Proceedings

PERCEPTION OF THE ROMANIAN ACCOUNTANTS
REGARDING THE FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING
EDUCATION
Paul DIACONU 1 , Vasile GORGAN,
Catalina GORGAN & Nicoleta COMAN
Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania
Codrina SANDRU
University of Transilvania Brasov, Romania
ABSTRACT
In the past twenty years the Romanian economy has undergone profound transformations.
The fall of communism in December 1989 followed by the transition to a market economy has
produced a series of major changes in the economic, political and social environment.
Accounting higher education has faced constant need to adapt to frequent changes in recent
years accounting system and the whole higher education system was reorganized in
accordance with the Treaty of Bologna. On the other hand there are worldwide studies that
confirm the differences between what is expected of a professional accountant and what he
acquired during university studies. Given that, our empirical study aims to outline the
perception of professional accountants on the Romanian accounting educational system. In
this approach, we tried to capture the relationship between theoretical and practical
knowledge in terms of importance assigned to each category by professional accountants, to
establish the role that the accounting professional bodies play in permanent training and
creating a hierarchy of skills required for professional accountants by IES 2 (International
Education Standard -Content of professional accounting education programs) from the
perspective of the accounting professionals from Romania.
.
KEYWORDS: Professional education, higher education accounting, professional
accounting bodies
INTRODUCTION
The fall of communism in December 1989, followed by transition to a market
economy has produced a series of changes in accounting in Romania. The French
accounting model served initially as a model of inspiration for the Romanian
accounting system. Between 1990 and 1993 the French accounting system was taught
in Romanian universities. In this time the Romanian accounting system consists of a
combination of soviet accounting and an accounting system of French inspiration
(Albu, Alexander, & Albu, 2010).
Accounting model applied as of 1 January 2004 was a French-inspired one although
traces of the communist accounting model seemed to continue to manifest (Feleaga,
1999). Analyzing the conditions under which an accounting system can change,
1
Correspondence address: Paul DIACONU, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, Romania;
email: pauldiaconu74@yahoo.com
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