Digital transformation and the accounting education design dilemma: balancing today's vs. tomorrow's digital competency requirements

The curricula digital transformation imperative refers to the urgent need for educators to ensure curricula cultivate graduates' knowledge of digital technologies and their ability to use new digital or digitally enhanced work tools, both for today's entry-level requirements and for tomorrow's progression-oriented competency demands, especially as digital technology advancements and digital transformation accelerate. Using thematic and quantitative content analysis, we examine the gap between technology competencies required by the accounting profession owing to its digital transformation, and those signalled by employers in entry-level accounting job advertisements worldwide. Analysing 110 job advertisements across multiple regions, employer types, and accounting functions, we find that accounting and business systems competencies (e.g., proficiency with enterprise resource planning systems, proficiency with cloud accounting platforms) and data-related competencies (e.g., proficiency with data management, data analytics, and data visualisation tools) dominate today's employer requirements. By contrast, tomorrow-oriented competency requirements, such as advanced technical, emerging-technology, and strategic technology competencies, are rarely present in entry-level advertisements. Our findings point to an accounting education design dilemma: curricula must integrate sufficient digital competencies to enable graduates to get and succeed in entry-level job roles, while also laying sufficient conceptual foundations and learning dispositions to support acquisition of tomorrow-oriented competencies after initial education. We propose a coordinated, scaffolded approach to competency development designed to help educators effectively navigate this dilemma, to position the profession for effective cultivation of its required competencies, and to support Sustainable Development Goal 4-aligned lifelong learning across school, vocational pathways, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, as well as continuing professional development.