Accounting profession has experienced bad image for so long. In the last decades the negative stereotypes of the accounting profession were dramatically decreased by many factors including: the changing role of accountants, technological advancements, changing business practices and accountant’s value is highly understood. Today accountants are enjoying their profession like others and their value is increasing overtime. It’s very important to understand factors that outweighed the negative stereotypes of accountants and accounting profession. Therefore, the following paragraphs summarize the subject matter:
- The changing role of accountant is one of the main factors that eliminated the stereotypes. Robert Half management resources interviewed 270 Canadian CFOs, and he found that more than 90 percent of those interviewed said their roles have expanded over the past few years into the outside of traditional accounting and finance. “The reality is that the world accountants work in is different from traditionally. They’re much more involved in decision making. They are linked in to strategy,” said Tashia Batstone, Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada vice-president of education.
- Changing business practices expanded the accountants’ roles and responsibilities from record keepers to business strategists. Lusher (2012) believes that accounting professionals provide proper guidance to help organizations accomplish their financial plans, strategic goals, and environmental accountability. In 2002, after the scandals of major US accounting big firms, Sarbanes-Oxley Act was established which put strict auditing and reporting requirements on public companies. Therefore, accounting professionals experienced new era of auditing and fraud detection mission.
- Technological advancements simplified the accounting’s harsh tasks, such as manual book keeping is not used today anymore, instead, excel or spreadsheet is simply clicked on the finger tips. In addition, today accountants are familiar with different software and hardware products that perform the complex tasks of accounting (like nine cycle) in a shortcut manner without losing energy. So, the stereotype of accounting is mundane profession doesn’t exist.
- Accountants’ value is highly understood by the people. Studies found that in the 1970s and the 1980s the accountant was believed as a responsible and rational person. Furthermore, the accountant was believed to be as atrained action man in the 1990s. However, in a recent label the accountant seemed as a more self-indulgent person. These trends observed reflect changes in wider social practice from low-civilized to highly-civilized (Baldvinsdottir, Burns & Nørreklit, 2010).
- Accounting is a boundary-less career, unlike other professions. Governments, businesses, non-for-profit entities, hotels, hospitals and banks hardly need professional accountants alike, while other fields have rare opportunities compared to the accounting career. Therefore, accounting is needed by almost in every industry. “It appeals to people who are looking for a career. They know accountants will always be in demand whether the markets are up or down,” said Jeffrey Power, accounting department’ chair at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. Furthermore, a study conducted by ACCA in 2006 found that in Malaysia alone there is an expectation to require more than 65,000 professional accountants by 2020, more than three times the number that is available now (2006). Malaysia is not the only country who is suffering this shortage; but it is a universal. Even United States of America hasn’t spared from that epidemic level of scarcity (Saemann & Crooker, 1999).
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