Accounting education has been under attack for many years. Resulting from
rapid technological advances and growing market globalization, the role of today's accountants has switched from the scorekeeper of business operations or financial information generator to the provider and interpreter of diversified information to
various internal and external users of financial information.Such developments require expanding the knowledge and skills of accounting professionals to meet the changing demands
stemming from the new business environment. Several studies have examined the issue
of what should be the knowledge and skill components of today!s accounting
education programs that can satisfy the demands for training future accountants.
Consensus has emerged and efforts have been made to implement accounting education
reform in the US and in other countries in recent years
This paper examines the development of accounting education in China, focusing
mainly on identifying the needed knowledge and skills for accounting professionals
in China!s changing business environment. Through a questionnaire survey, we gathered
perceptions from Chinese accounting practitioners, educators, and students
about the required knowledge, skills, and pedagogy underlying accounting programs.
Our results reveal that the majority of respondents agree on a set of fundamental
and expanded knowledge and skills for the training of professional
accountants, although there is some variance in the perceptions of the three groups
of respondents. The respondents also agreed that the present state of accounting
education in China fell significantly behind the demands for the needed knowledge
and skills of professional accountants, indicating that accounting education reform
in China is imperative.
This paper also compares and analyzes the needed knowledge and skills as perceived
by respondents in the US and China. We found that there is commonality
in the perceived knowledge and skills and their importance ranking as recognized
by the respondents in the two countries, but some distinct differences in the respondents
! perceptions exist. It is argued that the differences stem from the varied levels of
economic and technological development, as well as from different social and cultural
influences in the two countries.
The paper consists of five sections. The study background is presented and relevant
literature is reviewed in the next section, followed by the elaboration of research
questions and methodology. Survey results and analysis are then sequentially presented.
A brief conclusions section completes this paper.