Making entry-level accountants better communicators: A Singapore-based study of communication tasks, skills, and attributes

• Contains comprehensive inventories of communication tasks, skills, and attributes.
• Communication tasks, skills, and attributes are ranked according to importance.
• Listening-related communication skills are the most important.
• Universities may be stressing communication skills that are not important in practice.

Prior research reports that entry-level accountants (ELAs) lack appropriate levels of communication skills, and to-date, there are still gaps in our understanding of communication tasks frequently performed by ELAs, skills needed to fulfill these tasks, and attributes of written and oral communication that are critical to communicating effectively in the accounting field. This study attempts to fill some of the gaps by first amalgamating extant research to develop more comprehensive inventories of communication tasks, skills, and attributes (TSA) that would be critical for ELAs. Next, 59 practitioners (who have supervised ELAs) of accounting firms (both Big-4 and local firms) and members of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) based in Singapore responded to our pilot survey to rate the frequency of communication tasks performed by ELAs, the importance of the identified communication skills and attributes, and the ELAs' communication skills and performance. Findings on importance ratings and importance–performance gaps provide useful insights to accounting/business/communication educators and researchers, higher education institutions, accounting students, and accounting practitioners in Singapore to better understand the current communication needs and/or deficiencies of the accounting profession. Future research opportunities, including the need to extend this study to other geographical areas using larger sample sizes, are discussed.