Changing the Accounting Curriculum: The Function of Marketing.

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has made a step toward change by endorsing a new competency framework for accounting education. The framework evolved from the Vision Project. It supports a shift from a content-based curriculum to one that emphasizes personal, functional and broad business-perspective skills. Personal competencies are defined as those that pertain to attitude and behavior, including professional demeanor, decision making and communication. Functional competencies are technical and include risk analysis, reporting and measurement. Broad business-perspective competencies relate to the context in which accountants perform their services. Among these skills are strategic and critical thinking, resource management, and marketing and client focus.

The AICPA Special Committee on Assurance Services classified marketing and selling as a high-opportunity competency. Accountants must possess the ability to anticipate and meet the changing needs of clients, employers, customers, and markets better than competitors. This competency expands profit potential, requires living and coping with constant change, commitment to leadership, and the ability to recognize market needs as well as develop new markets.

More competition will require a more aggressive marketing orientation. Currently, accounting degree programs may not be providing the broad business-perspective competencies necessary to compete in the future business world. Many accounting programs include only one marketing course, "Principles of Marketing." To achieve the goals of the Vision Project, the curriculum of accounting degree programs needs to be revitalized.

Marketing Courses

The new professional accountant faces challenges that have never before been experienced by the accounting professional. The need for public accountants to only possess technical accounting skills has been drastically altered by changes in the competition faced by public accountants and their customers' demands for additional services. Traditional accounting firms are experiencing competition from non-traditional sources; e.g., American Express Tax & Business Services, Inc. Competition from nontraditional sources, along with changes in technology and client needs, have changed the way in which traditional accounting firms do business. In the May 1999 edition of the New Accountant, David Burros made the following comments regarding the 21st Century accountant: To survive and thrive in the 21st Century, traditional accountants will need to offer a full range of financial services and products in order to satisfy their busy clients' needs for simplicity and convenience. However, in order to get the message to th e public about the additional services that are being offered by the traditional accountant, requires the development of much needed marketing skills. The traditional accounting curriculum that requires one general marketing course is not enough. What the 21st Century accountant needs are courses that emphasize different aspects of marketing skills. Thus, the accounting students who are presently in school should take the following marketing courses, if available:

Product Innovation. This course should emphasize firm culture and its effect on new product development; understanding customer needs; developing and evaluating a marketing plan for a new product.

Internet Marketing. This course should provide an overview of the Internet and related technological developments; strategies for using the Internet for sustainable advantage; strategies for using the Internet for making marketing mix decisions.

Services Marketing. This course should examine the process through which financial and professional services are marketed with special attention to problems that the accountant should expect to encounter.

These courses, traditionally, are taught using an eclectic approach. That is, they are taught incorporating teaching aids such as case study, role playing, professional speakers, and group interaction projects that build the team concept. The group interaction projects involve real marketing problems. Videotaping role playing of real marketing problems provides an opportunity for students to see themselves in scenarios involving marketing and selling. After the role-plays, groups review tapes for discussion and comments. They then are evaluated not only by the instructor, but also by a team of experts in the field.

If the above mentioned formal marketing courses are not offered by a university because it does not have the resources necessary to offer separate courses, then the information found in those courses should be included or integrated in existing courses and/or the creation of an accounting services course.

The Integration of Marketing Concepts in Accounting Courses

The information contained in the above courses can be skillfully interwoven into existing accounting courses. When positioning the marketing concepts it is very important for the professor to emphasize the importance of marketing to the new accountant. This point is important because too often accounting students view marketing as a subject matter that is soft and not intellectually stimulating. If accounting students are to grasp at a very early stage in their accounting career the importance of marketing to their professional growth and development, the professor must take the time and effort to make that point in an informative manner. Marketing concepts positioned in the accounting courses should have as its main goal the development of a personal balance sheet that consists of developing interpersonal, communication, selling, and marketing skills.

Working on self-image and the image of selling are necessary topics. Many individuals attracted to the accounting profession have a somewhat introverted personality. This is sometimes viewed as a liability, but working on self-image can turn this into an asset.

In the past, accountants viewed marketing as something their clients did, not as something that accountants do. Therefore, a typical marketing course focused on how an organization combines its products and services with price, promotion, and distribution to meet the needs of the marketplace. The emphasis was on providing a general familiarity with marketing functions and a more specific knowledge of operations that require accounting information to make business decisions and solve problems. In the future, accountants must set their sights on what can be, with core values at the center. Packaging services like products is necessary. Clients must be shown how to make money.

Communication skills are the key to the above personal balance sheet skills. The ability to write and speak well is essential. Most accounting courses offer an opportunity to develop communication skills. Communication skills can be developed in intermediate accounting courses. Students should be required to make short presentations on why a particular transaction should be accounted for in a certain way. The presenters should be required to clearly delineate the strengths and weaknesses of their choice. Individual and corporate tax courses can also be used to strengthen communication skills. Instead of giving students the typical complex tax return to complete as the term project, students can be assigned to groups with a tax problem that has uncertainty and decisions that must be made about risky choices. Each group would present their case to the class. The presentations would incorporate the cost and benefits of the course of action selected for their client. Along with the specific courses discussed abo ve, managerial accounting can also be used to build communication skills. The types of group decision-malting opportunities previously described could be incorporated into all of the accounting courses.

Guest speakers provide students with updates with regard to selling skills that would be appropriate for different decision settings. Students can also improve their communication skills by joining Toast Masters.

Accounting Services Course

Attest and nonattest services should be discussed in this course. Nonattest services typically rendered are tax compliance and planning for businesses and individuals, accounting, management consulting, and personal financial planning. Rendering attest and nonattest services without comprising the accountant's core values of independence, integrity, and objectivity should be the focus of discussion. This course should be team taught with instructors from accounting, finance, marketing, and MIS. The accounting instructor should provide the overall umbrella for the integration of the other disciplines. The finance instructor should cover financial services such as personal financial planning from an individual and business level. The marketing instructor should provide students with exposure to such topics as new product development, Internet marketing and service marketing. The MIS professor should provide students with information on E-commerce, the marketing, selling, and buying of goods and services on the Internet. Emerging technology in MIS software and hardware should also be covered. Lastly, the accounting instructor should integrate the presentations of the other instructors with an emphasis on the accountants' core values of independence, integrity, and objectivity.

Conclusion

The word for today's accountant is change. The accounting profession is in transition. Accounting and auditing services have been on an even keel over the last several years, with prospects for decline in the near future. New markets are being sought by firms to replace declining revenues. The successful accountant must be receptive and adaptable to new ways and new ideas. Thus, this new attitude must be packaged and delivered to clients like it has never been done before. The key to making that transition is communication skills (oral and written).

Fannie L. Malone is a professor of accounting in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business at Texas Southern University. She has previously published articles in The Journal of Business Ethics, The CPA Journal, and The National Public Accountant.

Ladelle M. Hyman is a professor of accounting in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business at Texas Southern University. She has previously published articles in The Accounting Historians Journal, and in The Business Education Association Journal.