The Thwd Wave Breaks on the Shofe$ of Aooountnig

Information technology (IT) is changing everjrthing. It represents a new, post-industrial paradigm of wealth creation that is replacing the indxistrial paradigm and is profbiindly changing the way business is done. Becavise of these changes in business, the decisions that management must make are very different fix>m former decisions. If the purpose of accounting information is to support business dedsion-making, and management's decision types are changing, then it is natural to expect accounting to change — both internal and external accounting. Obviously, if business, management, and accounting change, accounting education and research must change: the types of students recruited, the curriculum, the set of required capabilities of graduates, and the issues investigated. This article begins by summarizing the changes being driven by IT and their effect on the needs for accoiinting information (section I). Then the article summarizes the effect of both on needs for changes in internal accounting (section II), external accounting, including accounting standard setting (section III), pubUc accounting firms (section IV), accounting education (section V), and accounting research (section VI). As the breadth of these issues must signal, the objective is to stimulate further thought and to demonstrate that it is needed.