The impact of PMS/ACCA-oriented education and IFRS adoption on graduate employability and financial reporting transparency

In the context of globalization of capital markets, the use of a single, transparent, and internationally comparable financial reporting language is becoming more essential. This paper reviews two closely related phenomena regarding finance studies, namely, the impact of Professional Accounting System (PMS) and Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) oriented educational system on finance graduates' employability and the impact of the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on the transparency and the comparability of corporate financial statements. Based on previous empirical and conceptual research, the paper proposes that these two phenomena are not independent, but are mutually reinforcing elements of a single financial system, the professional one: professional education, oriented towards the IFRS, leads to the creation of specialists who can successfully implement IFRS in the practice, while the demand for specialists created by the IFRS implementation increases the value of professionally certified graduates in the market. Four synthesis tables are provided to organize the evidence reviewed, compare the two professional programs, summarize the dimensions of quality of IFRS-based reporting, and present the testable propositions suggested for future empirical research, based on a conceptual framework and a process pathway proposed to organize the identified mechanisms in the literature. The paper concludes that in transition and developing economies like Azerbaijan, the linkage of professional certification curricula with the national accounting education would likely have a positive simultaneous effect on the competitiveness of the labor market and on the quality of the national financial-reporting environment.