Strategic planning as an approach for developing accounting education programs

Abstract

The rapid spread of globalization, enormous developments in information technology, and changes in the accreditation standards of accounting programmes, have brought challenges on education of accounting programs. These challenges have produced a significant gap between the acquired and required skills of accounting graduates in accounting market segments. Therefore, the study main objective is to show how strategic planning could be used as an approach to fulfill and to bridge the existing gap. To do so, the study, firstly, has developed a strategic planning model with the purpose of developing the education of accounting programs, which in turn will facilitate their tasks of getting accreditation from national and international accreditation associations. The study, secondly, has tested the proposed strategic planning model, through utilizing a questionnaire survey distributed to faculty members in governmental and private universities in Egypt, with the purpose of evaluating the current strategic planning practice. The results show that the current practice of strategic planning steps by accounting programs, is about forty four percent. Finally the study concluded with some recommendations.