Business Commons^™

A Framework For Explaining Accounting Students’ Formal Communication Gap, Charles Harter, Robert Marley

School of Accountancy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper introduces a framework that explains how innovations in communication technology have affected students’ communication skills. Our framework suggests that new communication mediums have reduced students’ exposure to contexts requiring formal communication and increased students’ exposure to contexts utilizing informal communication. As a result, today’s accounting students have less formal communication experience, thus less developed formal communication skills than their predecessors. To mitigate this communication gap, we discuss adapting the accounting classroom to familiarize, hone, and instill formal communication skills.