Minutes of the 2014 Conference and Annual General Meeting of Professors of Accounting and Finance (CPAF)

Held at the Manchester Conference Centre 1/2 September 2014

Attending the conference were:

Alan Goodacre, Alex Michaelides, Arif Khurshed, Chris Pyke, Christopher Humphrey, Christopher Napier, Colin Mayer, Danial Hemmings, David Newton, Emmanuel Haven, Geoffrey Wood, Ian Tonks, James Steeley, Jean Chen, Joanne Locke, John Cullen, Khaled Hussainey, Laura Spira, Lisa Jack, Lynn Hodgkinson, Marc Goergen, Mike Page, Neil Kellard, Pauline Weetman, Peter Pope, Peter Smith, Philip Molyneux, Reza Kouhy, Richard Macve, Richard Taffler, Robert Hodgkinson, Shahzad Uddin, Stuart Hyde

Apologies:

Richard Jackson, Ronald Anderson, Joan Ballantine, Richard Barker, John Beath, Thorsten Beck, Alnoor Bhimani, Rebecca Boden, Roger Buckland, Charlie Cai, Santiago Carbo-Valverde, Shanti Chakravarty, Georgios Chortareas, Mark Clatworthy, Lynne Conrad, Stuart Cooper, Jo Danbolt, Ian Dewing, Elroy Dimson, Ian Dobbs, Darren Duxbury, Tony Elliot, Mahmoud Ezzamel, Mark Freeman, Claudia Girardone, Alan Gregory, Alessandra Guariglia, Elaine Harris, Jacqueline Harvey, Kathryn Haynes, David Hillier, Trevor Hopper, Vasso Ioannidou, Tim Jenkinson, Nathan Joseph, Alexandros Kontonikas, Meziane Lasfer, Morten Lau, Ursula Lucas, Christine Mallin, Neil Marriott, Pru Marriott, Brendan McSweeney, Gareth Morgan, Alan Murray, Narayan Naik, Robert Parker, Salima Paul, Ken Peasnell, José-Luis Peydró, Michael Power, Raghavendra Rau, Janette Rutterford, Mark Shackleton, Michael Sherer, Lakshmanan Shivakumar, Philip Shrives, Richard Slack, Michael Tayles, Robert Taylor, Jon Tucker, Jeffrey Unerman, Martin Walker, Hugh Willmott, John Wilson, Ania Zalewska

Ian Tonks (Chair) opened the conference by welcoming all the delegates and the speakers, and introduced the first session.

"Natural Capital Accounting"

Colin Mayer (University of Oxford, and member of DEFRA’s Natural Capital Committee), Robert Hodgkinson (ICAEW)

Colin, a member of the Natural Capital Committee, discussed its remit which is for our generation to leave natural capital better than at the start. Two of the committee’s main issues are identifying those at risk and how to measure natural capital. The committee has a research agenda and is keen to promote research to assist its aims. Colin described the SEEA (System of Environmental-Economic Accounting) and outlined its potential problems. He suggested a maintenance charge which is equated to the cost of being able to sustain a profile of natural capital services could be an alternative. This approach would require companies to construct and maintain a natural asset register and Colin concluded with examples of how such a system would work.

Robert discussed concerns with societies’ expectations that accountants can measure natural capital and stressed the importance of the mutual benefit that could be achieved between practitioners and academics if each party questions the relevance of the other’s responses to calls for the measurement of natural capital. Robert stressed that it might not be the best for all organisations to compile a natural asset register.

4.00.-5.30pm “Doctoral Research Training in Accounting and Finance, and DTCs”

Peter Smith (York University and member ESRC Research Training Committee)

Stuart Hyde (Manchester Business School)

Peter commenced by stating the aims of the centres which are to concentrate studentships in strategic and priority areas in addition to expanding collaboration. Advanced training networks have been developed, utilising and building on existing/emerging international links. 770 studentships were awarded last year with a focus on economics and business and management. Collaboration with other organisations outside academe is an essential element with the target of 20% of studentships roughly achieved. Since 2013 overseas students have been given access to economics and advanced quantitative methods scholarships which has boosted economics by about 20% (with Universities picking up the overseas fee premium).

Accounting and Finance studentships are not separately identified but are estimated at around 20% of the management and business studies total but the numbers appear to be falling. A new tranche of studentships will be released from September 2015 with a start date of 2017, following the current review committee. Peter concluded by identifying good practice, namely a good relationship with supervisors, structured training courses, ease of transfer of credits between institutions and advice on internships, experience and future careers.

Stuart described the North West DTC which comprises Manchester, Lancaster and Liverpool and suggested having a separate pathway for Accounting and Finance (A&F) had been effective. The A&F pathway was open to internal competition and each institute had involvement in decisions. He suggested getting CASE awards was useful with outside practitioners who may provide advice but do not necessarily have to provide funding. Over the last 3 years A&F applications had been strong relative to the other programmes but they tended to be from the EU/overseas rather than home students. Specialist modules were timetabled to be available to the other institutions’ students but Stuart described some difficulty in harmonising with Liverpool which has a more general Business and Management training programme for PhD students.

