Accounting Department Update 2020

2020

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT UPDATE

ACCOUNTING

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IN THIS ISSUE Message from the Chair

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Accounting at Isenberg

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Department News

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Faculty News

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Alumni Highlights

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Student Highlights

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Community

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UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR DEAR ACCOUNTING ALUMNI AND FRIENDS, We are proud to share our recent successes and national recognition for the Accounting Program at Isenberg. Here’s what’s been happening:

OUR STUDENT EXPERIENCE IS AMONG THE BEST IN THE NATION • Our Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program is recognized by the IRS as the top chapter in the nation, providing the most volunteers and volunteer hours to help low-income people with their taxes free of charge.

• Our students finished as national finalists in the Deloitte FanTAXtic case competition in 2019. This follows other recent successes, including being named national champions or national finalists in EY, Grant Thornton, and PwC case competitions.

• Our undergraduate program and our Master of Science in Accounting program are each ranked in the top 25 nationally; plus, both are ranked #1 in New England.* We are delivering New England’s top accounting education at about half the cost of the many Boston-area private universities we compete with.

• Our large and rapidly growing Master of Science in Accounting program has more than 250 students from across New England, the nation, and the world.

We offer courses in person, online, and in blended formats, and the program includes concentrations in auditing and financial reporting, tax, and forensics and analytics.

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR NATIONALLY RENOWNED FACULTY • Our faculty ranks #2 in the nation for auditor judgment and decision-making research in the top accounting journals over the past decade, #5 for all accounting judgment and decision-making research, #7 in the nation for financial accounting judgment and decision-making research, and #8 in the nation for audit research overall.** About 60 percent of our students go into financial statement auditing, and they are being taught by national thought leaders in judgment and decision-making issues in auditing and financial reporting.

• As one of the world’s leading audit researchers, Professor Chris Agoglia is serving as the senior editor of Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. Our faculty also includes editors of the leading journals Accounting, Organizations and Society and the Journal of Information Systems.

• As one of the worldwide centers of audit research, our school hosted the prestigious International Symposium on Audit Research during 2019, and going forward is one of four permanent hosts worldwide.

The reputation and value of an Isenberg Accounting degree keeps on growing! Go Isenberg! Go UMass!

Sincerely,

M. David Piercey, PhD John F. Kennedy Endowed Professor Accounting Department Chair

*Source: 2019 Public Accounting Report **Source: 2018 BYU Research Rankings, top 6 accounting journals, past decade 3

UNDERGRADUATE ACCOUNTING PROGRAM RANKINGS

#1

IN NEW ENGLAND

Source: 2019 Public Accounting Report

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ACCOUNTING PROGRAM RANKINGS

#1 #25

IN NEW ENGLAND IN THE NATION

Source: 2019 Public Accounting Report

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

#23

IN THE NATION

ACCOUNTING AT ISENBERG At the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, we focus on preparing accounting students to make informed, data-driven financial decisions for businesses.

The expert faculty and diverse classroom and professional experiences at Isenberg teach students to avoid competitive traps and unlock new growth opportunities so they’ll be valued advisors to their clients.

WE DO THIS BY OFFERING: • Expert faculty who are top leaders in the auditing field.

Our faculty ranks second in the nation when it comes to auditor decision-making and eighth overall in auditing.* Considering that the majority of students start in the auditing field, learning from our awardwinning faculty gives them a true competitive advantage.

• Flexible and efficient curricular options. Our curriculum allows students to graduate in seven semesters with a bachelor of business administration and to complete a master of science in accounting, all within four years plus a summer. This is a cost-effective, timely approach to meeting education requirements for CPA certification.

• Hands-on experience. We give students real-world skills, like the Semester in the Profession internship program, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, and case challenges offered by many of the accounting firms.

• A ACSB Accounting Accreditation. AACSB represents the highest standard of achievement for business schools worldwide. Isenberg is part of the one percent of the world’s 13,000 business programs that have earned the AACSB Accounting Accreditation.

AACSB-accredited schools produce highly skilled graduates valued by employers over graduates from non-accredited schools. Isenberg is proud to have this distinction.

• Teaching, tutoring, and mentoring opportunities. Many of our talented seniors are teaching assistants in various courses across Isenberg, including accounting.They are actively involved as tutors and mentors. * Source: 2018 BYU Research Rankings, top 6 accounting journals, past decade

Isenberg’s bachelor of business administration (BBA) yields employment opportunities in most private accounting and finance jobs and offers exceptional preparation for a graduate degree. Isenberg’s master of science in accounting program allows students to complete their degree in as few as two semesters after the senior year.

Taught by some of the world’s top researchers, Isenberg’s doctoral program in accounting prepares students for exceptional academic careers in business schools.

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DEPARTMENT NEWS ISENBERG ACCOUNTING PROGRAMS EARN TOP RANKINGS

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#

IN NEW ENGLAND

For the first time, both Isenberg’s undergraduate and master’s programs came out in the top positions among all the accounting programs in New England in the 2019 Public Accounting Report rankings.

