Data-driven decision-making and its impact on accounting undergraduate curriculum

Data analytics appears soundly entrenched within both professional accounting and business environments. However, the role of data analytics within undergraduate accounting education does not appear to be well understood either by practitioners or academics. This study addresses the curriculum impact of the data-driven decision-making evolution by investigating the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) specifically needed within accounting curricula (as opposed to other disciplines within and outside of the business school). Based on prior literature and suggestions from interviews with business professionals, this study identifies a set of possible KSAs-incremental to technical accounting knowledge-useful for helping accountants succeed in the evolving data-driven decision-making environment. Using these KSAs, this study surveys business professionals and faculty from a set of representative accounting programs to better understand their desired emphasis on the KSAs as compared to traditional technical accounting knowledge. We find that compared to accounting faculty, business professionals desire an equal focus across all types of KSAs rather than on a detailed understanding of technical accounting knowledge traditionally emphasized in classrooms. We believe that this study's results suggest a desired shift towards a more “scientific method” approach in which students use their understanding of business and accounting to ask questions, perform research, and seek out additional information to test alternate solutions (often using quantitative analyses) to evolve their accounting knowledge. Additionally, we provide results of a survey of business professionals on potential types of traditional accounting topics to deemphasize and thus provide opportunities to more thoroughly integrate additional KSAs into the accounting curriculum.