Innovative and Integrative Teaching of Management Accounting
There have been many calls, especially in the United States, to improve the teaching of accounting. It is said, teaching is too much focused on only financial accounting rules, students are prepared too much only for their first jobs, with a bias on auditing jobs (Wirtschafsprüfer). However, students need competencies for a broader range of jobs, such as controllers in companies, and beyond entry-level responsibilities. Recent accounting scandals also suggest that teaching needs to be improved to better prepare students for accounting in practice. See, for example, the recent report by the Pathways Commission (The Pathways Commission, 2012, The Pathways Commission on Higher Education: Charting a National Strategy for the Next Generation of Accountants, www.pathwayscommission.org). Furthermore, the American Accounting Association and the IMA (an association of accountants and financial professionals in business) have started a joint Task Force to provide recommendations, of which I am a member, and the first part of our report and the long list of literature references are available.
The thesis project should focus on the following questions:
1) What can you find in the international literature about ways to teach accounting “in a better way”? I leave it quite open, because interesting ideas might be found about accounting topics, about teaching methods, about interdisciplinary teaching, etc. Ideas may be found in academic papers, but also in reports of professional organizations, articles in professional journals, etc. I’m particularly interested in ideas that have some empirical foundation, for example because they have been tested, or because they are supported by survey results, etc.
2) How does the teaching of accounting and, more broadly, of Wirtschaftswissenschaften in Germany compare to US business programs? I have the impression teaching in Germany is at a high level and aims to go beyond entry-level requirements, and it is not focused exclusively on auditing. Again, I’m interested in empirical studies.
3) How does the teaching of accounting and business in Canada compare to the US and Germany? This could be interesting, because Canada is also North America, but there could be significant differences with the US. (Perhaps this should be a second thesis project.)
There is a variety of sources for this thesis work, ranging from specialized journals like “Issues in Accounting Education” to programs of universities and information of professional organizations (e.g., Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA)). In addition, there are some international and German studies on the change of the role of management accountants (e.g., Jürgen Weber, Utz Schäffer, Carsten Prenzler, Zur Charakterisierung und Entwicklung von Controlleraufgaben, Zeitschrift für Planung, Vol. 12, 2001, 25-46).
