The written communication skills that matter most for accountants

Abstract

Given the importance of effective written communication skills to the discipline of accounting, faculty must emphasize these skills in their classroom in order to adequately prepare students for successful careers in the field. Since 2000, only two studies in the accounting literature have examined which written communication skills are needed by entry-level accountants and consensus is that spelling, grammar, punctuation, and clarity are of utmost importance. We surveyed accounting practitioners and faculty to determine what exactly, within those categories, is most bothersome. For example, within clarity, is it wordy sentences, passive voice, or shifts in tense? By documenting the most bothersome errors, our findings can help accounting educators to focus their limited time on the appropriate skill emphasis. ARTICLE HISTORY

Pervasive skills and accounting graduates' employment prospects: Are South African employers calling for pervasive skills when recruiting?

“…The results confirm that oral communication skills are considered essential by employers of accounting professionals because new accountants spend an average of six hours per week communicating orally with colleagues, clients, and superiors (Gray, 2010). And the results are in agreement that written communication is critical particularly, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and language clarity (Riley & Simons, 2016), given the roles of accountants who write reports to explain how money was budgeted and expended. Dale-Jones et al (2013) concurred, quoting the International Accounting Education Standards Board, IES 3, which stated: "Professional accountants are expected to be able to present, discuss, report and defend views effectively through formal, informal, written and spoken communication" (IFAC, 2014, p. 5).…”

Importance of Generic Skills in Accounting Education: Evidence from Egypt

“…However, these results must be interpreted cautiously because only 23 newspaper advertisements from CPA firms and 30 from Internet position announcements for firms were used during the study period (Normand & Cummings, 2015) Ahadiat and Martin (2016) in their study reached the same conclusion that communication skills are among the most important criteria for selecting accounting employees. Moreover, Riley and Simons (2016) pointed out that it is imperative that accounting educators incorporate written communication skills in the accounting curriculum.…”

Online instruction in large scale sport sociology courses: A collective autoethnography

“…Since there is limited time in face-to-face classrooms to develop students' sport sociological imagination through writing, written communication in distance learning is a critical advantage to prepare students to acquire critical thinking. I am not alone in emphasising the importance of written communication (Jone, 2011;Riley & Simons, 2016), which plays an important role in developing sport sociological imagination by giving feedback. My university appears to devalue written communication by situating graders as a 'no-contact' position.…”