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Recently, ethical leadership has become a widely studied research topic. Simultaneously, many studies have begun to emphasise the role of interpersonal communication competence (ICC) in successful leadership. However, there has been little discussion on the links between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. To address this research gap, this study aims to compare and combine the research traditions of ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. The study is based on two literature reviews examining (a) ethical leadership (substudy 1; N = 27) and (b) leaders’ ICC (substudy 2; N = 18). The research questions are as follows: (a) How are the requirements of leaders’ ICC noticed in the literature of ethical leadership? (substudy 1) (b) How are the requirements of ethical leadership noticed in the literature of leaders’ ICC? (substudy 2) The findings reveal that (a) studies in ethical leadership rarely pay attention to leaders’ ICC and (b) studies in leaders’ ICC do not often discuss ethical aspects of ICC, at least explicitly. While a larger sample would have been preferred, the study contributes to previous research by addressing a research gap between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC and suggests integrating these research traditions to better understand the nature of ethics and ICC in leadership. By promoting novel interdisciplinary research perspectives, the study provides a foundation for further research and development of (a) a competence-based approach to ethical leadership and (b) an ethics-focused approach to competent leadership communication.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to get information on how the communication process transaction of commercial sex workers with customer occurs in province that practices Syariah law system.

Design/Methodology/Approach – A qualitative design using phenomenological approach with purposive sampling technique was utilized to obtain data. Subjects were female commercial sex workers with age around 16–45 years. The subjects were from district Banda Sakti and Muara Dua Lhokseumawe.

Findings – The result of study showed that subjects used interpersonal communication of self-disclosure through social media communication which was supported by verbal and non-verbal communication that gives an equal reaction. The type of communication used by commercial sex workers during the process of transactions were through face to face and media communication. However, it was found some barriers that interfere while doing interpersonal communication during the transaction, such as adjustment problem of subject, an error communication, and misperception between the subject and the customer that used their services.

Research Limitations/Implications – The study only focuses on how communication process of transaction occurs; therefore, it is important to do further research that focuses on how the Syariah law system impacts psychological attitudes toward commercial sex workers and how it will reduce the activity of commercial sex workers in Aceh, as well as how the communication occurs between parent and child that contribute them to become a commercial sex worker.

Practical Implications – Government should prevent commercial sex workers increase in Aceh as well as parents should more aware about their children’s activities outside home and be more communicative with their children.

Originality/Value – This paper gives information to the Aceh government to make further decision making and implement Syariah law system consistently and with commitment.

This chapter reports how accounting professionals and students perceive the proficiency of their communication skills. We find that professionals perceive themselves as having higher interpersonal skills, writing skills, and speaking skills than do students. Despite decades of accounting curricula’s focus on communication skills, there remains a perception gap between students and professionals on the importance of these skills. Professionals not only perceive that they have stronger communication skills, but they also consider these skills as more important for career success than do students. Furthermore, we find that, even after controlling for the difference in perceived communication skill levels, this perception gap continues to exist between accounting professionals and students.

Professional touching behavior (PTB), defined as intentional touching behavior that occurs between organizational members and that falls within the boundaries of appropriateness and professionalism in the workplace, is prevalent in organizations. Scholars from multiple disciplines, including human resources researchers, have acknowledged the importance of physical contact for facilitating interpersonal communication and relationship-building. However, PTB may not only elicit positive reactions from those who receive it but also negative reactions as well, with implications for social dynamics in organizations. PTB can, on the one hand, fulfill employees’ desires for interpersonal connection; at the same time, such physical contact at work can represent a threat to employees’ health. To explain the nature and implications of these divergent effects of receiving PTB, the authors draw upon sociometer theory and behavioral immune system (BIS) theory to model the emotional, cognitive, and physiological processes via which, and the conditions under which, receiving such behavior will result in socially functional responses and prompt subsequent prosocial behavior, and when PTB will be perceived as a health risk and prompt withdrawal behavior. The theoretical framework of this chapter expands our conceptual understanding of the consequences of interpersonal physical contact at work and has important human resources management (HRM) implications for organizational managers.

Stuebs et al. (2021, p. 38) note that soft skills “are essential for accountants to carry out their moral agency role in society.” Indeed, calls for aspiring accounting professionals to have well-developed soft skills have been ongoing for decades (American Accounting Association [Bedford] Committee on Future Structure, Content, and Scope of Accounting Education, 1986; Accounting Education Change Commission, 1990; Albrecht & Sack, 2000; Big 8 White Paper, 1989; Lawson et al., 2014; Pathways Commission, 2012). Despite these calls, the development of accounting students’ soft skills remains elusive (Fogarty, 2019; Rebele & St. Pierre, 2019). Perhaps this is not surprising as a commonly accepted, profession-specific definition of the term is lacking, as is consensus about the corresponding capabilities comprising accounting professionals’ soft skills. Instead, those in the accounting profession have treated the term soft skills much the way Justice Potter Stewart famously described hard-core pornography: “I know it when I see it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio 1964, p. 197). The problem, of course, is that such a description is individualistic and can lead to conflicts and inconsistencies not only in identifying the phenomenon (Baskin, 2018; Goldberg, 2010) but, more importantly, particularly in the case of soft skills, in taking steps to foster its development and measuring changes in it. Thus, understanding the term soft skills and its fundamental capabilities is a necessary prerequisite to the development of the soft skills deemed critical for future accounting professionals. In this chapter, the authors advance that understanding by developing an accounting-specific definition for soft skills and identifying a set of capabilities that comprise soft skills applicable to accounting professionals. The authors also discuss the implications of the work and conclude by recommending soft skills in accounting be referred to as professional competencies.