President’s Letter – Winter 2020

Dear Fellow Section Members,

It was great to see those of you who attended the midyear meeting of the International Accounting Section in Orlando last week. One benefit of holding the meeting jointly with Sections where we haven’t previously had collaboration, AIS and SET, was the opportunity to gain exposure to new topics. I was fortunate to attend both workshops on Thursday and while I’m personally far more likely to incorporate information from the PowerBI session into my classroom, the Blockchain/Hyperledger workshop was also informative. The plenary sessions on Friday and Saturday blended the topics of technology and globalization. Overall, I found the conference to be a great opportunity to exercise that trait at the heart of a lifelong learning mindset - curiosity.

The coordination of our 2020 Midyear Meeting by Co-chairs, Gia Chevis (Baylor University) and Maria Vulcheva (Florida International University), was remarkable. And, once again, the Ph.D./New Scholars Consortium, organized and run by Linda Myers (University of Tennessee), was a great success.

The International Section received around 50 submissions and ran 13 excellent concurrent sessions with research on a wide range of international topics. Please join me in congratulating the winners of the 2020 midyear meeting’s Best Paper Award:
Ole-Kristian Hope (University of Toronto), and
Cyndia Wang (University of British Columbia)

The title of their paper is “Capital-Market Liberalization and Asymmetric Auditor Behavior: Evidence from a Quasi- Experiment.” In addition, Bowe Hansen (Virginia Commonwealth University) won the meeting’s Best Reviewer Award.

It is impossible to mention by name all the volunteers who did so much work to make the 2020 Midyear Meeting a success. For everyone who gave their time and talent to prepare a review, discuss a paper, moderate a session, and/or organize a panel, THANK YOU for all that you do for the International Section!   

Upcoming Events

Preview: Next year’s International Section midyear meeting will be held jointly with IAAER (International Association for Accounting Education & Research). Previous joint meetings with IAAER have been vibrant and well attended. Watch for more information in the coming months.

Action Steps ---- Please remember to:

• Nominate your colleagues for our various Section awards. The calls have gone out, and the deadlines are below.

• Mark your calendar for the Journal of International Accounting Research Conference scheduled for June 24-27, 2020, in Taipei, Taiwan;
• If you haven’t already done so, volunteer to serve as a discussant or moderator for the International Section at the AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Atlanta, GA from August 7 – 12. You can volunteer online or by emailing me or either of the Annual Meeting Co-Chairs: Lucy Chen at Villanova University and John (Changjiang) Wang at University of Cincinnati; and
• Respond to the call for 2020-21 IAS Committee volunteers that you’ll receive this Spring.

Clearly, the year promises to continue to offer exciting opportunities for collaboration and dialogue. As the accounting profession evolves to face challenges and opportunities, it becomes increasingly important for academics to share our research and to continually engage in dialog with practitioners and standard setters. The international setting, in particular, intensifies these challenges and opportunities given the overlay of different sets of standards and different cultures.  

I hope that your membership in the International Accounting Section will continue to provide you with many opportunities for inspiration and growth.

Best regards,

Elaine

Elaine Henry, Ph.D., CFA
President, AAA International Accounting Section
Associate Professor
Stevens Institute of Technology, School of Business
Hoboken, NJ