How should information technology be covered in the accounting program?

• Date: 01 December 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1405
• Author: Emilio Boulianne
• Published date: 01 December 2016

How should information technology be covered in

the accounting program?

Emilio Boulianne*

John Molson School of Business Concordia University

Abstract

Professional accounting associations, business schools, and

accounting professors are increasingly faced with an impor-

tant question: Which information technology (IT) competen-

cies should be developed in accounting programs to train

skilled professional accountants? Key references in account-

ing education show that advanced-level training in IT is very

important for accountants’careers. Through content analy-

sis, I investigate how Canadian CPAs are trained in IT. Re-

sults indicate that, postmerger, IT has lost ground in the

CPAprogram. This could be mainly due to: (a) a larger cov-

erage in f‌inance, strategy, and governance topics; (b) chal-

lenges to promote and teach IT in terms of course

development; and (c) a lack of recognition of and incentives

for academic work on IT. Compared to some key players in

accounting education, it appears that Canada has taken a

different route with regard to the required IT competencies.

Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons,

Ltd.

Keywords: accounting education, accounting curriculum,

competency map, CPA education program, information

technology

Résumé

Les associations de comptables professionnels, les écoles de

gestion et les professeurs de comptabilité sont de plus en

plus confrontés à une question importante à savoir: quelles

compétences faut-il développer en technologies de

l’information (TI) pour former des comptables

professionnels aguerris? La consultation des ouvrages de

référence utilisés pour la formation des comptables indique

qu’une formation avancée en TI est très importante pour une

fructueuse carrière en comptabilité. Dans cet article,

j’utilise l’analyse de contenu pour examiner la formation

que les comptables professionnels agréés (CPA) reçoivent

en TI. Les résultats indiquent qu’après la fusion des ordres

comptables canadiens, les TI ont perdu du terrain dans le

programme CPA. Cette situation serait attribuable: (a) à

une plus grande couverture de sujets tels que la f‌inance, la

stratégie et la gouvernance; (b) aux diff‌icultés liées à la pro-

motion et à l’enseignement des TI pendant l’élaboration des

cours et (c) au manque de reconnaissance des travaux

académiques en TI et l’absence d’encouragement dans ce

domaine. La comparaison de la situation canadienne avec

celle d’autres pays montre que le Canada s’est engagé dans

une voie différente en ce qui concerne les compétences

requises en TI.

Mots-clés : formation en comptabilité, programme de

comptabilité, grille de compétence, programme de formation

des CPA, technologies de l’information

Professional accountants associations, business schools,

and accounting professors are increasingly faced with an im-

portant question: What competencies and educational pro-

grams are needed to provide professional accountants with

adequate training? And more specif‌ically, what level of in-

formation technology (IT) education should be included in

accounting curricula?

1

To answer these recurrent questions,

working groups and committees have formed around the

topic, leading to the publication of a number of reports and

frameworks. A common thread of these reports is the impor-

tance that education programs should give to IT. For

†

I am grateful for the numerous and constructive comments received by two

anonymous reviewers and the Editor Sylvie Héroux (ESG-UQAM) in par-

ticular. I would like to thank participants at the ESSEC Business School,

Sprott School of Business, and the European Accounting Annual Congress

in Tallinn for their comments. I would also like to thank Darrell Herauf

(Carleton University) and Leanne Keddie (JMSB) for their valuable feed-

back. Finally, I would like to thank the CPA Research Centre in Account-

ability and the Manulife Professorship in Financial Planning, both at the

John Molson School of Business, for f‌inancial support.

*Please address correspondence to: Emilio Boulianne, John Molson School

of Business, Concordia University, Accountancy, 1450 Guy Street, Mon-

tréal, Québec, H3H 0A1, Canada. Email: emilio.boulianne@concordia.ca

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

33: 304–317 (2016)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1405

Can J Adm Sci

33(4), 304–317 (2016)Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 304