The accounting programme provides rigorous training to PhD students for the investigation of issues relating to auditing, financial accounting, and managerial accounting. Our programme aims to place graduates at research-oriented institutions as faculty members. Our recent graduates have taken faculty positions at Australian National University, Monash University, and University of Hawaii at Mānoa, University of Hong Kong, University of Queensland, University of South Carolina, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Sydney, and top research universities in China.

As potential PhD student advisors, our faculty members have a solid reputation for quality work, and have published in major accounting and finance journals including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Finance, Contemporary Accounting Research, Accounting, Organizations and Society, and Review of Accounting Studies.

There are two major tracks in the accounting doctoral programme: capital markets and behavioral. Applicants have to indicate which track they intend to follow on their applications.

The capital markets track uses archival data to examine a variety of interesting research questions about corporate behaviors, including financial reporting, investment, corporate finance, corporate governance, and valuation. Our students have access to a wide range of databases providing information on stock returns, corporate governance, and insider trading and financial statements.

The behavioral track focuses on judgment and decision making processes in accounting settings. Current research topics examined in this track relates to determinants of auditor performance, determinants of analysts’ forecast accuracy, as well as judgment biases of analysts, investors, and financial managers. This track involves the intersection of theories in psychology, economics, and finance, and typically involves (but is not restricted to) the use of experiments.

Doctoral students do not take additional courses on specific accounting standards but are required to take seminars on accounting research. Depending on the track they are in, they take classes in economics, psychology, econometrics, etc. and learn to apply their knowledge in these fields to research issues in accounting.