The accounting profession no longer merely focuses on hard accounting skills, but also increasingly on soft social skills. Previous studies have shown that teamwork, communication, leadership, and critical thinking skills became of utmost importance in the profession. Because accounting education is no longer aligned with these needs of the accounting profession, a skills gap has arisen between the competences graduates possess, and the competences employers demand.

In the current paper, we will answer the call of scholars and policymakers to investigate these social skills from early on, in secondary education. The research objective of this study is twofold. First, it examines which types of social skills (e.g., teamwork, communication, leadership, and critical thinking skills) are being addressed in secondary accounting education. Second, it focuses on the challenges and opportunities experienced by accounting educators when addressing social skills.

We answer this research objective by means of semi-structured interviews, conducted with 14 Flemish educational stakeholders. Through a non-probability convenience sampling technique, these stakeholders were recruited via multiple rounds, until data saturation was obtained. They represented the three educational levels (i.e., accounting teachers on the microlevel, pedagogical counsellors on the mesolevel, and policymakers at the macrolevel), hereby accommodating a multivocal perspective.

Results revealed that teamwork and communication are emphasized more frequently than leadership and critical thinking. Second, teachers identified various challenges and opportunities to address social skills, such as an overcrowded curriculum, the student diversity, and the complexity of social skills assessment. Important implications for accounting educators wanting to enhance students' future employability by stimulating their social skills are discussed.

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