Academia and the profession working together!

There’s a paradigm shift about to emerge: a forum in Adelaide next week will bring together accounting practitioners with leaders in accounting academia. The aim is to investigate the contemporary challenges around accounting education, academe and the accounting profession in Australia.

What makes this event particularly interesting is that academics and practitioners will participate on the panels of discussion at the same time. Our profession has not seen this approach often and I am optimistic that it will lead to some frank and open conversations. It makes good sense to have these two groups together and engaged on the right issues.

From a practitioner’s perspective, over many years I have always felt torn with academic research. I have seen considerable research that is quite innovative and challenging and leaves me curious for more, while also spurring me to apply these findings to my own work environment. In short, the research is achieving its goals - engaging and driving practitioners to solutions.

But I have also seen research that leaves me underwhelmed – being left with questions like: why has this research been done, what is it trying to achieve, or in particular, I think this research is very helpful but it has been published long after, making the research practically obsolete! This last point – for me – is a particular challenge.

Practitioners see business conditions move significantly – we have all seen this with the GFC in recent times. Because they are working within these dynamic conditions – their expectations for academic research is equally time-sensitive. Some may suggest that this is not reasonable – research needs sufficient time to draw the facts together, undertake the analysis and formulate views and recommendations – and I can accept that too. But where is the optimum positioning with these two views?

The forum in Adelaide could be a potential start to a new working partnership between academia and the profession.