Rafael Paguio and Beverley Jackling
The ability to work effectively in a team is highly regarded by employers of accounting graduates, yet they have expressed concern that many university graduates lack teamwork…
Abstract
Purpose
The ability to work effectively in a team is highly regarded by employers of accounting graduates, yet they have expressed concern that many university graduates lack teamwork skills. Furthermore, in the context of the accounting curriculum, a “conceptual vagueness” surrounds a workplace-relevant definition of teamwork. Drawing on the theoretical perspectives of the healthcare sector where teamwork skills are required to be taught and assessed as part of accreditation processes, this study investigates what teamwork means from the perspective of accounting employers.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of employers to acquire descriptions of teamwork observed from graduate recruits. Using an analyst triangulation process, resulting teamwork items were analysed and emerging themes were identified.
Findings
Teamwork in accounting work contexts were identified, confirmed and explained. Mapped against the healthcare teamwork theories, many teamwork items from the interview analysis clustered around the mutual support competency and the dimensions of traits and motives.
Research Limitations/implications
The study was restricted to employers collaborating in one university’s placement program. Further research could investigate more diverse employer groups, determine importance ranking of identified teamwork themes and seek explanations for differences among different employer groups.
Practical implications
An enhanced description of teamwork is significant in supporting student awareness and informing teaching innovations/assessments of this generic skill in the accounting curriculum.
Originality/value
The paper provides a unique contribution of evidence-based descriptions of teamwork expected of accounting graduates, thus addressing conceptual and practical ambiguity of the meaning of teamwork skills in the accounting profession.
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Keywords
Carolyn J Woodley, Stephen Burgess, Rafael Paguio and Scott Bingley
The purpose of this paper is to report on the innovative employment of students as technology mentors as part of a Blended Learning Program (BLP) that supported a group of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on the innovative employment of students as technology mentors as part of a Blended Learning Program (BLP) that supported a group of owner-managers of small businesses to adopt appropriate information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance their work practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This discussion uses various evaluations undertaken throughout the project to examine why the technology mentor role is vital in supporting small businesses to develop digital literacies. The participants’ self-reporting of their ICT skills as well as their progress in using ICT was also assessed by technology mentors in the course of the program and reported in mentor reflections. Academic staff also evaluated the performances of technology mentors in relation to each business.
Findings
Participants in the BLP pilot program singled out the technology mentors as being essential in promoting their uptake of ICT and in their ability to use specific technologies at work.
Research limitations/implications
Findings are based on a pilot program involving six learners and two technology mentors. While this is a statistically insignificant number of evaluations, both the findings and the model of the BLP remain of interest. This model has the capacity to address a long-standing and global challenge to support small businesses in the use of ICT. A scaled up version of the program is required to validate the findings.
Practical implications
In the final evaluation, participants all self-assessed as having increased ICT knowledge and skills. They provided specific examples of how they now use ICT. The BLP could be taken up by local and state governments who periodically attempt to support small businesses in the uptake of technologies. The BLP could also be applied to vocational education students in business, information technologies or information systems. As well as supporting small businesses to adopt ICT, this model also provides an important alternative to resource-intensive work-placement programs that are designed to develop students’ employability skills through work-integrated learning.
Originality/value
Less effective attempts to support small businesses often involve face-to-face training for unrealistic periods of time that foreground technology rather than real world, useful and relevant outcomes (IBSA, 2013). This BLP successfully supported owner operators of small businesses to identify, apply and evaluate a range of software applications (“apps”) and online programs to enhance their work practices.
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Stephen Burgess and Rafael Paguio
The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that examines an under-researched area, the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in Australian home-based…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that examines an under-researched area, the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in Australian home-based businesses (HBB).
Design/methodology/approach
HBB constitute a large part of the economy, yet little is known of how they use ICT to improve their business operations. The study involved a case study comprising interviews with 30 business operators in the Western region of Melbourne, a major Australian city. The findings were analysed using a unique approach to Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations, employing the innovation-decision process as a lens for the analysis.
Findings
The study findings suggest that ICT application adoption in HBB participants is not uniform, with adoption of applications such as e-mail differing from adoption of newer applications, such as social networking. ICT use needs to be considered according to individual ICT applications and explained in the context of particular HBB. The study contributes to studies of innovation adoption, particularly in relation to the use of ICT applications in HBB.
Research limitations/implications
It should be remembered that this study involved interviews with a broad selection of 30 HBB in the Western region of Melbourne, Australia. The results should be considered in the context of hypothesis generation in regards to HBB rather than hypothesis testing that can occur with larger samples. The authors feel that this study would be representative of the practices of ICT adoption in many such groupings of HBB in cities of major Western countries, but hesitate to claim that similar, specific uses of ICT applications would be matched elsewhere.
Practical implications
This study has a number of practical implications. The results suggest that researchers should consider adoption of individual ICT applications in HBB. Further, policy makers looking to support the use of ICT by HBB should consider that the HBB in this study had adopted different ICT applications and were at different stages of ICT adoption. This is worth considering when deciding upon policies relating to how to suppzort the HBB sector (such as provision of training support and so forth).
Originality/value
The paper introduces a unique means to assess the adoption of ICT applications by examining their level of penetration, level of maturity and usefulness to HBB.