IFAC's (2018) Global SMP Survey Report indicates that a significant number of SMPs worldwide (ranging from 50 to 70% of appr 5.000 surveyed) sees significant challenges to accommodate transformations in digital technologies, services they can offer, ways to recruit talents and changes in regulation/regulatory institutions. There is lack of knowledge about what factors can facilitate adoption of new technologies in order to find appropriate ways of gaining sustained competitive advantages for SMPs accounting/auditing practices, their customers and society at large. As one of possible explanation, current accounting and auditing education is criticized for being unable to produce graduates with the skills required by practitioners (Bromwich and Scapens, 2016; McGuigan & Kern, 2016). Thus, the tighter dialogue between researchers as well as between users of research and education in the accounting profession is required (Guthrie & Parker, 2016) to produce dynamic interactions, idea generation, the production of (academic) texts to change the education and training of accounting and auditing specialists. There is, therefore, a related knowledge gap in understanding how to design relevant professional educational and training programs for accounting and auditing professionals of the future.
TRANSCACT research project therefore addresses the transformative capabilities of the accounting industry to ensure the survival and prosperity of the accounting profession in general and SMPs in particular. The main objective of the TRANSACT project, therefore, is to empirically and analytically investigate the factors and processes that impact the ability of the accounting and auditing SMPs to transform themselves in order to adapt to a rapidly changing society. This objective also includes an analysis of how those factors and processes affect the design of accounting education and professional training programs that are capable of addressing the future needs of the accounting profession, by allowing it to rejuvenate its services to suit the new emerging context. Specifically, the project addresses the following 5 objectives:
Objective 1) To develop and test novel theoretical models about factors and processes that impact the ability of the accounting profession to dynamically transform itself in order to adapt to a rapidly changing society and apply it in the context of Norwegian accounting/auditing SMPs.
Objective 2) To strengthen the research capacity of Nord University Business School (HHN) in the areas of accounting and auditing by improving institutional attractiveness, recruiting and professionally developing relevant personnel.
Objective 3) To ensure a solid and durable cooperation with representatives of the accounting profession in the private and public sectors and with other relevant stakeholders, by exploring various new forms of dialogue, cooperation and knowledge dissemination.
Objective 4) In cooperation with stakeholders, graduates and students, refine and develop new courses and education/training programs with future relevance for the accounting and auditing profession.
Objective 5) Influence development of policies and recommendations for international and national regulatory authorities.
The project aims to bring issues of strategic management and innovations into transformation of accounting profession. Well developed in innovation and entrepreneurship literature, use of dynamic capabilities as a factor for proactive transformation is rather novel in accounting field. The project is original because it also answers the recent call for bringing institutional theory into strategic management research (see Schilke et. al., 2018) promising novel insights into how embeddedness of SMPs in different types of institutions facilitate or limit development of dynamic and transformative capabilities necessary to create sustained competitive advantage.