I would like to personally invite you to New York City, New York for the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association (AAA) where we will celebrate the AAA’s first 100 years and start looking forward to the next 100 years. While we will celebrate the AAA’s incredible history, we must continue to keep our eye on the future and the goal of becoming a learned profession. As you will see with most of our plenary and luncheon sessions, we have individuals that will talk about how accounting has impacted our history, but also how the accounting and the accounting profession (broadly defined) will be critical to our future in helping us to shape a prosperous society (e.g., John Steele Gordon and Vinnie Mirchandani). With that goal in mind, I have asked our global Presidential Scholars, Mary Barth, John Christensen, and Kazuo Hiramatsu to talk about becoming a learned profession by 2036 and their thoughts on what we need to do to achieve this goal.
The AAA would not be in the influential thought leader position it is today without the efforts all of its member volunteers and AAA professional staff. When you think about all the planning, board and committee meetings, reviewing, discussing, leadership roles, committee chairs and members, task forces, etc. it is clear our member volunteers contribute an amazing amount of time and effort to the AAA, thank you so much. But all of this would not happen without the amazing AAA staff, which now numbers over 30 people, including Executive Director, Dr. Tracey Sutherland, who has helped transform our non-profit organization into the impactful thought leader it is today.
Finally, I especially want to recognize the 2014-2016 Centennial Task Force members for all their efforts in the past two years to prepare for this year’s celebration: Lee Parker, Chair, Alex Gabbin, Cheryl McWatters, Gary Previts*, Vaughan Radcliffe, Sue Ravenscroft, Jennifer Reynolds-Moehrle, and Mary Stone (*served 2014-2015).
Now on to the meeting details. The meeting will start on Saturday, August 6th, with a wide array of pre-meeting sessions, including the Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting (CTLA). Every year, this conference attracts more and more of our members. Have a look at the program and the insert that is included in this issue. As in the past, there will be a host of sessions of interest to accounting educators. The main series of plenary and concurrent sessions will take place from Monday morning, August 8th, through Wednesday evening, August 10th. There are many planned discussions, panels, and events.
I am delighted to announce Monday’s keynote speakers are John Steele Gordon and Vinnie Mirchandani. Tuesday’s Presidential Scholars plenary speakers are Mary Barth, John Christensen, and Kazuo Hiramatsu. Tuesday’s luncheon speaker will be Curt Steinhorst. The Wednesday Plenary will include Jaime Casap, the chief educational evangelist at Google, as well as Lakshmi Puri, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, who will discuss the role of accounting in society. Wednesday’s luncheon speaker will be David Burgstahler, current AAA President-Elect. Please visit http://aaahq.org/Meetings/2016/Annual-Meeting/Speakers for more information about these wonderful speakers.
Monday’s Plenary session will feature John Steele Gordon and Vinnie Mirchandani. John Steele Gordon is an author specializing in business and financial history. He is the author of the books Overlanding, The Scarlet Woman of Wall Street, Hamilton’s Blessing: the Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt, The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power, A Thread Across the Ocean, and An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power. He is a contributing editor at Philanthropy, and wrote the "Business of America" column from 1989 to 2007 for American Heritage where he was also a contributing editor. A collection of his columns from American Heritage entitled The Business of America, was published in 2001. He now writes a column on business history for Barron’s called “The Long View” and does frequent book reviews for both The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He is a frequent contributor to Commentary magazine and its blog, “Contentions,” as well as to The American, the on-line magazine of the American Enterprise Institute.
Vinnie Mirchandani will also be a featured speaker at the Monday Plenary. He is president of Deal Architect Inc, a technology advisory firm. The firm helps clients take advantage of disruptive trends like cloud computing and business process outsourcing (BPO) before they go mainstream. Between this firm and his previous role at the technology research firm Gartner, he has helped clients evaluate and negotiate over $10 billion in technology contracts. He has been called "The King of Wow" for his keen eye for technology-enabled innovation. His blog, “New Florence. New Renaissance” has cataloged over 4,000 posts of innovative products, projects, and people in work, life, and play. His books, The New Technology Elite, The New Polymath and The Digital Enterprise (written with Karl Heinz Streibich) have been widely praised as "innovation firehoses". His latest books, SAP Nation and SAP Nation 2.0, are more investigative but carries his trademark style, which emphasizes case studies. His books draw on the breadth of his blogs, extensive research, and a global perspective from his travels to over 50 countries.
