Are Students Ready for Their Future Accounting Careers? Insights from Observed Perception Gaps among Employers, Interns, and Alumni

ABSTRACTAlthough prior studies examine student, academic, employer, and alumni's views regarding the effectiveness of accounting curriculums, no prior studies have cross-sectionally examined all views in one study over a length of time. We survey interns' perceptions of skill sets immediately after completion of the internship. We also survey participating employers immediately after the internship with respect to satisfaction with intern's skills. Lastly, we examine alumni perceptions of skill sets taught in the curriculum one-year after graduation. We examine all three perceptions (intern students, employer and alumni) using cross sectional analyses. We find an existing perception gap between students' self-assessment and employer assessment of skill sets at the intern stage. However, as the students mature into members of the work force, their attitudes align more closely with the perspectives of the employer. We document these results and suggest approaches to eliminate the perception gaps.Key words: Perception Gap, Accounting Education, Alumni, Employer, Students, Skills, CurriculumData availability: Contact the second author for information about the data.INTRODUCTIONAccounting departments periodically evaluate if students are learning essential skills to excel in the profession. Therefore, it is important to receive curricular feedback from all interested parties. Intern students can express satisfaction with the curriculum by ranking the adequacy of their preparedness for their internship. Employers evaluate the curriculum through advisory roles on department and university committees and by observing interns and full time hires. Alumni evaluate the curriculum by rating the adequacy of their skills after working for a period. The ideal time to gather information is immediately after completing an internship and shortly after students begin full-time employment. All feedback is useful to modify current programs.Many accounting programs offer academic internships to accounting students because internships have proven to provide numerous benefits. First, students become more marketable to employers (Pasewark et al., 1989). Second, students gain an improved awareness of a company, industry or particular occupation. Manny Fernandez, KPMG's former national managing partner of university relations and recruiting stated, "The (internship) training gives us an opportunity to welcome the students and really familiarize them with the firm's leadership and culture. " Furthermore, internships are positively associated with future enhanced academic performance (Koehler, 1974; Siegel and Rigsby, 1988; English and Koeppen, 1993; Myring et al., 2005). The purpose of our research is to analyze the perspectives of intern students, employers, and alumni regarding the adequacy of the undergraduate program to develop needed skills, such as technology skills, teamwork, and oral communication. To our knowledge, we are the first to collect data from alumni in conjunction with interns and employers. After comparing nine years (2000 - 2008) of surveys from the three groups, we find that all three groups, on average, are satisfied with the skills developed within the curriculum.1 However, the degree of satisfaction varies in several areas. Overall, the students seem the most satisfied with the preparation of skills at the intern stage. However, they become slightly less satisfied with their preparedness once employed. On the contrary, employers indicate that there are needed areas of growth for interns (e.g. oral and written communication) which could be the result of the curriculum being designed to provide a foundation for students rather than prepare them for specific employment opportunities.Our study differs from prior research in a number of ways. First, we examine the perception of interns' skill sets as an 'on-site' benefit of internship programs to help them understand how well they are prepared for their future employment. …