The Annual Meeting has drawn record attendance for the last four years and this year’s program promises the same kind of opportunity! It is exciting to be convening the AAA community in NYC, and to again be kicking things off with the Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting. Plenary sessions of the American Accounting Association’s Annual Meeting will be held on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, August 3–5, 2009, and at lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday. This year’s plenary sessions feature a wide-ranging and impressive group of speakers dealing with the areas of the recent economic crisis, ongoing financial challenges faced by the US government, international standard setting, and other issues. Receptions, luncheons, and breaks offer opportunities for networking with colleagues and catching up with friends. On Sunday evening the informal Early Bird Reception will be hosted in the Exhibit Hall. Monday night the Welcome Reception offers refreshments and an opportunity to enjoy the gathering of our larger community. The number of program submissions this year is larger than last year, meaning that this year’s program will be among the largest in AAA history. Throughout the meeting, there will be over 350 sessions, offering something for everyone. Topics covered in the concurrent sessions represent the varied interests of our membership.
Paper presentations are planned across virtually all areas of accounting research as selected by our Research Events Team, Strategic Relationship Team, Teaching and Learning Events Team, and the leadership of our 16 scholarly AAA sections. In addition to research topics, there will be scores of papers, panels and poster sessions on teaching methodology, content, and techniques. Included among the topics of our concurrent sessions are course assessment, ethics, technology, the current economic crisis, professional updates, IFRS, convergence, fair value, XBRL, and many, many more.
Monday’s plenary speaker is David Walker. As Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from 1998 to 2008, spanning both Democratic and Republican administrations, Dave served as the federal government’s chief auditor. Prior to his appointment to the GAO, Dave served as a partner and global managing director of Arthur Andersen LLP and in several government leadership positions, including as a Public Trustee for Social Security and Medicare from 1990 to 1995 and as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Pension and Welfare Benefit Programs during the Reagan administration. Although no longer the U.S. government’s chief auditor, Dave continues to serve as a global accountability expert as chairman of the United Nations Independent Audit Advisory Committee. He has authored two books, is a regular commentator, and is the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A.
Tuesday’s plenary session features Sir David Tweedie, Chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Sir David was appointed Technical Director of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland in 1978 and in 1982 moved to the position of national technical partner of Thomson McLintock Co. In 1990 he was appointed the first fulltime Chairman of the (then) newly created Accounting Standards Board, the committee charged with the responsibility for producing the U.K.’s accounting standards. Since 2001 he has served as chairman of the IASB overseeing the development and adoption of international financial reporting standards by nations around the world.
Tuesday’s luncheon features Presidential Scholar John Christensen from the University of Southern Denmark. John is the current President of the European Accounting Association. John has a Ph.D. from Stanford, and has published numerous scholarly articles in agency research in accounting, communication structures, transfer pricing, valuation as an information source, and modern costing systems. John’s ongoing research areas includes accounting theory, the conceptual framework of financial accounting, reporting discretion, and auditing.
The Wednesday Plenary will feature Marc J. Epstein, Distinguished Research Professor of Management at Rice University in Houston Texas. The author of 18 books and over 100 articles, Dr. Epstein has significant practical experience and has completed extensive research in corporate sustainability, governance, and accountability. His most recent book, Making Sustainability Work: Best Practices in Managing and Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental, and Economic Impacts, was released in 2008. He is the winner of numerous awards for his work relating to extensive field research on this topic including the AAA/AICPA Notable Contribution to Accounting Literature Award, AAA Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Literature Award, and IMA Siegel Award for Applied Research. His presentation will focus on the measurement and integration of social and environmental impacts for internal management decisions.
Also speaking at the Wednesday Plenary sesssion will be Mindy S. Lubber, President of Ceres, the leading U.S. coalition of investors and environmental leaders working to improve corporate environmental, social and governance practices. She also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), an alliance of more than 70 institutional investors representing nearly $7 trillion in assets that coordinates U.S. investor responses to the financial risks and opportunities posed by climate change.
Ms. Lubber is the recipient of the Skoll Social Entrepreneur Award and under her leadership, Ceres was awarded the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award for 2007 and 2008. In her position at Ceres, Ms. Lubber has lectured on corporate sustainability issues at the New York Stock Exchange, the World Economic Forum, more than 100 Fortune 500 companies and the American Bar Association.
Ms. Lubber has held leadership positions in government as the Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; in the financial services sector as Founder, President and CEO of Green Century Capital Management, an investment firm managing environmentally screened mutual funds; in the private sector as the President of an environmental law and policy consulting group; and in the not-for-profit sector for more than a decade leading environmental and public interest law organizations.
Wednesday’s luncheon speaker is Nancy Bagranoff, Dean of the College of Business and Public Administration at Old Dominion University and the incoming President of the American Accounting Association. She has served on the International Accounting Education Standards Board’s Consultative Advisory Committee, as Vice President of Education for the AAA and President of the Information Systems Section. She has co-authored several books and many articles in the area of accounting information systems, consulting, and information technology audit and control. She will discuss “The AAA: A History of Thought Leadership in Accounting.”
Finally, at this writing, the Annual Meeting Program Committee is considering several options for our Wednesday morning Plenary Session. Once the final decision is made, we will add the session description to our online materials. We look forward to a very informative and exciting Annual Meeting. Come to New York this summer!
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