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Information Technology Skills and Competencies – A Case for Professional

Accountants

Article  in  Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing · January 2012

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-34228-8_9

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Ku Maisurah Ku Bahador Abrar Haider

Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok Kedah University of South Australia
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 Information Technology Skills and Competencies – A
Case for Professional Accountants

Ku Maisurah Ku Bahador and Abrar Haider

School of Computer and Information Science, University of South Australia,

5095, Mawson Lakes, South Australia, Australia
[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract. Growing utilisation and value profile of information technologies

have also forced professional accountants to upgrade their skills set so as
perform their job better. As a result, there is an increasing concern about the
level of competencies that accountants possess in the use of information
technologies, and whether they are prepared to meet the challenges of
contemporary business environment. However, the skills acquired by
professional accountants are still below the minimum level drawn by the
accounting professional bodies such as the International Federation of
Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. This
study focuses on information technology based competencies framework for
professional accountants, specifically those operating in small to medium sized
accounting practices. This study makes a significant contribution to knowledge
and practice by providing theoretical base for developing information
technology related competencies for knowledge workers in general and
professional accountants in particular.

Keywords: Information technology, competencies, accountants.

1 Introduction

As technologies evolve, corporate world has embraced technology at a fast rate. As a

result, almost entire businesses have been automated. The result of this automation
has been profound on job designs of the employees of these businesses. For example,
terms like ‘knowledge worker’ have been consistently used to describe contemporary
business workers, since information technologies (IT) have become an integral part of
their routine work. The role of accountants in modern business organisations is no
exception, which has been transformed from manual to computerised accounting [1].
In fact, IT has changed the way data is collected, processed, stored, and aggregated
for preparation of accounting and finance related information required by the
management to control and manage business activities [2].
IT competencies are imperative for accountants to perform their tasks [3] and
constitute IT skills, IT experience, management skills (in particular project
management) and conceptual skills. These skills on one hand aid the routine business
activities related to accountants’ work, and on the other hand help them create an
environment where these technologies operate at their optimum level for the strategic
internal and external advantage of the business. However, many parties, including
accounting practitioners have expressed their concern about the level of IT-related
skills and competencies acquired by accountants [4, 5]. Although the demand for
accounting professional arose through the need to achieve skills in IT, the skills
acquired by professional accountants are still below the minimum level drawn by the
accounting professional bodies such as the International Federation of Accountants
(IFAC) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) [4, 5, 6
and 7]. In addition, accountants are unclear about the exact IT-related skills and
competencies that need to be possessed by them. This issue inspired the researcher to
explore the set of skills required by professional accountants, specifically in
Malaysian small to medium accounting practices to perform the tasks efficiently.
Professional accountants in these type organisations have important roles in providing
business support to their clients such as corporations, small and medium
organisations, individuals and other organisations. It will, however, be interesting to
study the competencies developed in the use of IT in different cultural settings.
This study is structured as follows: the next section describes the concept of IT
competencies and new requirement of IT competencies for professional accountants,
derived from the relevant literature. The second section is the proposed framework for
IT competencies and the last section outlines a conclusion.

2 Related Work

Competence is defined as the state of quality of being adequately or well qualified or

a specific range of skills, knowledge and abilities [8]. Competence, therefore, is the
link between skills of employee and the job requirements [9]. In the accounting
context, Carnaghan [10] views IT competencies as the qualities which are
demonstrated by activities, such as the capacity to create a spread sheet or database
for a particular purpose, or the ability to use software. According to IFAC [6],
professional accountants are expected to possess necessary IT competencies. In fact,
the credibility of the accounting profession in general depends on their success in
fulfilling this obligation. Thus, every professional accountant is expected to act as a
user, designer, manager, planner or evaluator of information systems; or in a
combination of these roles [3]. It has to be acknowledged that these roles require
technical skills, organisational skills, conceptual skills, and other social skills [6].
The IFAC through International Education Guideline (IEG 11) guidelines have
been used by accounting educators and accounting practitioners as a guide to improve
professionalism of accountants. This guideline refers to the technical skills required
by accountants to be able to apply their skills in relevant accounting or business
context [11]. However, the standard required of IT competencies is not specified and
does not give a specific approach on how to develop the IT skills and competence.
Therefore, the information systems literature has been reviewed to identify what
dimensions or elements have been employed in the previous studies (see table 1).
Unfortunately, most of these studies have provided a list of IT skills such as the
ability to use spreadsheets, word processor, accounting packages and web browser
that accountants must be proficient with [12, 13 and 25].
 Table 1. Previous Studies Relating to Accounting Practitioners IT Competencies
Countries Dimension(s) Result(s)
Norway [15] Technical Skills • Low level of IT knowledge.
Taiwan [4] IT Topics Issues • Accounting educators and practitioners are agreeing
by AICPA regarding IT topic issues by the AICPA.