Tuesday’s Plenary will feature Mary Barth, John Christensen, and Kazuo Hiramatsu as this year’s Presidential Scholars. Mary Barth is the Joan E. Horngren professor of accounting at the Stanford University, Graduate School of Business (GSB). Professor Barth was a member of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) from its inception in 2001 until 2009. She served as the Academic Advisor to the IASB from 2009 until 2011. Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford in 1995, she was an associate professor at Harvard Business School and an audit partner in Arthur Andersen & Co. Professor Barth’s research is published in a variety of journals and has won several awards, including the American Accounting Association’s (AAA) Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award, Competitive Manuscript Award, and, on two occasions, the AAA/Deloitte Wildman Medal Award and, on three occasions, the Best Paper Award of the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section of the AAA.
Professor Barth is active in the AAA, having served as its president for 2013-2014 and as president-elect, vice president, past president, and chair of several committees. She is a recipient of the GSB’s Robert J. Davis Award for a lifetime of achievement as a GSB faculty member, MBA Distinguished Teaching Award, and Ph.D. Faculty Distinguished Service Award, and served as a senior associate dean for academic affairs at the GSB from 2002 until 2009. Professor Barth is a recipient of the Outstanding International Accounting Educator Award of the AAA’s International Section, has been an honorary professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, and is an honorary pofessorial fellow with title of professor at the University of Melbourne. She serves on the External Audit Committee of the International Monetary Fund. Professor Barth holds an BA from Cornell University, an MBA from Boston University, a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and DSc(HC)s from Lancaster University and London Business School.
John Christensen, is a professor of accounting at University of Southern Denmark has been awarded a honorary doctorate degree from University of Magdeburg and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research has been published in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Accounting Horizons, Review of Accounting Studies, European Accounting Review and Management Accounting Research. He is coauthor of Accounting Theory: An Information Content Analysis. He has served as president of European Accounting Association (2006-2009), vice-president of research and publication of American Accounting Association (2010-2012), and served as chair of The European Accounting Associations Doctoral Colloquium. He was the presidential scholar of the American Accounting Association in 2009. He is a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog of First Degree.
Kazuo Hiramatsu is a professor of accounting at Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan, has served as a professor during 1975-2016, and as the president of that university during 2002-08. He earned his BA (1970), MBA (1972) and Ph.D. (1987) from Kwansei Gakuin University. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Washington (Seattle, USA, 1977-79), and a visiting professor at the University of Glasgow (Scotland, U.K., 1991). He received a honorary doctoral degree from Satya Wacana Christian University, Indonesia, in 2010. He served as the president of Japan Accounting Association (JAA, 2009-12), the vice president-international of American Accounting Association (AAA, 2009-11), and the president of International Association for Accounting Education and Research (IAAER, 2013-14). Currently, he is a member of the Business Accounting Council of the Japanese government, and the chair of the Translation Review Committee of IFRS in Japan. In the past, he was a member of the Accounting Standards Board of Japan (ASBJ) and the Certified Public Accountants and Auditing Oversight Board (CPAAOB). His research interest is in international accounting. He received the Ohta Award from JAA in 1986, the Joint AICPA/AAA Collaboration Award in 1998 and the Outstanding International Accounting Educator Award from the International Accounting Section of AAA in 2005.
Curt Steinhorst will be the Tuesday luncheon speaker. He is a Certified Keynote Speaker at The Center for Generational Kinetics. His clients range from GM and Raytheon to the Naval Academy. Curt is a Millennial himself who has a reputation as a leader among Millennials. At age 20, he was elected President of his 10,000-member class at Texas A&M University. Since graduating from college magna cum laude he has worked extensively to make the most of generational differences for clients around the world.
