Europe Study Tour May 2014

Objectives
From May 21 to May 31, 2014, 20 AC students joined the Europe Study Tour, which aimed to enhance student’s knowledge of accounting and to help them to develop an international/inter-cultural perspective to accounting and their accounting education.

Highlights
As this study tour is a credit-bearing elective course (AC4308 Accounting Meets Culture - International Standard Setting Bodies and Cultural Insights from Europe), students were expected to 1) prepare presentations, write essays/reports, and set interview questions; 2) study culture and its relation to accounting; and 3) keep a personal journal of their experiences.

During the tour, students visited International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in London and Deutscher Bundestag in Berlin, and met students from the University of Luxembourg. Throughout the visits, students consolidated their learning experiences by conducting interviews and surveys, making presentations, writing reports, etc.

TAI Ting Man, one of the participants commented, “a valuable opportunity to visit the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) which is the independent standards-setting body of the IFRS Foundation in London … Through this visit, I have learned the importance of the IASB in developing a set of worldwide standards to protect all stakeholders’ interests and its efforts in actualizing its values like transparency, though there are a lot of judgments involved. Moreover, I was aware of how culture, globalization and accounting standards are related for the case like high individualism results in heavy dependency on independent accountants’ professional judgments rather than legal requirements.”