UNAIR NEWS – Massive technological advancements in the industrial revolution 4.0 provided significant convenience to human activities. However, other impacts from these developments are also inevitable. The role of human work will be replaced by technology. Adaptability is important, and the accounting profession is not an exception.
Prof. Iman Harymawan SE MBA PhD conveyed this in his inaugural speech as Professor of the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR). He delivered an oration entitled The End of the Accountant: Fiction or Reality? The inauguration was held on Thursday, July 27, 2023, at Garuda Mukti Hall, UNAIR.
“Many growing businesses only need less than one million rupiahs to subscribe to end -to-end financial applications. Instead of recruiting accountants who expect UMR salary every month,” said the Professor of Sustainable Accounting and Governance.
Role of accountants in sustainability movement
However, according to him, the need for accountants is not only to make financial reports but more than that. The trending sustainability issues are an excellent opportunity for an accountant. If you look further, accountants play many roles, and their profession are involved in the sustainability movement.
Prof. Iman said that one of the international accounting reporting standard organizations, the IFRS Foundation, is currently developing International Sustainability Standard Board which consolidates corporate sustainability reporting standards. He continued that in the context of sustainability, the accountant’s job is as a regulator to develop a standard and an auditor that examines and ensures a company’s sustainability principles.
“This role makes accountants a ‘receptacle’ for technical expertise from other professions in supporting global sustainability,” he explained.
Indonesia’s sustainability literacy, which is still very likely to be developed, is a golden opportunity for accountants to take advantage of. As evidenced by the list of the most sustainable companies in the world that 5 ESG raters have developed, there is not a single Indonesian company. Moreover, of the 523 companies that publish sustainability reports, only 47 percent have a clear sustainability framework.
“The company’s sustainability managers, even though they do not have an accounting education background, apply accounting principles in monitoring the progress of social-environmental initiatives,” said the professor with 83 Scopus-indexed publication documents.
The need for curriculum transformation
Iman also conveyed that accounting intersects sustainability. Accountants are known for their involvement in the process of auditing financial information. This trend also leads to an era where accountants provide insurance on corporate sustainability information. Accountants are also known to be at the forefront of sustainability initiatives aimed at ultimately cost efficiency.
“Realizing this, accounting academics must take a crucial role. That is changing our accounting curriculum from a very technical one to a more strategic one,” he said.
Transformation of the accounting curriculum in tertiary institutions is essential. According to Prof. Iman, only 13 percent of courses in Accounting undergraduate programs are strategic. Universities have an important role in preparing the fundamental pillars of everything taught to enable students to solve real-world problems.
“Sustainability is multi-disciplinary. Thus, accountants need to understand other scientific fields strategically. Accountants in the future must understand sustainability, from ESG to SDG,” he said. (*)
Author: Afrizal Naufal Ghani
Editor: Binti Q. Masruroh
