Research output per year
Research output per year
The Accounting and Financial Management group at Royal Holloway has an established and growing reputation for its distinctive high-quality and high-impact research, and for the teaching of cutting-edge insights in comparative, cultural and social aspects of international accounting.
Most of the members of the group work in the field of accounting. Notably, members of the group have many publications in the world’s top journals which publish research in 'qualitative' accounting, such as Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS); Organization Studies; Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ); Accounting and Business Research (ABR); Accounting Forum; Abacus; and Critical Perspectives on Accounting (CPA).
In the BYU Rankings of 2016, Royal Holloway was ranked first equal in the world for accounting research in one of BYU's six categories: ‘Other’ which includes history, sustainability and organizational issues. See:
http://www.byuaccounting.net/rankings/univrank/rank_university.php?qurank=Tother&sortorder=ranking6
Members of the group (counting those who were members at the time of publication) have published in the following leading international journals from 2006 onwards:
See full list of publications by clicking the ‘Publications’ tab above.
The work of the group is widely disseminated, as evidenced by high citation statistics. More than fifty of our publications have 100+ citations in Google Scholar. They include the following which have over 200 citations:
Brendan McSweeney’s Human Relations (55: 1) article is the most-cited paper ever from that journal (founded in 1947), and it has been the top downloaded paper every year since 2002.
Christopher Nobes was named as the most productive European author in leading accounting journals between 1991 and 2002 (Chan et al., Accounting and Business Research, 2006). He was the joint winner of the 2011 best manuscript award of the journal Abacus. Helen Tregidga received the 2009 Mary Parker Follett Outstanding Paper Award of AAAJ.
Further activities include the editing of journal special issues, such as:
and the editing of books, such as:
Members of the group serve on a number of journal editorial boards (including Abacus; Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (7 members); Accounting and Business Research (2 members); Australian Accounting Review (2 members); Accounting History Review (formerly Accounting, Business & Financial History); Accounting Forum (3 members); Accounting History; Accounting Organizations and Society; Advances in Public Interest Accounting; British Accounting Review; Contemporary Accounting Research; Critical Perspectives on Accounting; Critical Perspectives on International Business; Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies; Journal of Islamic Accounting & Business Research; Revista de Contabilidad y Direcciòn (Spain); Revista Contabilidade & Finanças (Brazil); Public Money and Management; Social and Environmental Accountability Journal (2 members); and Visual Methodologies (Switzerland).
Jane Broadbent was editor of Public Money and Management. Christopher Napier was co-editor of Accounting Historians Journal. Jeffrey Unerman was co-editor of Social and Environmental Accountability Journal (2008-13) and is associate editor of AAAJ. Jane Davison is an associate editor of Accounting and Business Research.
Three members of our group have won the Distinguished Academic Award of the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA): Jane Broadbent in 2008, Chris Nobes in 2015, and Jeffrey Unerman in 2016. The award has never before been made to members of the same institution for two years in a row. Further, Christopher Napier was awarded BAFA's Lifetime Achievement Award for 2016.
Jane Broadbent was admitted as an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2012, as was Christopher Nobes in 2017.
Jane Davison is a founding member of the ESRC-funded international research network inVisio [International Network for Visual Studies in Organisations]. She is associate director of the Centre for Impression Management in Accounting Communication at Bangor University. She was a member of the Italian RAE panel 2012 and is now a member of the ESRC peer review college.
Brendan McSweeney was responsible for the establishment of the research board of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA); in 2000 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; he is the founding member of an advisory board to the Europe, Middle East & Africa division of a large globally-located Japanese company; he is vice-president of the International association of Cross-cultural Comptetence and Management.
Christopher Napier was a member of the Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) (1996-1999), and a member of its Financial Reporting Committee (1997-2004). He was one of the invited keynote speakers at the Institute’s Information for Better Markets Conference (the main forum for practitioners and academics in the UK) on Accounting for Pensions in December 2008.
Christopher Nobes was a member of the Board of the International Accounting Standards Committee (1993-2001). He is now a member of the Financial Reporting Committee of the ICAEW, and a member of the Academic Panel of the UK’s Accounting Standards Council. He was vice-chair of the accounting group of the Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens (1993-2015). He was a member of the Financial Reporting Standards Committee of the European Accounting Association (2010-15). He received the ‘Outstanding International Accounting Educator’ Award of the American Accounting Association in 2002. In 2014, Prof. Nobes was inducted into the Reial Acadèmia Europea de Doctors (Barcelona).