Curt’s entertaining speaking style has wowed audiences of up to 20,000 leaders from California to New York City and Africa. Curt’s personal experiences leading Millennials and serving as a speaking coach for top performers—from executives and TV personalities to helping the Heisman Trophy Winner prepare for his speech—make him a powerful and entertaining communicator on how to bridge generations with employees and customers.
Wednesday’s Plenary will feature Jaime Casap, the chief education evangelist at Google. He evangelizes the power and potential of the web, technology, and Google tools as enabling and supporting capabilities in pursuit of fostering inquiry-driven project-based learning models. Jaime collaborates with educational organizations and leaders building innovation and iteration into our education practices. He speaks on the subject of technology, education, and innovation at events around the world. In addition to his role at Google, Jaime serves on a number of boards, including the Arizona Science Foundation and Inquire Schools. He serves as an advisor to dozens of organizations focused on education, technology, and equity. Jaime is also an adjunct professor at Arizona State University, where he teaches classes on policy, innovation, and leadership.
Wednesday’s Plenary also feature Lakshmi Puri, the Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. She is directly responsible for the leadership and management of the Bureau for Intergovernmental Support, United Nations Coordination, and Strategic Partnerships. Ms. Puri joined UN Women in March 2011, shortly after its creation. Throughout her career, Ms. Puri has promoted the gender equality and women’s empowerment agenda in various capacities in the context of peace and security, human rights and sustainable development. She has extensive experience in economic and development policy-making covering trade, investment, migration and labour mobility, financial flows, environment and climate change, energy, agriculture and food security, universal access to essential services, intellectual property rights, and traditional knowledge, among other issues.
Prior to joining UN Women, Ms. Puri was the Director of the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, where she coordinated the preparations for the fourth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries which resulted in major outcomes, including the Istanbul Programme of Action and Political Declaration. Ms. Puri’s work with the UN dates back to 1981, when she was a delegate to the Commission on Human Rights where she was involved in the negotiation of some key human rights conventions, notably during her postings in Geneva including as Deputy Permanent Representative. She dealt with a range of UN specialized agencies, as well as the World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO). She has a Bachelor of Arts (honours) from Delhi University and a postgraduate degree from Punjab University, as well as professional diplomas. She studied history, public policy and administration, international relations and law, and economic development. Ms. Puri has contributed to policy-related research at think tanks and academic institutions and has been on the board of public policy institutions and companies.
Wednesday’s Luncheon will feature David Burgstahler (2016-2017 AAA President), the Julius A. Roller professor of accounting at the University of Washington. Dave has taught at the University of Washington since 1981, where he previously served as acting dean in the School of Business and associate dean for Masters Programs and Executive Education. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and has published widely in peer-reviewed journals including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Contemporary Accounting Research, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and Issues in Accounting Education. He is currently an editor of The Accounting Review and served as associate editor (1997-2000) of Accounting Horizons, and editorial board member for Accounting Horizons (2000-04), The Accounting Review (1983-86, 1992-2003), Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory (1986-94, 1997-1999), and Journal of Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting (2010-15). Dave has over thirty-five years experience teaching, has served on over fifty Ph.D. supervisory committees, thirty doctoral dissertation reading committees, and has presented his research at over sixty-five conferences and seminars. He has received numerous awards for teaching excellence and is the recipient of the AAA’s Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award (2002), the University of Washington’s Beta Alpha Psi Professor of the Year (multiple years), and has been awarded numerous faculty fellowships and research grants, including appointment as a Schoeller Senior Fellow at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (2014-15).
In addition to the above plenary sessions we will be hosting one special Presidential Panel session featuring all the former FASB chairs, including Denny Beresford, Bob Herz, Ed Jenkins, Don Kirk, and Leslie Seidman. We hope to have a big audience to hear from this amazing group of individuals that are all together for the first time ever. Also there will also be a panel jointly sponsored by JAA (Japan Accounting Association) and JAIAS (Japanese Association for International Accounting Studies) on voluntary application of IFRS, chaired by Dr. Kazuo Hiramatsu.
