POLITICAL SKILLS IN ACCOUNTING STUDENTS
DIFFERENCES BASED ON EXPOSURE TO THE BUSINESS COMMUNICATION COURSE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51320/rmc.v26i2.1724Keywords:
Political Skills, Business Communication, Accounting Sciences, StudentsAbstract
Communication and political skills play crucial roles in organizations, alongside the technical skills expected of accounting professionals. Given this, regulatory bodies, both national and international, emphasize the importance of developing these competencies during the Accounting course in their guidelines. In this context, this study aimed to identify potential differences in the political skills of Accounting students based on their exposure to the Business Communication course. Additionally, it sought to understand the associations between the dimensions of Political Skill. Data were collected from 131 accounting students who took the Business Communication course and 133 students who had not been exposed to this or an equivalent subject. The Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were applied to analyze differences in Political Skill dimensions, following a Confirmatory Factor Analysis that validated the consistency of the factorial indicators. Additional analyses were conducted using Spearman’s coefficient. The findings suggest that the Business Communications course does not necessarily impact the development of better political skills, as those who did not take it were more socially astute, while there were no significant differences in the other dimensions. Furthermore, additional analyses indicated that the political skill factors are complementary, as all were significantly positively associated with each other. This research contributes to the literature by addressing a research gap and providing insights for the curriculum design of Accounting programs.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Felipe Stainsack do Rosário, João Victor Pupo dos Santos, Ricardo Adriano Antonelli, Alison Martins Meurer

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