Jeffrey Unerman was President of BAFA (2012-14). Since 2014 he has been a co-opted member of the Council of the ICAEW. He served on the ACCA Research Committee from 2005 to 2011 and is now a member of ICAEW Research Advisory Board. Prof. Unerman was also a member of the Expert Panel of the Prince of Wales’s Accounting for Sustainability Project. He received honorary membership of CPA Australia in 2009.
Gloria Agyemang was a member of BAFA's Board of Trustees (2012-2016). She was Secretary to the Committee of Departments of Accounting (CDAF) from 2000 to 2011.
The success of the accounting section is also reflected in grants awarded, from 2007:
ICAEW 2019 'International differences in extractive industry accounting', Christian Stadler and Christopher Nobes.
Leverhulme 2017 ‘Emile Zola: property bubbles, banking crises and the role of money in society’ Jane Davison.
British Council, Newton Fund 2017 for a researcher links workshop ‘Indicators and Metrics for Socially Inclusive Waste Management and Resource Efficiency in Supply Chains: Measuring and Reporting to Embed Sustainability in Policy and Practice’ (J. Unerman with D Vazquez-Brust and Brazilian colleagues)
ICAEW 2015 ‘International differences in IFRS recognition and measurement’ Christopher Nobes and Christian Stadler.
International Growth Centre 2014 ‘The Informalization of Ghana’s Small-Scale Gold Mining Economy: Drivers and Policy Implications’ Abby Hilson (with G. Hilson and R. Amankwah).
ACCA 2011 ‘Environmental aspects of Sustainability: SMEs and the role of the accountant’ Gloria Agyemang and Leonardo Rinaldi (with Laura Spence of RHUL).
ACCA 2011 ‘International variations in IFRS adoption and practice’, Christopher Nobes.
ESRC 2010 a Researcher Development Initiative, entitled ‘Advancing visual methodologies in business and management’, J. Davison (with S. Warren, Essex University and others from inVisio, International Network of Visual Studies in Organizations, http://in-visio.org). Web pages developed under this project are entitled 'inspire' and are newly and freely available at http://moodle.in-visio.org/.
ACCA 2009 ‘Analysing the relevance and utility of leading accounting research’, Jeffrey Unerman (with B. O’Dwyer)
ESRC 2008 ‘Research Seminar Series on visual dimensions of business, management and organizations’, J. Davison (with S. Warren, Surrey University and others from inVisio).
ACCA 2007 ‘Assessing the Functioning of NGO Accountability: The Impact on Effectiveness of Aid Delivery’ G. Agyemang and J. Unerman (with M. Awumbila, University of Ghana and B O’Dwyer, University of Amsterdam).
Brendan McSweeney is a visiting senior research fellow at the Stockholm Business School. Christopher Nobes is a professor at the University of Sydney and an adjunct professor at the Norwegian Business School, Oslo.
Members of the group have been advisors and consultants to a wide range of private and public sector organizations including: Albert Fisher; Allied-Domecq; Banking, Insurance & Finance Union; Carlsberg-Tetley; Corus/British Steel; Dubai Financial Services Authority; European Commission; Electricity Supply Board Officers Association; Fisons; Goldman Sachs; GPT; Hackney Enterprise Board; IBM; the Japanese Government; Jardine Pacific; Manor Bakeries; Midland Bank; Pfizer; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Ranks Hovis McDougall; Reed International; Saatchi & Saatchi/Cordiant; T&N; Transport & General Workers Union; and YKK.
Others have had long-standing connections with the examining activities of the ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants); CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants); and ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales).
A number of students have completed PhDs in accounting in the last few years or are currently working towards them:
This successful and innovative programme, based on the research expertise of the group, was established in 2006. It was one of the first accounting masters programmes created in response to the increasing recognition of the need to set the theory and practice of accounting in the context of its social, political, natural and cultural environments. It incorporates reflection on the broader setting and implications of accounting in addition to knowledge and understanding of contemporary financial and management accounting. Students take research methods courses, accounting courses and write a dissertation.
The programme is open to quality students from any discipline.
This degree was launched in 2015. It is accredited by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and by CPA Australia.
Person: Academic Contact, Staff - Academic staff, Academic
Person: Staff - Academic staff
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Other contribution
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
14/11/23 → 14/11/25
Project: Research
1/04/23 → 30/09/24
Project: Research
Leonardo Rinaldi (Editor)
Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editor of research journal
Giulia Achilli (Member of editorial board)
Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work › Editor of research journal
Giulia Achilli (Speaker)
Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
O'Leary, Susan (Recipient), 2016
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Bolt, Rebecca (Recipient), 2018
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)