Accountancy and academic/professional inter-dependency (or mutual exclusivity?)

This paper is a report on an Accounting Education Symposium held during the 2009 Annual Congress of the EAA in Tampere, Finland. This was the fourth occasion on which there has been an Accounting Education Symposium (or similar) within an EAA Annual Congress. Previous events were as follows:

2005 (Gotenburg, Sweden) EAA Accounting Educators' Forum
2006 (Dublin, Ireland) 'Universities and Professional Bodies: Complementary or Colliding Roles in Educating and Training Future Accounting Practitioners?' (sponsored by the Irish Accountancy Educational Trust)
2008 (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) 'Accounting Education: The Common Content Project' (sponsored by Royal NIVRA).

Investigating modifiable organizational factors relating to workability: a focus on gendered culture

This study aimed to investigate the relationships between workability, organizational factors and psychosocial factors related to worker health and wellbeing. The cross sectional study involved participants from a general worker population (N = 305). Surveys were distributed through participants' organizations. and completed online. Findings of this study. suggest that many of the factors that predict workability are in fact modifiable organizational factors. Findings suggested whilst individual factors remained important predictors of work ability, organizational nurturance values, leadership effectiveness, occupational stress and job satisfaction were significant organizational factors.

Modelling of vocational excellence: An international perspective

This paper provides an overview of the findings from a Finnish Ministry of Education sponsored project called ‘Modeling of Vocational Excellence’ (MoVE) and an Australian application and adaptation of this research: ‘MoVE Australia’. The Finnish MoVE research project was conducted by the Research Centre for Vocational Education at the University of Tampere explored WorldSkills as a site for the development of expertise and pursuit of excellence. It addressed questions about the abilities and attributes of competitors, and the social and environmental factors which influenced their skill development. The Australian project administered the Finnish MoVE survey to the Australian international WorldSkills team which will compete in London in October 2011 and introduced a second survey about competitor experience, designed to give voice to the young people involved in WorldSkills. This survey was administered to competitors, trainers and judges participating in the WSA National Competition held in Brisbane in May 2010, and later to employers and families. The Australian extension of the Finnish research has generated a rich source of experiential data, providing fresh insights into career choice and training. The findings of the research offer opportunities for reviewing elements of trade training and raise questions about the role of a competitive community of practice in quality skill formation and about the current level of research on this aspect of Australia VET practice.

What contributes to vocational excellence? Characteristics and experiences of competitors and experts in WorldSkills London

Modelling Vocational Excellence (MoVE) International is a WorldSkills Member research initiativesupporting:• skills improvement and Competition best practice• international skills benchmarking, and• promotion of vocational excellence to young people, employers and policy makers.MoVE International is the inaugural research project for the WorldSkills Foundation and is alsosupported by Skills Finland, WorldSkills UK, WorldSkills Australia and the Dusseldorp Skills Forum.The research team is a partnership between: University of Tampere, Finland; University of Oxford,UK; and RMIT University, Australia, with support from Deakin University, Australia.The research initiative sets out to produce outcomes relevant to the interests of its majorstakeholder groups. The data produced by the study offers WorldSkills International and individualWorldSkills Members a framework for international benchmarking on skills quality, and a windowinto the WorldSkills experience for Competitors and Experts. Through the research reports,WorldSkills Member organizations will also gain access to global data on WorldSkills Competitorsand Experts which may be applied to improve training and professional development. Importantly,young people are afforded a global voice. In telling their own stories they can share theirexperiences with peers, and provide future Competitors with insights into the experience of beinginvolved in international skill competitions. For WorldSkills International, the data is a source ofpromotional material, and may contribute to event and organizational evaluation.The MoVE research project launches the WorldSkills Foundation’s program of research,engagement and advocacy. MoVE offers the Foundation an opportunity to influence the globaldebate on vocational education and training, and to shift the orientation of VET research away froma ‘deficit’ framework to one which highlights benefits and opportunities (see section 2.2 for a fullerexplanation of these research orientations).The outputs of the 2011 MoVE international research project include this global report and casestudies of the Australian, Finnish and British teams that competed at WorldSkills London 2011.