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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Helping young professionals develop specific communication skills can significantly impact their careers-and the accounting profession itself.
Communication skills play an essential role in career success for accounting professionals-a fact that has been widely acknowledged.1 Despite this longstanding awareness, recruiters indicate that accounting students continue to lack the communication skill sets that the profession requires.2 Identifying the specific communication skills that are most needed and then helping students and young professionals develop those skills can have a significant impact on their careers as well as on the profession.
An issue that perhaps contributes to this lack of skills is that students who are considering whether to pursue an accounting degree and career are often unaware of the high level of importance that the profession places on these skills. In turn, the result is often a mismatch between the skills possessed by the young accounting professionals and the skills that are truly necessary for success within the profession.3 In recent years, this mismatch has extended to even the preferred mode of communication. It was found that prospective accounting professionals, more accustomed to using technology as a primary means of communication (both academically and socially), strongly favor the more indirect communication method of emailing rather than the more direct method of placing a phone call.4
In a previous study we conducted with R.J. Grambo, we looked at the specific communication skills deemed essential to success within the arena of public accounting.5 In terms of communication skills, that study found that the public accounting profession places the highest importance-across all career levels (staff, manager, and partner)-on interpersonal communication skills (vs. leadership and organizational communication skills). For accounting students-as well as recent graduates entering the profession-awareness of these findings can play an important role in the advancement of their career. Yet are the specific communication skills deemed important in public accounting the same as, or different from, those regarded as most important within other sectors in which management accountants typically serve, like public and private corporations or governmental organizations?
Supported by a grant from IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants), we conducted a new study to identify the communication skills deemed most important across various sectors of the accounting profession. The findings are presented here along with analysis...