Business School

Financial accounting

Financial accounting research is focused on financial and non-financial disclosures by firms, the factors that influence these disclosures, and how these disclosures impact on various stakeholders and markets. The impact of independent assurance, or auditing, of these disclosures is also a keen interest.

The financial accounting group’s research currently addresses:

Financial reporting and its impacts: for example, the impact of financial analysts’ interpretations of financial information on investors’ decisions in capital markets, the ways in which capital markets impound financial information into prices, and international reporting issues.
External auditing: how factors such as auditor specialisation or the auditor’s involvement in non-audit services affect the quality of audit work, and the factors that lead to the collapse of international accounting firms.
Social and environmental accounting: the reasons for making disclosures and the characteristics of disclosing companies including their social, environmental and economic performance.
Accounting policy decisions: how and why firms make accounting policy choices.
Accounting history: New Zealand accounting history and the factors that influence the evolution of professional accounting practice.

Researchers in financial accounting

Lloyd Austin
Professor Steven Cahan
Professor David Emanuel
Professor David Hay
Dr Michael Keenan
Associate Professor Vic Naiker
Professor Jilnaught Wong
Associate Professor Norman Wong