Strategies for Building Communication and Negotiation Competencies for Prospective Accountants

Purpose of the study: The objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing strategies employed by the department of accounting in equipping its students with communication and negotiation competencies (CNC). Classroom, extracurricular, and internship are the main strategies to build students’ CNC. This study aims to identify the impacts of classroom learning, extra-curricular activities, internship and community service on CNC. Methodology: The study employs a quantitative approach by using accounting students at Universitas Negeri Semarang as a population. The study employs a five-point-Likert scale to collect data from accounting students in the fourth year. Student engagements are used to measure classroom, extra-curricular activities, internship and community service. Descriptive, correlation and regression techniques are used to analyze data. Main Findings: Classroom, extracurricular, internship and community service engagement positively and significantly influence communication and negotiation competencies. The study also shows that accounting student learns more about CNC in the internship and community service activities. Applications of this study: ASEAN member countries have ratified Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) where accountants from a member country can operate their business in other member countries. To ensure prospective accountants would work well in this region, they should have good CNC. The results of the study would provide information to accounting departments on how to equip their graduates with these competencies. Novelty/Originality of this study: Research on CNC for prospective accountants seems to be limited in number since the departments of accounting pay more attention to generic accounting competencies. The study uses engagement to measure extracurricular, internship, and community service activities.


INTRODUCTION
Inevitably, globalization influences many sectors including international business (Islam et al., 2019). For example, the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) member countries have agreed to form economic cooperation. ASEAN member countries have ratified the free flow of goods, service, investment, capital, and skilled labor (Tandjung, 2018). As a follow up to the implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), the member countries have ratified the Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) where accountants in ASEAN countries can do their business in all regions of member countries (Gunawan, 2016).
To work in the ASEAN region, prospective accountants from Indonesia have to be equipped with adequate competencies. Yanto et al. (2018) suggested six groups of competencies that should be mastered by prospective accountants in order to be able to work and harmonize internationally. The competency framework of accountants from developed countries has been long established and adjusted their competency frameworks with existing business challenges. AICPA (2017) establishes a core competency framework for AICPA pre-certification which consists of accounting, professional, and business competencies. The American Accounting Association contends that the ideal competencies of accounting graduates are creative thinking skills, learning for learning, lifelong learning, and communication skills (Suttipun, 2014). In the global era, communication and negotiation competencies are becoming more important since the number of international companies increases significantly.
Previous research found that communication influences the change success of an organization (Ouedraogo & Ouakouak Mohammed, 2018). Communication competencies also play an important role in improving performance (Yu & Ko, 2017). Since accounting graduates can work in various sectors, communication competencies are considered important as a provision in work. Besides, negotiation skills are needed by prospective accountants as they can play a role as an entrepreneur at work (Anthony, 2017). Research conducted in Saudi Arabia showed that communication and negotiation competencies are the main considerations by employers in recruiting prospective accountants for their companies (Zureigat, 2015). In other words, the communication competencies for prospective accountants are important (Iksan et al., 2012).
This study uses a model built by Astin (1984) called IEO as the main theory. Communication and negotiation competencies (CNC) can be examined in three educational constructs, namely Input, Environment, and Outcome. However, this study will only identify the contribution of student engagement (Environment) to the CNC (Outcome). Student engagement is part of an educational process which is the easiest one to be controlled by the accounting department. Student engagement has been widely used by previous researchers to measure student participation in academic and non-academic activities at universities (Zakir & Yanto, 2015) and at high school (Harwati & Yanto, 2017). Furthermore, Tam (2002) found that the outcome of education in higher education is highly dependent on the quality of inputs and various experiences while studying at the university. Student engagement is adapted from the involvement theory that students will learn by involving themselves in the learning environment to gain learning experiences through both curricular and extracurricular activities (Astin, 1984). The following Figure 1 shows the Astin's I-E-O Model.

