of accounting firms in providing business support is not novel; many
previous studies have considered the role of service providers in small business.
However, although previous studies have revealed that distance influences access to
professional services, other issues such as a lack of understanding of the range of
assistance available and the structure of the profession have not been raised. This poor
understanding of the ways in which accountants can assist business owners and how
they might be in the best position to assist is concerning from a rural development
perspective as local economies struggle to survive.
Beyond this role however the rural development officers who participated in this
study have highlighted the importance not only of the services provided but the
contributions made by individual accountants as members of communities. In a
professional and private capacity they contribute to the morale of rural residents,
community social capital, improvements in the management of community groups and their endeavours, and facilitate access to government welfare programs and special
assistance packages such as drought relief.