INTERNATIONAL CAREERS IN ACCOUNTING, FINANCE AND CONSULTING

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The last point in the lecture was about the need or the importance of building cross-cultural skills, because these soft skills are making difference in different levels. And as solutions, the lecturer pointed out some contextual solutions (immigration policy, multicultural diversity in universities…) and personal solutions (formal, informal and experiential learning). In addition to that, Dr. kipping tried to refer to the basic communication styles by highlighting the differences between the high and low context societies, and how this categorization affects the development of these soft skills. Then, the last advice is that the only way to learn this is to experience the situations of being out of comfort zone and the learning by doing (the example of swimming), the theory cannot be enough.

COMMENTS:

- The lecturer was really inspiring person and the lecture was very interesting and informative but the point that we missed is that there were any deep points to discuss or to debate in the end because of the obviousness of its contents.

- In the foreseeable future, the need of accountants with international background will rise and this might be helped by the ongoing projects to make international standards…; to be ready for this thing, academic bodies in accounting schools have to start to think about it seriously by accepting more international students in their schools, providing a diverse set of classes on intercultural management, ethics, languages, general culture…etc.

- The most effective thing to do to help ourselves having an international background and working on these “advanced services” is certainly to put hands on experience, but the reality is that we need more consciousness about that from both academic and professional worlds’ actors.

- I would like if we can work together on promoting the importance of this issue in IGSAP by providing more exchange opportunities and more international activities in the near future.