Accounting and Society Assessment - Self Reflection

Requirements:

Preamble:

MAA310 Accounting and Society contributes to your understanding of accounting by examining some of its practical, conceptual and theoretical underpinnings and considering the role of accounting within society.

This task asks you to reflect on some of the issues that are discussed in the unit. You are required to provide a thoughtful response to the following three prompts. Your responses should be concise but include examples to support your position and references to materials you have read where appropriate. Each of the prompts is equally weighted. Please refer to the marking rubric for more detail.

Prompt 1:

Political and business news reports and the academic accounting literature are increasingly highlighting concerns about environmental sustainability. The narrow capitalist argument is that companies should focus on maximizing shareholder value (usually interpreted as profits) and not be concerned with environmental issues. What are your beliefs about the role of accountants in promoting environmental accounting in the organisations in which they work? Justify your response, using supporting evidence from your reading and experience/examples.

Prompt 2:

The theories that are the focus of this unit provide a way of thinking about real-world issues. They act as a lens to understand accounting choices in practice and approaches to regulation. However, they offer very different, sometimes conflicting perspectives.

Which of the theories you have studied resonates most strongly with you?

Explain carefully why it does and how you would apply it to the issue of what is an appropriate approach to flexible work practices and family support (e.g. provision of childcare facilities) by large companies.

Explain how learning about one theory that you disagree with is helpful for your professional development.

Prompt 3:

Reflect on the topics you have learned about in your accounting major so far. You will have studied practical, technical aspects of accounting, ethical issues and theories among many other things. Use examples from job advertisements and research on the accounting profession to support your reflection on:

How what you have learned will prepare you for starting a career as an accountant.

What topics do you think you will need to learn about as you progress in your career?

1800 words and Harvard style.