Tomas Carey is co-Principal Catalyst for the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada, Executive-in-Residence with the Monash University Faculty of Arts and a former Associate Vice-President at the University of Waterloo.
Jennifer Justice is an Accountant with Kendall Sinclair Cowper & Daigle LLP in North Bay (Ontario) and a recent graduate from Nipissing University’s School of Business.
Anahita Baregheh is an Associate Professor at Nipissing University’s School of Business and Research Director for the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada.
In a previous post, we outlined our prototype framework for a Ladder of Opportunities for professional development in for individual capability to engage with innovation in the workplace. We have been piloting, evaluating and refining this framework in two ways:
Proof-of-concept test cases in specific work domains, to identify how well the framework fits with what we know about workplace innovation in that domain and to identify the context-specific issues to be addressed for its productive use in domain-specific professional development for workplace innovation.
Ongoing experiments to apply the framework in higher education learning experiences, to develop capability in workplace innovation across a range of potential work domains
In this post, we describe our use of the Accountancy work domain as an initial proof-of-concept test case for the first of these evaluations. Subsequent posts will look at the Job Crafting and Innovation Adaptation components of the framework, the activities of Design Innovation and Intrapreneurship in Accountancy, and example learning resources in Job Crafting specific to Accountancy which could complement or replace generic case stories in our initial resource set.
(Our current experiments in the second area, to evaluate how the framework can be used and improved in higher education programs, will be the subject of future posts. Past blog posts have described the 2020 Australian pilot course unit in Understanding Workplace Innovation at Monash University in Melbourne, as well as earlier experiments with Canadian workplace and higher education partners in the Toronto and Vancouver areas.)
The choice of Accountancy is partly a matter of convenience: Jennifer joined our WINCan team as a research assistant as she completed her degree in Accountancy and was moving from part-time to full-time work at a regional accounting firm. The choice of Accountancy as our first test domain also reflected the importance of professional development in workplace innovation to prepare accountants for expected changes in the profession, as our first section below shows.
Our next three proof-of-concept work domains are Human Resource Management, Software Development and Higher Education Teaching; these choices are again largely driven by the availability of interested subject matter experts to help us identify and evaluate examples from their domains. We will incorporate what we learn from these tests into revisions to the prototype framework and to our higher education learning resources and case stories, before sharing with workplace partners for pilot tests of domain-specific professional development.
The growing importance of workplace innovation in Accountancy
As a highly-regulated profession, Accountancy has not traditionally been regarded as a hotbed for innovation – by people both inside and outside the field. From outside the profession, “the perceived role of accountants related to the recording of financial transactions or scorekeeping duties that were historical in nature and hence backward-looking…Although the role of the accountant has undergone a significant transformation as a consequence of changes in the business environment, these traditional perceptions continue[i]”. As for the view from within, Tom recalls his discussion on workplace innovation a few years ago with Accountancy faculty at Canada’s largest university – all also professional accountants – where the shared view was “hey, innovative accountants go to jail”.
Now, however, as we surveyed views from inside the profession for this test case we were struck by the change in perspective in the last 2 to 3 years. While accounting has traditionally been regarded as a discipline that hinders innovation, today there is general consensus about the role it plays in helping organizations and managerial actors to achieve innovation[ii].
There is a broad expectation[iii] that technological advances from outside the profession will dramatically alter some of the tasks and roles traditionally taken on by accountants. The most frequently cited advances are in:
Data Analytics, where “high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets [the 3Vs]… enable enhanced insight, decision making, and process automation[iv]”.
Blockchain technology, a “digital ledger that allows [us] to capture transactions conducted among several parties in real-time and serves as a decentralized database[v]”
Artificial Intelligence, where many routine accounting tasks such as auditing transactions will become automated[vi]
Internet of Things[vii], scaling up the advances above via connectivity between smart machines, data and people (also known as the 4th Industrial Revolution).
Other observers[viii] have noted the need to consider “two interrelated drivers of disruptive change being experienced by accountants: technological innovations and changes in regulations” and the major challenges to a highly-regulated professional caused by the resulting “lag time between the enactment of innovations in accountancy and service practices and their capture and their incorporation into requested and prescribed professional standards“.
