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FINANSMARK-Finansmarkedet

The 4th Scandinavian Accounting Research Conference (BI)

Awarded: NOK 0.25 mill.

The conference gathered 59 participants and was held at BI Norwegian Business School on 2 and 3 September 2022. An important objective of the conference is to create networks between academics who are at different stages of their academic careers, and the list of participants reflected this: 18 were PhD students, 20 were in recruitment positions (post.doc and assistant professor positions) and 21 were established professors. The conference started with a doctoral consortium where the program was two-fold. In the plenary part, the focus was on research opportunities related to the European credit market and the labor market for PhD students. Subsequently, the doctoral students were divided into four groups where doctoral students presented their project ideas and received constructive feedback from experienced professors. The conference itself consisted of six presentations with discussions and a keynote address. The theme of the keynote address was "Politics, regulation, and financial reporting" and it gave a very thorough and good overview of how companies influence and are influenced by political motives / decisions and regulations. The feedback from the participants is unambiguous and the event was very useful, especially for the PhD students and those who are new to academia. They get constructive feedback on their projects and larger networks across countries / schools that can help them in their further studies / careers. This is very important since the accounting departments at most universities and university colleges in Scandinavia (and Europe in general) are small. The most important objective of the event has therefore been fulfilled: To increase research quality and research quantity at Scandinavian universities and university colleges.

Konferansen var meget vellykket. Mange doktorgradsstudenter (18 stk) og nyansatte (20 stk i post.doc og innstegsstillinger) fikk diskutert og presentert sine prosjekter med hverandre og med erfarne professorer (21 stk), dels ved at de var på programmet og dels i pauser, lunsjer og ved middagen. Mange fikk etablert nye kontakter, noe som er viktig siden de fleste forskningsmiljøene ved Skandinaviske universiteter og høyskoler er små. Kvaliteten på presentasjonene og diskusjonene var meget god, og mange bidro i diskusjonene. Ved å legge til rette for at forskere fra Skandinaviske institusjoner kan møte hverandre og samtidig møte etablerte forskere fra svært gode Europeiske institusjoner, er vi overbevist om at konferansen spiller en viktig rolle for å øke kvaliteten og kvantiteten på regnskapsforskningen i Skandinavia.

Compared with research in other business disciplines as for instance finance, strategy, and marketing, in Norway research in accounting is lagging behind. The situation is fairly similar across the Nordic countries, with a major shortage of qualified university faculty able to publish in high-quality international journals. The aim of the conference is to stimulate high-quality accounting research in Northern Europe with a particular focus on PhD students and young faculty members affiliated with Nordic universities and business schools. To help achieve this goal, the Scandinavian Accounting Research Conference (SARC) includes both a select group of outstanding international accounting researchers and PhD students and faculty who recently have started their academic careers. By giving young faculty and PhD students an opportunity to present or discuss papers and discuss their research with top international researchers, we believe that both the quantity and quality of qualified accounting scholars will increase over time. The conference will, in addition to presentations and discussions of research, give ample opportunities for networking, informal meetings, and discussions as one of the keys to succeed in academia is collaboration across institutions and borders. The type of research that our conference encourages produces new knowledge of the functioning of the capital markets, including the role of regulation and (accounting and auditing) standard setting. It will increase our understanding of the incentives of various actors in the market (importantly firm managers and external auditors but also financial analysts and large shareholders) as well as explore the informational needs of a variety of stakeholders (not limited to equity and debt investors). The topics for the conference may also include exploring ethical considerations related to capital markets, such as but not limited to managers’ earnings-management incentives.

Funding scheme:

FINANSMARK-Finansmarkedet