Accounting education at the university level in developing SEE countries has often been criticised for the inability to develop essential skills of graduates necessary for a career in professional accountancy in the 21st century. Our research study presents the results of a survey among students enrolled to an accounting degree program and employers for their perceived importance of a wide range of generic and technical skills for successful entrance to the profession. The study also investigated perceived effectiveness of the university accounting education to develop important skills at an appropriate level. The results indicated agreement between the two respondent groups in respect of the greater importance of generic skills, where students gave more weight to personal skills of time management, good presentation and characteristics of self-confidence, motivation and selfpromotion. Employers valued more oral communication, knowledge of foreign languages, ethical attitude and credibility and commitment to life-long learning. The employers and students agreed that education process and program need improvements in order to allow for better development of technical and generic skills among successful graduates.
Abstract:This research study examines the importance of financial information and information contained in the ISA's New Audit Report effective from 2016 for lenders as capital providers. We base our findings on a survey conducted in September of 2016 with corporate loan officers for medium-large corporate clients in Macedonia. The results show that the annual report of the company, except for the management report and notes to the financial statements, has consistently high importance and usability for respondents' decision making. Various accounting ratios related to liquidity, financial stability and profitability of the company are considered very important and regularly used in credit analysis. However, respondents were not consistent in their shared perceptions regarding high importance of projected profits and historical information on operating cash flows. All loan officers gave high importance to the information found in existent auditor's report format regardless of the form of expressed opinion. Also, information on key audit matters, additional information on going concern and related auditor's judgement, procedures related to fraud risk were considered of high importance. Lenders rated as less important the disclosure of the name of engagement partner, auditor's statement on independence and compliance with ethical requirements and the level of materiality used in the audit.
PurposeThe state audit is crucial for society in ensuring the transparent and legal spending of public funds. In the Republic of North Macedonia, although state audit-related activities have existed since the state's independence, the State Audit Office started operating as a Supreme Audit Institution in 1999. The purpose of this research was to explore the development of the State Audit Office in the Republic of North Macedonia over the past two decades regarding the organisational aspect and the state audit-related activities.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on a detailed analysis performed using statistical tests of data collected from the State Audit Office's annual reports on operation and performed audits in the period 2001–2020, concerning the budget, organisational size, audit engagements, audited public revenues and expenditures, audit reports, and given recommendations and their implementation. The survey method was used to determine other factors that could have a correlation with the development of the State Audit Office.FindingsIn general, it can be concluded that the State Audit Office has grown in terms of financial resources at its disposal and the organisational size (number of employees). Although there is no correlation between the regularity audit engagements and the audited public revenues and expenditures, there is still a positive correlation between the audited public revenues and expenditures. The implementation of the given recommendations by the auditors is not related to the number of recommendations in the final audit reports. There are several internal, external and international factors that have a positive correlation with the development of the State Audit Office.Research limitations/implicationsThe first limitation of this paper pertains to the period of existence of the Supreme Audit Institution in the Republic of North Macedonia not being very long in order to be able to draw more significant conclusions. The second limitation concerns the measurement of the variables from the survey being based only on the perception of the state auditors. Such a measurement method might be considered less accurate in describing the actual situation.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this paper is the only one that explores the development of the Supreme Audit Institution in the Republic of North Macedonia. Furthermore, it provides a good basis for further detailed research on areas relevant to the issue. We believe that this research will enrich the existing body of literature on state audit by offering a concrete example of the development of a Supreme Audit Institution in a less-researched geographical area.
We are currently on the verge of the fourth industrial revolution (industry 4.0) that will fundamentally change the way in which businesses and individuals operate. It is characterized by the integration of both physical and virtual world with a new pulse for greater automation and autonomy of business processes without or limited need of human intervention. Cloud computing, the internet of things, big data and data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, blockchain, augmented reality are among the most exploited contributing technologies. This paper provides a conceptual framework for emerging technologies with greatest disruptive potential for the accounting and assurance profession. We have surveyed the scarce literature with the aim of investigating the relationship and interplay between most potent emerging technologies and accounting and assurance services. Our findings suggest that cloud accounting, big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning will most likely shape the accounting and assurance world for many organisations and future skills set pursued by professionals in order to add value. We conclude that current accounting research efforts are insufficient to understand and grasp the possible future interactions between the vibrant digital economy, its emerging technologies and the accounting profession, including the changing information needs of investors.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is of great importance for companies and other stakeholders, which obliges the companies to establish a way of management that will simultaneously take care of the environmental, social, and ethical aspects of factors. If corporate responsibility is the guiding factor for companies, they can easily gain a competitive advantage over others. This paper researches how the banks in the Republic of North Macedonia report on CSR and in what report format CSR data is published. The research is based on the method of content analysis and statistical analysis to determine whether the size and profit of banks affect the CSR Reporting. The sample included in the research is 14 banks that the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia has granted a license to operate. The results of this research show that the size of banks has a positive effect on CSR reporting, while on the other hand, profit does not affect it.
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