Department of Accounting

The research mission of the Department of Accounting is to serve society by inspiring thought leadership and pursuing knowledge related to accounting at a high academic level. To support this mission, our research aims to explore contemporary accounting issues associated with the conceptual framework, principles and practices, standards, and regulations that affect the accounting profession, and to recommend practical alternatives and solutions that are grounded in ethical values and good governance.

Our department combines experienced academics and early researchers with professionals who come with extensive industry experience. The great diversity of our academics is one of the strengths of our department as it allows us to adopt a multidisciplinary approach and mixed methodology when we conduct research. It also provides us the skills and opportunities to collaborate with the practitioners in joint applied research projects.

The presence of academics with vast corporate experience is highly valued as they always incorporate industry-relevant perspectives and knowledge into their instructions. Hence, riding on the strength of our department in teaching and learning, our researchers are also keen to make instructional impact and scholarly contributions to accounting education by conducting pedagogical research as well as producing textbooks for our students.

Our departmental research interests encompass various areas in the domain of accounting: 

Financial reporting standards and practices

1. We have published in the areas of informativeness of accounting choices, accounting-to-stock price/return value relevance and earnings management. Our current research focus is on integrated reporting, and social and environmental accounting.

Assurance and corporate governance

1. Our current research interest in these areas include auditor independence and audit quality, accounting fraud and detection, and the effectiveness of new codes of corporate governance in Malaysia in mitigating managerial opportunism.

Management accounting and advisory

1. Strategic performance management and reward plans are two key research areas we are currently working on. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) will certainly drive the future direction of this research cluster.

Taxation

1. Our taxation research focuses mainly on the implications of new/amended revenue laws, tax policies and practices, legal analysis and commentary on recently concluded tax cases, and cross-border taxation issues involving transfer pricing as well as base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS).

Accounting education and reform

1. Our accounting educators are always keen to explore the pedagogical issues in teaching students with diverse intelligence and learning capabilities, the effectiveness of outcome-based education, blended learning and web-based assessments.