Thesis (PhD (Accountancy))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The accountancy profession operates within an environment that is changing at a
rapid pace. It is the responsibility of the profession to ensure that all its members
(including future members) meet the expectations placed on them by the users of
their services. Professional accountants need to stay relevant in this changing
environment that may require them to change or adapt the services they offer to their
clients. It is the responsibility of professional accountancy bodies to strategically plan
for these changes to ensure that members that join the profession posses the
required knowledge and skills to be relevant and to stay relevant within the
environment they operate in.
One of the key drivers of change in the environment has been identified as the
advances in information and communication technologies. Information and
communication technologies have an impact on the role that accountants play in the
environment (i.e. what they do) as well as on how they perform their role (i.e. how
they do it). The main aim of this research was to determine if, and to what extent,
students, that have completed their formal education and enter the profession as
trainee accountants, possess the knowledge and skills to enable them to interact with
and use information technology to be regarded as competent accountants within the
South African business environment. Accountants are educated in South Africa at
universities that offer programmes that have been accredited by a professional
accountancy body as well as through practical training offered by training
organisations. During this education process, accountants are imparted with the
knowledge and skills as prescribed by the professional accountancy body so that
they can join the profession as competent accountants.
This research showed that there are serious shortcomings in the formal education of
students regarding information technology that results in students entering the
profession as trainee accountants not being competent in using information
technology. The reasons for students not being competent in information technology
are: • the lack of clear guidance on the IT skills required of students completing their
formal education because of professional accountancy bodies setting IT syllabi
that are too vague and/or concise;
• ignorance of the demands on trainee accountants as to the IT skills they require
to be competent in the South African business environment; and
• the lack of proper IT training offered by South African universities that deliver
trainee accountants that possess a limited range of IT skills that may not be
relevant to the environment students will function in.
Through a survey the perceptions of role-players at South African universities on the
strategies that universities would have to employ to ensure that the students they
deliver to profession, acquire the relevant IT skills to be competent in the use of
information technology, were determined.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:sun/oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/1349 |
| Date | 12 1900 |
| Creators | Wessels, Philippus Lodewikus |
| Contributors | Boshoff, W. H., University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Accountancy. |
| Publisher | Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Stellenbosch |
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