Shaping the future of management accounting education: insights from educators and practitioners

Differences between educators’ and practitioners’ perceptions of curriculum priorities remain a persistent issue in management accounting (MA) education. Prior studies have relied largely on survey methods and provide limited contemporary evidence directly comparing educators’ and practitioners’ perceptions of MA curriculum topics and skills. This study addresses this gap by employing a mixed-methods design and using Curriculum Theory (CT) as an interpretive framework to analyse survey data and open-ended responses from MA educators and practitioners in Australia. The findings identify areas of convergence and divergence in perceived importance. They do not measure actual curriculum coverage or graduate capability. Educators assigned relatively greater importance to foundational costing and performance-related topics, whereas practitioners placed relatively greater emphasis on operational and real-time decision-making areas such as cash flow management. Both groups assigned importance to ethical awareness, problem-solving, sustainability, digitalisation, and emerging technologies. Theoretically, the study suggests the value of CT as an interpretive framework for understanding MA curriculum priorities through the complementary dimensions of curriculum-as-knowledge, curriculum-as-experience, and curriculum-as-social-practice. Practically, the findings suggest that closer dialogue between educators and practitioners may inform ongoing curriculum reflection by strengthening applied learning, technology-enabled teaching, and sustained industry engagement.