A Letter from the Chair

Greetings to all of my friends in the ABO section:

Happy Birthday! That's right, 2006 represents the 15th anniversary of the establishment of the Accounting, Behavior and Organization section, and we are planning a big party! Look for a special conference session and a big Birthday Party at the annual meeting in Washington DC. We hope to get as many members involved as possible, so look for announcements about the exact date and time.

The October mid-year meeting in Atlanta was well-attended and sported excellent concurrent sessions along with three very useful panel sessions. Look for summaries of the sessions in this issue of the ABO Reporter, thanks to our new editor Cindy Blanthorne. If you see Lynn Hannan, make sure to thank her for all of the wonderful work she did in putting the conference together. Also be sure to congratulate Arianna Pinello, at Georgia State who is this year's dissertation award winner and Bill Waller from the University of Arizona who was awarded the Notable (Lifetime) Contribution Award in Behavioral Accounting Literature.

A new aspect of the mid-year meeting this year was a series of emerging scholars sessions. Both PhD students and new faculty presented papers in these sessions, organized by Anne Magro. Especially with the ABO's focus on enhancing research and networking among behavioral researchers, these sessions are a great idea for our section. To further enhance development and involvement of PhD students in our section, the executive committee voted to waive the registration fee for any PhD student who wants to attend the mid-year meeting next year. There will also be a special session at the beginning of the meeting (on Friday morning) for PhD students and new faculty.

To further improve the excellent interaction for participants and feedback that authors receive at the mid-year meeting, next year we will move toward longer sessions and recruit discussants to make comments on papers and generate even more dialog. Your feedback (and of course your willingness to volunteer to help!) should be communicated to Anne Magro at the University of Oklahoma (amagro@ou.edu), who will organize the 2006 meeting. While final deliberations about the meeting location and date are still in progress, it is safe to say that it will be in the Pacific Northwest, probably Portland or Seattle.

The executive committee is also looking to 2007, with discussion of Boston as a potential location. Jean Bedard and the faculty at Bentley agreed to help organize the meeting if it is held there. With their new emphasis on Behavioral Accounting Research, the involvement of the Bentley faculty should add an additional source of excitement to the meeting.

Finally, I would like to recognize a very important person to our section. Charles Davis has been the webmaster of the section since 1995, when the section web page was first established, hosted by Baylor University. Thank you, Charles, and also Baylor University, for your service to all of us in the section. With that kind of history and the high quality work Charles has done for our section, it is hard to think of moving toward a new webmaster. However, several years ago, I recalled Charles indicating that he didn't want to do the job forever! Thus, when Charlie Bailey approached me about his willingness to take over the web site, I spoke with Charles and we graciously accepted his offer. For now, the site will maintain the same great look and feel that Charles created, with only a move from the previous site at Baylor to http://aaahq.org/abo/. Please change your bookmarks and look for new innovations as Charlie begins to take ownership of the site. Charlie, you have some pretty big shoes to fill, I am sure you will do a great job. I know Charlie welcomes everyone's feedback and suggestions.

The next time I will see most of you is in August at the Annual Meeting in Washington DC. Be sure to submit your papers to the ABO section and volunteer to review papers or to be a discussant. I know that Raquel Alexander at the University of Kansas (raquela@ku.edu), who is in charge of the ABO program, appreciates your help and feedback. And don't forget to come to our Birthday Party!

Best Wishes

Stacy Kovar, Kansas State University
2005-2006 President, ABO Section