Instability, Innovation and Accounting Education

Financial prosperity and technological advances in the U.S. have resulted in long periods of stability for accounting education. Accelerating globalization, technology, and weak ethical foundations have built fingers of instability in existing educational models enabling disruptive innovations and ethical lapses similar to historical of cycles of periods of stability followed by instability. The financial scandals have led to erosion of public trust, the foundation for the “social contract”. Accounting educators must play a significant role in sustaining the profession’s social contract through practice related research and innovative student education involving cognition, knowledge acquisition, and accounting skills along with ethical standards.