Beyond technology innovations, other broad societal changes can stimulate innovations in accounting. For example, recent research on innovating corporate accounting and reporting for Sustainability[ix] concluded that “a reorientation and more research are needed to develop corporate accounting approaches to address environmental and social challenges more effectively”. (Another area of emerging interest is the potential contribution of innovations in Accountancy to fostering more innovativeness in organizational workplaces and workforces[x]).
Of course, the impacts of these innovations on Accountancy can do more than displace old tasks and roles: they can create new opportunities as well. For example, “through the use of digital technologies, accountants will be able to access previously unobtainable data in real time, improve data quality through greater accuracy and timeliness, and improve assurance of information for decision-making purposes”[xi].
Impacts on Higher Education and Professional Development in Accountancy
In response to these developments, leaders in Accountancy professional associations and higher education communities are calling for more emphasis in Accountancy programs on developing capability for innovation (and in demonstrating innovation in teaching and learning within Accountancy programs in higher education). For example:
The two national professional associations in the U.S. have called on educators to recognize that “innovation and change are difficult, time-consuming and necessary to offering effective, thought-provoking, knowledge-building learning experiences for students”[xii] [AAA, 2012]
A New Zealand teacher/researcher in Accountancy has articulated “Seven principles to ensure future-ready accounting graduates[xiii]”, including “Ingenuity, specialization, innovation, creative design and thinking are likely to be the drivers of career success”.
Our next posts will look at specific examples from Accountancy for the elements of our Ladder of Opportunities framework for professional development in workplace innovation.
This project was supported in part by a grant from eCampus Ontario’s Virtual Learning System program.
References:
[i] Paul K. Wells (2019) How does contact with accountants influence perceptions of accounting?, Accounting Education, 28:2, 127-148,
[ii] Major, M., Suomala, P., & Laine, T. (2018). Introduction to the special issue on accounting and innovation. Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management, 15(2), 154-160.)
[iii] E.g., Kroon, N.; Alves, M.d.C.; Martins, I. (2021). The Impacts of Emerging Technologies on Accountants’ Role and Skills: Connecting to Open Innovation—A Systematic Literature Review. J. Open Innov. Technol. Mark. Complex.
[iv] Gartner, I.T. Glossary (2020). https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/bigdata
[v] Bonyuet, D. (2020).Overview and Impact of Blockchain on Auditing. Int. J. Digit. Account. Res. 20, 31–43.
[vi] Kokina, J. & Davenport, T.H. (2017). The Emergence of Artificial Intelligence: How Automation is Changing Auditing. J. Emerg. Technol. Account. 14, 115–122.
[vii] Tsiligiris, V., & Bowyer, D. (2021). Exploring the impact of 4IR on skills and personal qualities for future accountants: a proposed conceptual framework for university accounting education. Accounting Education, 1-29.
[viii] Emma C. Gardner & John R. Bryson (2021) The dark side of the industrialisation of accountancy: innovation, commoditization, colonization and competitiveness, Industry and Innovation (Special Issue on the Dark Side of Innovation) 28:1, 42-57.
[ix] Schaltegger, S., Etxeberria, I. Á., & Ortas, E. (2017). Innovating corporate accounting and reporting for sustainability–attributes and challenges. Sustainable Development, 25(2), 113-122. See also Makarenko, I., & Plastun, A. (2017). The role of accounting in sustainable development. Accounting and Financial Control, 1(2), 4-12.
[x] Healy, M., Cleary, P., & Walsh, E. (2018). Innovativeness and accounting practices: an empirical investigation. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management.
[xi] Hart, L. (2017). How industry 4.0 will change accounting? Newsletter. Journal of Accountancy, AICPA. https://www.Journalofaccountancy.Com/Newsletters/2017/Sep/Industry-4-0-Change-Accounting.html
[xii] AAA (2012). The Pathways Commission: Charting a National Strategy for the Next Generation of Accountants. American Accounting Association (AAA) and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). p. 78 https://aaahq.org/Pathways-Commission
[xiii] De Villiers, R. (2020). Seven principles to ensure future-ready accounting graduates–a model for future research and practice. Meditari Accountancy Research. Principle #3, p.. 11