Classroom Engagement
During the learning process in the classroom, students have the opportunity to develop all the potentials they have including creativity (Jackson & Sinclair, 2006). Previous research found that class discussions as a learning method have a significant influence on communication skills both oral and written (Dallimore et al., 2008). Logically, the more active students are involved in the class activities, the better their communication competencies. Yanto et al. (2018) suggested that Communication and Negotiation are competencies that are not separated. Thus, it can be concluded that classroom engagement also influences negotiation competencies. Previous research found that student engagement is an accurate tool for measuring the learning process in universities (Yanto, 2016) and at the same time has a positive impact on accounting competencies of prospective accountants in Indonesia (Yanto et al., 2011). This study will take several appropriate student engagement factors to measure the learning process in the classroom. The factors are an academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, and student-staff interaction. However, it is likely that each factor has a different impact on the outcome. Hebles et al. (2019) found that cooperative learning has positive impacts on students' teamwork skills. Implicitly, teamwork includes communication and negotiation competencies. There are several strategies for students to gain communication skills (Nath & Meena, 2019), but studentcentered learning is considered to have more positive impacts on students' communication competencies. In comparison, learning with the lecture method will only focus on lecturers. In addition, a student-centered learning approach provides more time for students to conduct two-way communication with both lecturers and peers. This method may have more effectiveness to develop students' CNC.
H1: Students participating actively in the classroom tend to have better competencies of communication and negotiation.

Student Engagement
Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 8, No 1, 2020, pp 864-872 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2020.81103 There are many scopes of student involvement, ranging from a very general scope to a specific one (Radloff & Coates, 2010) In general, engagement can be used to measure the process of academic and non-academic programs. Campus extracurricular activities help students to develop their competencies according to their needs, potential, talents (Hamsa, 2016). More importantly, students participating actively in extracurricular activities would have more advantages when they try to find jobs (Roulin & Bangerter, 2013). Extracurricular activities are also included in student engagement called enriching educational experience (EEE). Several previous studies found that EEE had a very minimal effect on academic achievement (Zakir & Yanto, 2015). This does not mean that extracurricular activities do not benefit to student education. It is likely that EEE has other impacts other than student academic achievements. However, Rivaldi and Khosmas (2013) also found that student activities had a significant influence on student academic achievement.
Previous research found that the influence of extra-curricular activities on student achievement is still inconsistent. Nevertheless, student extracurricular activities can be used as a tool to instill character to the students (Komalasari et al., 2014). Furthermore, students' extracurricular activities are also supported by the Directorate of Higher Education (DIKTI) as a mode to improve the quality of university graduates. Sofyan (2011) contended that there are four types of students' extracurricular activities i.e. (1) academic activities; (2) talents, interests, and skills; (3) welfare; and (4) social care. Students who take part in these activities have to communicate and negotiate with the supervisors (vertical) and colleagues/peers (horizontal) to ensure they can carry out their activities successfully. These vertical and horizontal interactions could be good training for students to develop their communication and negotiation competencies.
H2: Students actively participating in extracurricular activities would have better communication and negotiation competencies.

Internship and Community Service Involvement
Student engagement accommodates internship and community services under the factor of work-integrated learning. The internship program aims to provide opportunities for students to practice the knowledge and skills acquired from the college. Research on the influence of internship programs on student's communication and negotiation competencies seems to be non-existent. Ulum et al. (2017) found that internship programs have a positive effect on accounting students' competencies. Although this study uses prospective teachers as a sample, Ismail et al. (2018) found that internship programs have a significant influence on various types of soft skills such as communication, adaptation skills, teamwork, social skills, and so on. Most likely the internship programs will also improve students' ability to negotiate. Furthermore, Muayati and Margunani (2014) stated that an industrial internship improves the readiness of students to work. This readiness might also cover the competency of communication and negotiation.
Community Service is a co-curricular program that positive impact on students' characters and competencies (Khusniah, 2018). This activity requires students to actively communicate and negotiate so that they can carry out the community service program successfully. Perdana et al. (2013) revealed that there is a significant relationship between community service with students' social skills. Internship and community service programs are forms of work-integrated learning, a form of learning environment for students in higher education level. The experience of the internship will provide more experience for students to work in the community. By being involved in internship and community service programs, accounting students would improve their communication and negotiation competencies.
The curriculum of the accounting department requires all students to take part in internship and community service programs in the 7th semester (Ikhsan et al., 2013). Therefore, SE and SEE take place in semester 1 to semester 6. Most likely SE would affect SEE and SEI, besides SE might affect CNC directly. In other words, SEI is likely to act as a mediator variable between SE and CNC.
H3: The engagement of internship and community service has positive impacts on students' communication and negotiation competencies.

