It started with a silly question: What is an accountant? Fortunately, AccountingWEB's conversation with Paul Sharman, President and CEO of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), didn't end there. Instead it evolved into a discussion of the image of accountants and the future of accounting as a career in the U.S. and around the world.

"The vast majority of management accountants don't know they are management accountants," Sharman explains.

He attributes this lack of self-recognition among American accountants to three factors:

- A deceptive perception of what an accountant is
- Marketing is more effective than fact and
- Undergraduate degrees define what an accountant is.

In fact, Sharman points out that the majority of accountants working in industry will not do public accounting work during their careers. Even among certified public accountant (CPA) "lifers", those who make a career out of public accounting, eventually becoming partners in their firms, are not practicing CPAs - they are managers and salespeople.

Accounting, particularly in industry is, according to Sharman, a "value-adding creation of information job that contributes to society."

"Challenges arise [when discussing accounting internationally] because of the difference in American perspective of what an accountant is," Sharman says.

Read the rest of AccountingWEB's interview with Paul Sharman,
Click Here.

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