Developing Broad Business Perspective Competencies By Partnering With Practitioners

The CPA Vision Project - 2011 and Beyond) is a blueprint for the accounting profession of the 21st Century. From this visioning process the AICPA Core Competency Framework for Entry into the Accounting Profession (1999) was developed. It is from this framework that accounting educators are invited to adjust curriculum to provide students with the opportunity to develop these functional, personal, and broad business perspective core competencies so that students can meet the accounting profession challenges of the 21st century. This paper provides a specific model for developing broad business perspective competencies by partnering with a practitioner. Although using professionals in the classroom is not a new idea, this paper offers a unique perspective of the process by juxtaposing the perspectives of the academic and the practitioner in the processes of developing the partnership, planning the classroom event (which includes developing the broad business perspective competencies), designing and collecting student feedback, and evaluating the results of the classroom event and partnership.