Developing accountants: from novice to expert

ABSTRACT

The ability of accountants to appropriately perform in practice is linked to over-arching professional competence. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is the current solution with reference to maintenance and development of professional competence. A phenomenographic approach is used to explore how accounting practitioners perceive competence in the context of their professional status and how, through engagement with CPD, they maintain and develop their professional competence. Findings highlight participant practitioners experience a series of developmental blocks at varying experiential stages and report significant differences in relation to perceptions and practices at these experiential stages. The paper provides some insights into a potential competency framework and a learning mapping which may be used by professional accounting bodies in the development of further CPD guidance.

Highlights:

• Adopts a phenomenographic approach to explore how accounting professionals perceive, maintain and develop professional competence with reference to experiential stages;

• Reports significant differences in relation to participant perceptions and practices from novice to expert experiential stages;

• Provides some insights into a competency framework and a learning mapping which could be adapted with reference to the professional development process.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional competence
• continuing professional development
• accounting profession
• experiential learning
• phenomenography
• novice to expert

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 A third approach, referred to as a combination approach is also noted in the guidance. This comprises elements of both input and output approaches, setting the amount of learning activity required and measuring the outcomes achieved.

2 IES 8 makes no reference to practitioners operating outside of audit in practice or to members of the audit engagement team other than the audit partner.

3 A second Irish professional accounting body, the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland (CPA Ireland) was established in 1926 (Murphy & Quinn, 2018). In addition, other organisations, such as CIMA and ACCA, also operate in Ireland, but as divisions of UK bodies (IAASA, 2017).

4 A phenomenographic approach has previously been used in accounting education (Lucas, 1998; Ashworth & Lucas, 1998, 2000).

5 Novice stage in this study amalgamates two of the stages reported by Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1980) and Benner (1984), novice and advanced beginner. This novice stage is a pre-qualification stage and the other three stages are post-qualification stages. While the focus of this study is on professional competence with reference to continuing professional development, it is important to include novice stage as it forms the foundation of participants’ understandings and practices.