Matching Up the Gap between Perceived Importance and Knowledge for IT Skills among Australian Accountants

This paper examines the gap between the perceptions of importance and knowledge in Information Technology (IT) skills among accountants in Australia. 165 accountants were surveyed in this study. The results indicate that accountants have a high IT knowledge in email and communication software, electronic spreadsheet and Internet search tools. As a whole, the perceived IT knowledge among Australian accountants is lower than their perceived importance of these technologies. The greatest match between importance and knowledge is in accounting software, while the biggest gap is in security management skills. Accountants perceive IT security as very important to their current roles, however, they view themselves to lack knowledge in this area. The results of this study can be used in IT knowledge-gap analysis and to further develop training programs to improve the relevant IT skills among accountants.