Abstract
The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), a regional integration in Southeast Asia that started at the end of 2015 and is expected to bring new challenges and opportunities. However, an assessment of the capabilities of Indonesian management accountants suggests that they may struggle with challenges because of the free flow of skilled labour. In this study, we aimed at presenting and analysing Indonesian experts’ perspectives on the readiness of management accounting professionals in Indonesia to work in the new economic era. It also provides recommendations for improvements in the profession. This research uses in-depth interviews as well as questionnaires distributed to top-level management; some of the participants are also working as academics in universities. This study found that class differences as theorised by Weber play significant roles in determining readiness. These differences could be attributed to the perceived qualities of universities in Indonesia, implying that management accountants from more reputable universities are more prepared than those from less prestigious institutions. The demand side analysis performed in this study implies the expectation gaps in skills and education due to the class stratification as a barrier. The gap found in this study has to be filled to optimise the open chances offered by AEC to the profession of accounting in Indonesia. Although this is not the first research about the impact of ASEAN Economic Community to a specific profession, the study has an original value of addressing such impact on the management accountant profession in Indonesia.
Author Bio(s)
Desi Adhariani is a senior lecturer and researcher in the Department of Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia. She holds a PhD in Accounting from Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia, which was funded by the Australia Awards Scholarship. She has been actively involved in several research projects (most of them take multidisciplinary perspectives) and has attracted several research grants namely from the Indonesian Ministry of Research and Higher Education, CIMA (the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) and Universitas Indonesia. Her PhD dissertation has been published as a book with Palgrave MacMillan Publisher: Financial Management and Corporate Governance from the Feminist Ethics of Care Perspective (Authors: Desi Adhariani, Nick Sciulli, Robert Clift). Her latest research paper has been published in the Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal: "Integrated reporting: perspectives of corporate report preparers and other stakeholders." The complete list of her work and publications can be found in her Research Gate and LinkedIn account: Desi Adhariani. She can be contacted at desi.adhariani@ui.ac.id.
Sylvia Veronica Siregar is an associate professor of the accounting department, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Indonesia. She earned her doctoral degree from Universitas Indonesia in 2005. Her research interests include financial accounting, corporate governance, and sustainability. She has published research articles in several international journals. Her selected publications are “Type of earnings management and the effect of ownership structure, firm size, and corporate-governance practices: Evidence from Indonesia,” “Dividend payment and earnings quality: Evidence from Indonesia,” “Fraud awareness survey of private sector in Indonesia,” “The associations between environmental disclosures with financial performance, environmental performance, and firm value.” “The effect of stakeholder pressure and corporate governance on the sustainability report quality,” “Financial reporting quality, debt maturity, and chief executive officer career concerns on investment efficiency,” and other important works. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: sylvia.veronica@ui.ac.id.
Rini Yulius is a lecturer in the Department of Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Business – Universitas Indonesia (FEB UI). She also serves as the consultant and training instructor at the Management Institute, FEB UI, in accounting, financial and business process fields. The most recent project led by Rini Yulius is “Formulation of Monitoring and Evaluation Instrument and Guidelines for Expert Dispatch Under The Framework of South-South Cooperation,” funded by USAID. Rini Yulius also serves as the member of Investment Committee in PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy, a subsidiary of PT Pertamina (Persero), an Indonesia state-owned company that doing business in geothermal energy as a green, clean and renewable energy. Correspondence regarding this article can also be addressed directly to: rini.yulius@ui.ac.id.
Recommended APA Citation
Adhariani, D.,
Siregar, S. V.,
&
Yulius, R.
(2019).
Borderless with Unequal Opportunity? Experts’ Perspectives on the ASEAN Economic Community and Impact on Indonesian Accountant Profession.
The Qualitative Report,
24(5), 1147-1167.
https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2019.3940