The concurrent sessions during the Annual Meeting will include some terrific at-large panel sessions which we hope you will be able to attend. The third Global Emerging Scholars Research Workshop will be held on Sunday, and the Faculty-Student Collaborations in Accounting (FASTCA-16) will be held on Wednesday. The main objective of the Global Emerging Scholars Workshop is to provide access to senior leadership to help scholars develop their research. The scholars who will attend the workshop will present their papers and receive constructive feedback from senior mentors and their fellow scholars. Faculty chair, Wayne Landsman, will again be joined by a group of distinguished faculty scholars. Last year's faculty included Professor William R. Kinney, Jr., the Univeristy of Texas at Austin, Professor Ken Peasnell, Lancaster University, Professor Shivaram Rajgopal, Columbia University, and Professor Alfred Wagenhofer, University of Graz. Workshop attendees will have the opportunity to interact with renowned scholars of international standing and with fellow early career researchers. In addition, the workshop will provide a platform for discussion of research ideas and issues that potentially lead to future collaboration among attendees. The main objective of the Faculty-Student Collaboration sessions is to encourage exploration and discussion of research collaborations between accounting faculty and undergraduate and master's students. This all-day conference recognizes the importance of these collaborations to creating important learning experiences for students, attracting students to the accounting profession, and the Accounting academy - as well as connecting the community of faculty conducting collaborative research, and teaching.
I just want to thank Erlinda Jones and her staff (and all the AAA staff) for all their efforts in putting together such an amazing meeting. This year’s hotels will be the New York Hilton Midtown and Sheraton New Times Square. I also want to thank Markus Ahrens, Saint Louis Community College-Meramec for chairing the education sessions, and to all of the section-sponsored concurrent sessions teams:
Andrew Reffett, Miami University, ABO
Jian Cao Florida, Atlantic University, Juergen Sidgman, University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, AIS
Elizabeth Oliver, Washington and Lee University, APLG
Mark A. Jackson, University of Nevada, Reno, Amy Hageman, Kansas State University, ATA
Brian Bratten, University of Kentucky, Lisa Gaynor, University of South Florida, Barbara Grein, Drexel University, Nate Stephens, Utah State University, David Wood, Brigham Young University, Jian Zhou,
University of Hawaii-Manoa, AUD
Helen Brown-Liburd, Rutgers Business School, DIV
Holly Yang, Singapore Management University, Elizabeth Chuk, University of Southern California, Peter Demerjian, University of Washington-Seattle, Nerissa Brown, University of Delaware, FARS
Curt Nicholls, Bucknell University, FIA
Dr. L. Murphy Smith, CPA, Murray State University, GIWB
Kenneth Smith, Central Washington University-Des Moines, Tammy Waymire, Northern Illinois University, GNP
Zuni Barokah, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Ling-Tai (Lynette) Chou, National Chengchi University, Thomas A. Lechner, CPA, Eastern Michigan University, International
Brian Cadman, The University of Utah, Susan Kulp, George Washington University, MAS
Lois Mahoney, Eastern Michigan University, PI
Daniel O'Leary, University of Southern California, SET
Dan Jones, Assumption College, TLC
Sidney Askew, Borough of Manhattan College, Markus Ahrens, Saint Louis Community College-Meramec, TYC
Barbara Merino, University of North Texas, Accounting Historians
(source - http://aaahq.org/About/Directories/2015-2016-AAA-Committees-Task-Forces/Committees-Task-Forces/2015-2016-Annual-Meeting-Program-Advisory-Committee)
I also want to thank Julie Smith David and Barbara Brady for their friendship and dedication to the AAA and Nancy Maciag for assisting me with all the logistical support over the last year.
Finally, I hope to see you all in New York City this August to celebrate our centennial celebration, see old friends, meet new ones, and enjoy the meeting and all that New York City has to offer.
Bruce Behn
President, American Accounting Association