Sustainability vital to better accountants, research suggests

(PhysOrg.com) -- A recent study by the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability (ARIES) has found that modern accounting graduates lack the ‘soft skills’ many finance employers are looking for in new employees.

The study, conducted for the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, concluded that clients of the accounting professions were “dissatisfied with the lack of skills required for a changing and more demanding economic environment.

Andrew Martin and Dr Frances Steele of Macquarie University looked specifically at sustainability education in the accounting profession, but their findings have broader implications. They found that prospective employers seek skills appropriate to the sustainability agenda. When faced with a choice between two graduates of equal academic ability, the report says employers will favour the applicant with the strongest ‘soft skills’ such as communication, team working and problem solving.

The report recommends that focusing on the development of these abilities, using sustainability as an example will not only improve accountants’ green credentials, but also provide them with transferable skills that employers value.

They also advise that students undertake compulsory experiential learning with mandatory core units focusing on these interpersonal skill sets, a concept with which Professor Schwartz, Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University, agrees.

“We’re having all of our accounting students do some science and some arts,” he says, “and we’re asking all our students to do something outside the university - service work, or volunteering here or overseas, to teach them something that you just can’t learn from books.”

ARIES will present their research, and discuss their recommendations, at a two-day conference in Sydney, starting 30 September 2010.

Provided by Macquarie University