Management Accounting Education Poll Results

The results of PACE’s most recent poll were certainly not what I expected. The poll asked the question, “Which answer best describes your formal education in management accounting?” The options were: None, Inadequate, Basic, and Comprehensive. The lack of basic management accounting skills I’ve observed during my five decades in industry (I’ve often said “a management accountant in the United States is as rare as a New York Yankee fan in Boston) along with the lament I’ve often heard from management accounting professors that “we’re the step-children of the accounting department” led me to believe the answers would be skewed toward the “Inadequate” and “Basic” responses. That was not, however, what the poll revealed. Instead, 71% of those responding indicated that their formal management accounting education was “Comprehensive.”

Perhaps the result was biased by the population being polled. Those following PACE’s Linkedin Group are individuals who have a high level of interest in management accounting and were likely to elect courses that could contribute to their knowledge in that arena and glean valuable management accounting knowledge from other non-accounting courses. In addition, many of those responding “Comprehensive” were college professors and individuals in senior FP&A positions and FP&A consultants whose education took them beyond the bachelor’s degree level.

The general narrative is that college accounting curricula focus on financial accounting and preparing students for careers in public accounting despite the fact that most accountants end up working in industry. Could this narrative be incorrect? PACE is interested in learning more from those who found their formal accounting education to be “Comprehensive.” What courses were offered that provided such a comprehensive education? Were they courses at the bachelor, master, or doctorate level? Was knowledge gleaned from non-accounting courses such as business finance, operations research, economics, organizational behavior, or marketing?

If you were a “Comprehensive” voter, please provide us some details in a comment indicating the nature of your formal management accounting education and your thoughts about management accounting education in general. Your input will be valuable in our efforts to advance the practice of management accounting in the future.