United States [13] Technical Skills • Low level of knowledge of e-commerce and
advanced technologies and audit automation and
high level of knowledge for office automation and
accounting firm office automation.
United States and Technical Skills • Accounting practitioners in both countries have a
Germany [14] low level of knowledge of advanced technologies.
Taiwan [16] Technical Skills • Accountants are proficient with the general
computer and the professional accounting software
skills and concerned about an accountant’s
capability in management, advisory and evaluative
roles of IT deployment.
United States [17] Technical Skills • IT use and perceived importance vary by audit firm
size.
Malaysia [1] Technical Skills • Low level of knowledge in advanced technologies
such as EDI, CASE tools and high level of
knowledge in General Office Automation.
Malaysia [12] Technical Skills • Usage of e-tax applications is not pervasive among
tax practitioners.
Australia [18] Technical Skills • IT knowledge lower that the perception towards the
importance of technologies.

These results are not consistent with the others studies stated that accountants need
new skills rather than technical skills to improve their career and professionalism [26,
27]. Although professional accountants’ IT competencies are required by the
professional standard set by IFAC, very little is known about their IT competencies
levels, especially in developing economies such as Malaysia [1]. There are very few
studies available that have investigated IT competencies for professional accountants
in developing economies. These studies, however only use one dimension i.e. IT
skills to measure accounting practitioners’ competence in using IT.

2.1 New Requirement of IT Competencies for Accountants

IFAC through International Education Guideline 11 (IEG11) encourages professional

accountants to have competencies in IT. However, the standard required of IT
competencies is not specified and does not give a specific approach on how to
develop the IT skills and competence. Therefore, the information systems literature
has been reviewed to identify what dimensions or elements have been employed in
previous studies. Most of the outcomes of these studies have been a list of IT skills
such as the ability to use spreadsheets, word processor, accounting packages and web
browser that accountants must be proficient with [13, 23 and 25]. Information systems
literature indicates that IT related competencies dependent upon a number of other
dimensions or skills [10]. Modern or contemporary professional accountants are
required to provide leadership and management support in addition to their routine
jobs. It is therefore, essential that professional accountants must have requisite
organisational, management, behavioural, and people skills. These skills provide
necessary support to IT skills so that professional accountants can perform their jobs
effectively. It is, however also important to note that experience of accountants, the
culture of organisations, and the formal training of accountants will always have
significant influence on the level of competence in accountant possesses in operating,
designing and using IT [9, 6, 23, 247, 25]. Table 2 illustrates multi-dimensional IS
knowledge, skills and abilities derived from various authors.
The literature suggest four different set of skills that are required by a knowledge
worker in the contemporary paradigm [25]. These skills are technical, organisational,
people and conceptual skills. Technical skills involved specialised knowledge about
methods, processes, and techniques designed to carry out specialised activity.
Organisational skills are skills enable employees or workers to plan and carry on
activities effectively. People skills deal with human behaviour and interpersonal
process and conceptual skills include analytical ability, creativity, efficiency in
problem solving and ability to recognise opportunities and potential problems.

