Abstract:

For many years one has been postulating the necessity of changes in student education methods and programmes which should involve going from passive to active learning. It is especially important for the persons intending to hold managerial positions and all the others with an important role of the skills of analysis and evaluation of the situation as well as presentation resulting from conclusions. Such professions include accountants, especially management accountants, to mention just a few. Due to an ongoing IT technology development, computerization and automation of successive areas of the organization and a resulting increase in the data collected, IT skills are more and more crucial.

The main aim of the article is to point out which IT skills are most important for managers and management accountants and to present the possibilities of such skills development in the students at the Faculty of Management at the UTP University of Science and Technology in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The introduction provides a short literature review of the calls for changes in business, especially accountants education, which started more then 20 years ago. The successive part deals with the skills desired in managers, the changing role of management accountants, and it stresses the importance of Ms Excel and Business Intelligence skills, crucial for an effective analysis of data collected and processed in controlling/management accounting systems. The next point offers a quick look at the IT tools used in student education at the Faculty of Management, especially for diploma thesis development. Finally, some conclusions are formulated and further research directions are indicated.

Keywords:

Managers, management accountants, education, IT skills.