Population and Sampling
The population of this study was the final year accounting students at the Universitas Negeri Semarang. The reason for taking this population is because most final-year students have taken all the courses and accounting practices needed to fulfill the stated competencies. Using a simple random sampling technique, this study collected data from149 respondents. In addition, the Slovin formula was employed to determine the sample size of the study (Siregar, 2016).

Research Variable
This study includes one dependent variable and three independent variables. The dependent variable is communication and negotiation competencies (CNC), while the independent variables are classroom engagement, extracurricular engagement, and internship and community service engagement. The Likert-type questionnaire was employed to collect data from respondents. In this study student engagement refers to the intensity of students to engage themselves in curricular and extra-curricular activities held by a university both on-campus and off-campus.

Validity and Reliability of Instrument
This study collected the perception data of respondents using a five-point Likert scale questionnaire. To test the validity and reliability of the instrument, this study used corrected-item-total correlation (CITC) and Cronbach's alpha tests.

Data Analysis
This study uses four analysis techniques namely descriptive, product-moment correlation, regression, and mediation test analyses. The descriptive analysis aimed to describe the data of each variable. Correlation analysis was used to find out the association between two variables without any interference from other variables. Correlation analysis was also used to identify multi-collinearity problems. According to Slinker and Glantz (1985), the correlation between independent variables should be below 0.7 to ensure the regression model is fit. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the impact of SE, SEE, and SEI variables on the CNC variable. Mediation analysis aimed to identify the role of a variable in mediating the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable.

Descriptive Analysis
The results of the analysis illustrate that the average communication and negotiation competency is 50.54 from the maximum value of 70.00. The involvement of students in the classroom (SE) has an average of 37.36 from the maximum value of 45.00. The average value of student involvement in extracurricular programs (SEE) and student involvement in internship and community service (SEI) programs are 27.77 (max. 40.00) and 34.60 (max. 45.00) respectively (Table 1).

Correlation Analysis
The results of product-moment correlation analysis show that classroom engagement (SE), extracurricular engagement (SEE), an internship and community service engagement (SEI) have positive and significant relationships with communication and negotiation competency (CNC) with the coefficients of 0.617, 0.501, and 0.710 respectively. All these coefficients have 0.01 significant levels. In this case, SEI with CNC has the strongest relationship followed by the relationship between SE and CNC. The study also found that SE and SEI have a relationship of 0.695 (p<0.01), while the relationship between SE and SEE and the association between SEE and SEI are relatively small in magnitude. Table  2 shows that the correlations between independent variables are still below 0.7 meaning that the regression model does not have severe multi-collinearity.

Regression Analysis
The regression analysis shows that the SE, SEI, and SE variables simultaneously influence the CNC variable with an F ratio of 63.01 (p<0.01). Therefore, classroom engagement, extracurricular engagement, and internship and community service engagement simultaneously have impacts on communication and negotiation competencies of prospective accountants. The coefficient of determination is 0.566, which means that the influence of SE, SEE, and SEI variables on the CNC variable is 56.6%. The influence of 43.4% is contributed by other variables not covered by this study.
The t-test for the regression coefficient of the independent variables shows that the SEI variable has the highest impact on CNC with a t coefficient value of 5,831 (p=0.001) followed by the SEE variable with t value of 3,281 (p=0,000), while SE variable has t of 2,832 (p=0.005). The comparison of t value with the correlation coefficient shows a slight difference in magnitude. The possibility of this condition is caused by slight multi-collinearity between SE and SEI variables. However, the value of Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) is still below 10 which means that the multi-collinearity of this model can still be tolerated. The results of this analysis indicate that all proposed hypotheses (H1, H2, and H3) are accepted. Table 3 below provides complete information about the results of the regression analysis.  Figure 2 below shows a summary of the mediation analysis. Correlation analysis shows that SEE and SEI variables are closely related (0.463, p<0.01). Sequentially, the involvement of students in extra-curricular activities takes place in semester 1 through semester 6 as well as the SE variable. Therefore, it is very possible that the SEE variable also equipped students with entry behavior to be able to carry out SEI in semester 7. Furthermore, the correlation between SE and SEE variables is 0.380 (p<0.01) as an indication that the magnitude of the relationship between the two variables is not too high.