Impediments and pressures to incorporate soft skills in Higher Education accounting studies

ABSTRACT

This study explores the impediments and the pressures to establish the policy of introducing skills and competencies in the Greek Higher Education (HE) accounting studies. Soft skills may improve considerably accountants’ career prospects whether they work in industry or auditing. A mixed-method approach with two data collection phases was undertaken; survey research and semi-structured interviews. Survey research addressed a questionnaire to accounting teachers, Business Administration and Accounting (BAA) students and accounting professionals, while interviews explored the deeper views of stakeholders. 1626 responses were collected and statistically analyzed. Participants agreed that the lack of Higher Education Institutions’ (HEIs) effective partnerships with external organizations are the highest barrier to skills development, while the apparent pressure comes from the obligation to comply with European Union (EU) recommendations and Bologna Agreement. Interviews revealed challenges related to the views about ‘marketization’ of HE and the superficial compliance with policies enforced by supranational organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Soft skills
• obstacles
• Higher Education
• Greece
• accounting
• pressures

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).