Educating the Next Generation of Accountants

Can education influence the ethical orientations of future accountants beyond inborn, individual factors? In our chapter, we try to answer this question. We do so by starting with evidence we collected on the perception of accountants’ ethical behavior held by students and young workers born between the beginning of the 1980s and the start of the 21st century, who have been labelled as GenMe. Given that we find, among other things, some signals of a negative association between the perception of accountants’ ethics and the level of education, we discuss how universities could better promote ethical consciousness through the accounting courses they offer. We suggest a better alignment with the approach proposed by the International Accounting Education Standards Board, which emphasizes not only the importance to meet the technical performance standards expected of professional accountants but also an appropriate level of values and ethics. We specifically examine one important standard, the IES 7 on professional skepticism, highlighting the importance of teaching ‘critical thinking’ to students. We conclude by stating that teaching critical thinking skills is indeed a challenge for the future of accounting education, as well as an opportunity to improve future accountants’ ethical consciousness.