Are our accounting programs preparing graduates for professional accounting work?

What is the relationship between university learning and workplace practice? Are our accounting programs preparing graduates for professional accounting work? The Big 4 accounting firms don't think so: they are actively recruiting graduates from disciplines other than accounting because many accounting graduates do not have the professional communication skills needed. In response to this, the Language for Professional Communication in Accounting (LPCA) project is addressing the development of generic graduate attributes in postgraduate accounting education at Macquarie University. Current research includes a series of interviews with teachers and learners in the Master of Accounting program on their conceptions of the role and value of generic graduate attributes in accounting education. This research also includes interviews with practising accountants and representatives of professional bodies to examine their expectations of accounting graduates and provide data that will contribute to building a more complete description of the nature of accounting work. Discussion in this session will focus on preliminary findings from these interviews, comparing learners' perceptions of the relationship between discipline content and professional practice with employers' expectations and their constructions of what constitutes accounting work. The implications of these findings for teaching and learning accounting will also be explored.