AWARD-WINNING RESEARCHERS
R
esearch is the hallmark of any university, and the Goodman School of Business is no exception. The research done by Goodman faculty is as relevant as it is prolific. Their work, published and presented in world-class academic journals and forums, fosters professional excellence and a student learning experience second to none. Goodman Magazine caught up with a few professors who’ve recently won awards for their research to learn about the critical work that’s earning accolades.
STACI KENNO Associate Professor of Accounting Department Research Award Winner for Accounting
Primary research focus:
Is the new funding formula good for universities?
Budgeting at Ontario universities and determining the effect of the existing funding formula on the province’s universities.
It is hard to tell right now as we are still in a hold harmless period in terms of funding to each university, and there is still uncertainty surrounding some pieces of the funding formula.
Studying university funding and budgets is timely. What inspired your research? This is a project that my colleagues Barbara Sainty, Michelle Lau and I have been working on for a couple years. Barbara and I have a paper published that examined Brock’s attempt to implement a new budgeting system, and found that it floundered because there was a lack of leadership. From there we just kept asking questions. Asking questions is what keeps me doing research. This research has led us down a number of paths including a literature review on how accountants have used theory to explain budgeting over the past 30 years, a survey on budgeting practices at Canadian universities and a field study on the Ontario funding formula. What effects are the changes to the funding formula having on Ontario universities? We are in the process of answering this question. Currently there are minimal changes in what Ontario universities receive in terms of actual dollars, but our research is attempting to dig into whether it’s affecting the way universities react to the funding, or if they are changing their approach to budgeting and strategy because of the funding. The Ontario government plans to tie some of the funding of Ontario universities to the strategic mandate agreements (SMAs) that the universities have been filing for the past five years.
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GOODMAN: THE MAGAZINE
The funding formula has placed all universities on a level playing field in terms of funding per student, which is a good thing, but there are now two additional parts to the funding provided. The first is the differentiation envelope where the government is in the process of creating performance-based funding metrics. The second is the special purpose grants, which allows the government to continue to fund specific initiatives that are important to their public policy, such as mental health, safety grants, etc. Only time will tell if it is “good” for universities. What were some of the challenges you faced while doing your research? Part of it is always time. Qualitative research is time consuming. From conducting the interviews to analyzing the data to writing the paper, it’s a continuously moving process that requires time. Then it’s stopping ourselves from starting new projects while in the middle of other projects, keeping our focus on the papers we’re currently working on. What do you hope your findings will achieve? There is always the hope that your research will help or advance the understanding of specific scenarios or answer the questions that haven’t been answered. Qualitative research lends itself to helping us learn from what we’ve done, understand how accounting information is used in daily life and how it affects our lives. As the research we are currently doing affects many tangentially in Ontario, we will see where it takes us.