Accounting

Information in Capital Markets

This area focuses on:

• the production and use of information in capital markets including the production and dissemination of information by management of firms;
• the processes of information acquisition and use employed by financial analysts and other information intermediaries;
• use of information for advanced financial statement analysis with application to areas such as credit and equity analyses and merger and acquisitions;
• use of produced information for forecasting and valuation of companies;
• corporate governance issues associated with information production and dissemination in capital markets;
• the efficiency and effectiveness of accounting, and statutory and stock exchange regulations for information production and dissemination in capital markets.

Accounting Measurement and Disclosure

This area focuses on:

• public financial reporting and voluntary disclosure including but not limited to accounting standard setting and disclosure regulation processes;
• content and implementation questions associated with accounting standards;
• specific expertise in questions relating to IFRS adoption and contracting implications including debt contracting;
• specific expertise in accounting measurement and disclosure issues relating to intangible investments and technological innovation processes;
• specific expertise in accounting measurement and disclosure issues relating to corporate, environmental and sustainability;
• specific expertise in the area of disclosure under the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) and statutory regulated continuous disclosure regime;
• specific expertise in accounting regulation and disclosure relating to executive compensation;
• specific expertise in the quality of financial reporting and disclosure, questions relating to accounting and real earnings management, comprehensive income, and income taxes.

Control Systems and Performance

This area focuses on understanding the design and use of management control systems and their relation with performance in organisations. The management control system research encompasses management accounting systems including budgets, planning, variance analyses, and forecasting; but also more broadly all the systems rules, activities and evaluation that managers use to direct the organisational participants to achieve organizational goals. This research is based on transaction cost economics, economic theory, agency theory, sociological theories, and contingency frameworks. The settings include public, private and non-profit organisations.

Managerial Incentives and Corporate Governance

This area focuses on issues that relate to understanding and improving the efficacy of corporate governance in firms.

Specific areas of research include but not limited to:

• the determinants and consequences of the board of directors' structure and qualifications, ownership structure, the structure and implications of executive remuneration for specific outcomes such as firm performance, investment and financing decisions;
• the role of board committee activities in corporate governance; corporate litigations; succession planning;
• auditors' independence; compensation consultant;
• post GFC governance reforms;
• shareholder activism;
• the interplay between regulation of governance practices and managerial incentives and decision making;
• questions relating to how analysts forecast earnings and the implications of these forecasts for firms and markets.