From shop to classroom: Using charity volunteering to inform community-engaged accounting education

Abstract

Accounting Information Systems (AIS) can appear highly procedural when taught through structured textbook content, whereas organisational practices require students to exercise judgement in situations featuring ambiguity, competing objectives, and resource constraints. This paper reflects on an emerging teaching initiative that translates charity volunteering experience into an accounting teaching case, which aims at creating an authentic learning context. Drawing on approximately 18 hours of volunteering in a charity vintage shop in Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, the initiative uses situated observations to identify AIS issues embedded in everyday retail practice. Four pedagogically useful tensions emerged: trust versus control, charity mission versus financial resilience, central guidance versus local reality, and circularity versus traceability. These tensions are being developed into a teaching case for the module titled Accounting Information Systems and Auditing, where students can learn relevant subject knowledge by mapping processes, diagnosing risks, and recommending proportionate improvements. The paper argues that educators’ own community engagement can provide practical insights into authentic, community-engaged curriculum development, while recognising that reciprocal partnership and classroom evaluation remain important next steps.