The small business sector is a significant user of the accounting profession’s information and services. The resultant insights, informed by media
richness theory, demonstrate the importance that practitioners place on listening skills, the types of listening skills used by practitioners and how these skills are incorporated in the communication practices that practitioners adopt with clients. In particular, the study highlights the application of listening skills at the levels of day-to-day technical communication, strategic client service and relationship development. The paper provides important evidence to convince both accounting educators and students of the need to develop listening skills as part of the
accounting curriculum.