Table 2. Classifications of IS Abilities/Knowledge/Skills

Source: Derived from Various Authors
Skills Categories/ Elements
Technical Skills Analysis and design, programming language, specific application and general
IS knowledge, information system product, database and data communication,
advanced applications, computer applications systems, systems theory and
concepts, business functional knowledge, technology management knowledge,
operating systems, network, personal computer tools.
Organisational Skills Time management, priority, information organisation.
People Skills Organisational skills, organisational unit, interpersonal, communication,
interpersonal relationships, management, professionalism, business,
management, social, society, personal trait, professional skills, business
knowledge.
Conceptual Skills Problem solving, abstraction, strategic planning.

Professional accountants’ skills for success are highly required to react quickly and
effectively in organisations. Thus, to be an effective accountant, the right mix of skills
has to be developed to sustain the implementation of skill set of IT competencies.
This skill set support accountants in everything they do during the accounting
processes such as, auditing, recording daily financial transactions, preparing financial
statements and making decisions. For that reason, AICPA through Core Competency
framework asserted the values of professional accountants as competitive by
identifying skill set of IT competencies elements such as communication and
leadership skills, negotiation, strategy, problem solving and critical thinking and
personal improvement as well as project management cited by Institute of
Management Accountants [26]. In fact, the good skill set of IT competencies is
critical to the prosperity and even the survival of organisations [25].

3 Proposed Framework
The research framework illustrated in fig. 1 shows foundation for this study which
demonstrated the multi-layered and multi-tiered framework of IT related
competencies for professional accountants. The main research question is “How IT
competency profile changes with change in job description of a professional
accountant working in Malaysian small to medium accounting practices?” followed
by three sub-questions: (1) what are the IT related competencies that help professional
accountants to perform their job better?, (2) what are the IT skill sets required for
professional accountants at each stage of their professional lifecycle?, and (3) what is
an appropriate framework for developing IT related competencies for professional
accountants in Malaysian small to medium accounting practices.

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of the Research

The inner layer of the framework represents the first sub-question of the study
which deals with the generic skill set of IT competencies. It takes a comprehensive
view of IT competence for professional accountants, and investigates the issue at hand
in technical, organisational, people, and conceptual dimensions. The second layer of
the framework seeks to find the answers for second sub-question i.e. to identify the IT
related competencies that help professional accountants to perform their job properly.
The aim is to employ the above mentioned skill set in the perspective of experience,
organisational culture, formal accounting education and the international standard for
accounting practices. These elements are major contributing factors that set the
standard of quality of professional accountants. The third layer of the framework
recognises the actual competencies of professional accountants in using IT for
jurisdiction specific. For the purpose of this study, it will be focused to Malaysian
jurisdiction specifically within Malaysian small to medium accounting practices. It
addresses improvement of the main accounting professional regulators in Malaysia
who set the national accountants standard through national accounting board. In
addition, higher education has been the main education provider in generating
accounting graduates in Malaysia.
 In order to answer the research question, this study will employ a qualitative
interpretive research methodology with exploratory research study. Qualitative
research methodology approach is represented by distinctive techniques and tools
[27]. It involves non-numeric data to provide a deeper understanding of phenomena
within its context and creates a strong relationship between the phenomena under
study and the researcher [6]. This method provides the best gaining insight to
comprehend the issues. Data will be collected through interviews from accountants
(including junior, senior accountants and accountants who involve as managers of
small to medium accounting practices), academics and representatives from
accounting professional regulators in Malaysia. The range of their industry setting
helped to understand the phenomena in a broader scope.

4 Conclusion

This study discusses the skills and competencies for professional accountants,
particularly in small to medium sized accounting practices, which emphasise the
importance of understanding and being competent in the use of IT. To maintain a
major role in the business, accountants must improve themselves in IT application and
extend their skills and techniques to embrace the new systems and technologies.
Otherwise, there would be unutilised technologies, thus impeding accountants to
provide better service. This study will develop theory related to IT competencies
relevant to the entire life cycle of the work process of professional accountants. The
developed theory could be tested and used by future researchers to study IT
competencies in other professions and other countries. Furthermore, it is expected that
the findings of this study will formalise professional accountants’ IT competencies
framework and will provide support to on job training and career planning for
professional accountants.

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