Analysis of accounting education in the world's leading universities and comparing with Turkish universities

Accounting education is a professional education and what is expected from this education is that it provides a person with the knowledge and skills required by the profession. Students are largely provided with these knowledge and skills through academic programs. Globalization forces every field to change according to today's conditions of competition. This change inevitably affects accounting education at almost all levels as well. The main purpose of this study is to examine courses in accounting education at the undergraduate and postgraduate level in the top 100 universities on the list of the best universities in the world in the business management program published by the establishment of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) in terms of variables such as the course content, course category, profile of instructor giving the lecture and to determine what's need to be done to improve accounting education by detecting deficiencies and problems by comparing the education in these universities with accounting education in universities of our country. In order for this comparison to be made, universities in our country were divided into four groups as the oldest universities in Turkey, the best universities of Turkey, foundation universities and newly founded universities, and 10 universities were selected for every group. Thus, by detecting factors creating similarities and differences, it will be made clear whether the curriculum of accounting education in our universities is up-to-date, and by contributing to the improvement of accounting education in Turkey, what needs to be done in order to reach the level of the world's leading universities will be set forth. The fact that origins of the world's best universities date back to a very old time and these universities are located in developed countries and the curriculum is created oriented to practice are among the remarkable results of our study. That average accounting instructor number and academic studies and citations of these academicians in the world's best universities are high in number compared to our country is also one of the results of the study. It is expected that this research will contribute to the improvement of accounting education at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and will light the way for studies that are going to be made in this field. Provided that accounting education in our country reaches the level of the leading universities in the world, it is thought that universities in our country will gain recognition in the international platform, more professional members of accounting profession will be raised, this situation will facilitate the job of businesses and as a result, contribute to the development of country's economy.