Annual General Meeting

The afternoon concluded with the Annual General Meeting which commenced with a minute’s silence in respect for David Gwilliam.

Ian Tonks (Chair) gave an overview of the work of CPAF during the year.

The formal aspects of the meeting saw

i) the minutes of the AGM for the previous year were agreed with amendments; Richard Macve was added to the list of attendees

ii) the accounts for the year to December 2014 approved

iii) the election of officers and executive committee members for the forthcoming year.

The following executive committee for the year 2014/15 was approved

Ian Tonks – Chair (year 2 of 3)

Lynn Hodgkinson – Vice-Chair (year 1 of 2)

Jan Bebbington – Secretary/treasurer (year 1 of 2)

John Cullen – ex officio (President of BAFA)
Richard Jackson – ex officio (General Secretary of BAFA)
Gillian Holmes – co-opted (Chair of CDAF)
Bill Lees (elected member year 2 of 2)

James Steeley (elected member year 1 of 2)

Lisa Jack (elected member year 1 of 2)

Ian reported that CPAF had responded to a new HEFCE consultation on Research metrics and the response reiterated support for peer review.

Journal rankings would be discussed in more detail the following day.

Ian reported that the Research Register would be looked at in the autumn when the website will also be reviewed.

The responses to the CDAF/CPAF Sustainability Survey are currently being analysed by Chris but the hope is to gather more institutional responses before completion.

Ian reminded the delegates that nominations for the BAFA Distinguished Academic and Lifetime Achievement awards would be needed by early October. Nominations are also needed for the Academy of Social Sciences (all nominations by CPAF, to date, have been successful).

Some discussion concerning the timing and location of next year’s conference followed with the decision to hold the conference on Monday and Tuesday, 7th/8th September in Birmingham.

The second day of the conference started with a panel session on the topic of

“European Academic Journal Guide”

Geoffrey Wood (Warwick Business School, and Editor EAJG)

Marc Goergen (Cardiff University and Chief Methodologist, EAJG)

Lisa Jack (Portsmouth University and Accounting representative on EAJG Scientific Committee)

Geoffrey stated that it was important for the guide to be ‘owned’ by the scholarly community and that it should recognise the full spectrum of work. He explained that they had attempted to avoid ‘bidding up’ journals. The list, which Geoffrey described as larger, broader, more internationally focussed and with representation from scholarly organisations, is now finalised for accounting and finance and will be presented to the committee on the 16th September. He stated that the aim of the list is to provide clear goalposts and a level playing field.

Marc, one of the methodologists, explained peer review, statistical information and editorial/expert judgement had been used in compiling the EAJG list. Impact factors based on Journal Citation Report (JCR), SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) had been used.

Lisa had been nominated by the Management Control Association as an accounting expert on the committee and she described the process from an expert’s perspective including how the experts had been given a list of metrics and then left to categorise the journals using their own methodology. She felt the result, however, did not bring any surprises and that the ranking was reasonable. She stressed that the time limit was very short. Lisa explained how they had hoped something different from the previous list would result from the process but that she feared this hadn’t happened, she did, however, feel that that it was a little better for accounting and finance with slightly more journals ranked 4 star.

John Wilson and Kevin Holland are also experts on the committee. Steven Taylor (Australia) had been an expert on the committee until 2013. Laura asked that CPAF thanked the experts for the work they are doing on our behalf.

Open Forum on any issues of concern to the membership.

Chris reported on a meeting he attended at AAA to discuss global journal rankings. Following Mary Barth’s surprise at the impact of journal ranking lists in the UK she gave a clear commitment to gather information from international accounting associations on the values/limitations and dangers of rankings. There is concern that the limited number of four star journals is unsustainable with North Americans now concerned with the global competition to get into the top journals. A need to promote the diversity of accounting and finance as a discipline was stressed.

Chris then opened the discussion to the floor asking whether we should participate, whether there are any constitutional issues in us doing so and what recommendations should we make.

Pauline asked that US researchers consider being less reluctant to cite non-US journals. Alan suggested there was a danger that the process will lead to more US journals being added. This led to the question as to whether BAFA should produce its own list but this was not popular but rather a recommendation for more information from complimentary sources and input should be made for the next journal ranking list. When the current list is published a report should be compiled with comments, evaluations and recommendations on how it should be used alongside examples of where the list causes bias.

Ian reported that the REF was almost complete and that Jane Broadbentthe accounting and finance representatives intend wishes to produce a paper giving feedback on how accounting and finance has performed in the process which will hopefully be tabled for next year’s CPAF conference.

Pauline asked whether CPAF will make a response concerning DTCs, stressing that accounting and finance remain important. She informed the group that a consultation will be coming up and we should consider how to get involved.