The rankings are based on the Public Accounting Report’s 38th annual survey asking nearly a thousand accounting faculty members from about 200 colleges and universities across the country to list the best programs. The survey is the best known ranking of undergraduate and master’s programs in the field.

Nationally, Isenberg’s undergraduate accounting program ranked number 23 (up from 28 last year), and the master’s program ranked number 25 (up from 26 last year). The department’s doctoral program also ranked within the report’s top 25.

MSA PROGRAM ENROLLMENT Graduate students come from across the country and around the world.

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MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ACCOUNTING PROGRAM GROWS DRAMATICALLY

ISENBERG LAUNCHES TAX FOCUS

Isenberg’s professional graduate accounting degree program admitted more than 250 students in fall 2019—an all-time high. This cohort was 90 more students than joined the previous year (163), and was six times the number (40) admitted in fall 2015.

The program’s increasingly impressive national rankings only partly explain its growing popularity.

Another driver is the groundbreaking transition program that Isenberg initiated in the summer of 2017. The intensive four-course series was created to give non-business majors and professionals a path of entry into the master’s program.

The Isenberg MS in Accounting program can be completed either on campus or online, and it fulfills the Massachusetts educational requirements for CPA certification.

MSA PROGRAM ENROLLMENT GROWTH NUMBER OF STUDENTS PER YEAR

253

143

In February, Isenberg’s master of science program in accounting launched a new focus area, in taxation. The initiative follows months of market studies, including conversations with partners in the region’s leading accounting firms. To complete the focus, students take three tax courses alongside the traditional MS curriculum. Tax lecturer Sean Wandrei teaches courses in partnerships and research; Jennifer Roy teaches a third course in state and local taxation. Industry demands were the driving force behind adoption of the three courses and new accompanying tax research software.

Taxation is the MS in Accounting program’s second specialty focus. The first, in forensic accounting, debuted in the spring of 2017.

“Both allow us to target specific areas of market demand—by students and industry,” observes Graduate and Professional Programs Director Jeanne Bagdon. As with the program’s traditional curriculum, students may take the tax and forensic courses online or in person. “That gives our hundreds of active students greater flexibility and our program a competitive edge,” emphasizes Bagdon.

163

89 40

FALL 2015

FALL 2016

FALL 2017

FALL 2018

FALL 2019

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FACULTY NEWS RESEARCH PROFILE: MAINTAINING AUDITOR INDEPENDENCE In order to certify a firm’s financial results each year, auditors need to be intimately knowledgeable about that firm while remaining independent and objective.

It’s this balance that Christopher Agoglia, Isenberg’s Richard Simpson Endowed Professor of Accounting, explores in a recent paper, “Managing the AuditorClient Relationship Through Partner Rotations: The Experience of Audit Firm Partners.”

To maintain independence, lead audit partners are legally required to rotate off a client’s account after five years. Although regulators conceived of such rotations as clean breaks—“essentially handing over the keys,” Agoglia says—the reality is far more nuanced. “Firms try to bridge the transition and put a lot of work into creating continuity and making it run smoothly,” he notes.

Do partner rotations provide fresh perspective?

In the early 2000s, the dangers of client-auditor coziness became clear: Enron collapsed and it emerged that auditing firm Arthur Andersen had been complicit in covering up financial irregularities. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other legislation passed in the wake of the scandals limited how long the same lead partner could serve a client, and created a five-year “cooling-off” period where lead auditors could have no further involvement with former clients. But despite these stipulations, regulators allowed audit firms “a great degree of latitude to manage and implement rotations as they see fit,” Agoglia and colleagues write.

In their research, Agoglia and coauthors G. Bradley Bennett (Isenberg’s associate dean for finance and administration and associate professor of accounting), Mary Kate Dodgson (Northeastern University), and Jeffrey Cohen (Boston College) interviewed 20 U.S. audit firm partners and discovered that firms work hard

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to create continuity during audit leadership transitions.

Common practices include assigning “relationship partners” (senior level liaisons acting as intermediaries and helping mentor the new lead partner), designating a senior manager as successor and having that person shadow the lead auditor for months or even years before the official handoff, and seeking input from the client about what kind of audit partner they prefer.

However, “bridging” activities could have implications for audit quality, notes Agoglia. Too much emphasis on keeping clients happy could impact auditor objectivity. “This increased trust and commitment could lead auditors to engage in future downstream residual reciprocation in which they feel the need to respond more favorably to the client in subsequent discussions,” Agoglia writes. This dichotomy may be why studies on audit partner rotation have drawn contradictory conclusions: Some show that auditor rotation improves audit quality and others that it harms it. Agoglia speculates that part of the problem may be how researchers view rotation and advises that future studies “treat audit partner rotation as a process rather than a discrete event.”

Christopher Agoglia

G. Bradley Bennett

ISAR 2020 ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT HOSTS INTERNATIONAL AUDIT RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM On June 7th and 8th, Isenberg’s Department of Accounting hosted the 25th annual International Symposium on Audit Research (ISAR). Attended by 150 scholars from twelve nations, the symposium fosters research that draws on diverse methods in addressing traditional, economic, and judgment issues in auditing. The symposium’s four principal sponsors reflect its international scope. Isenberg is one of the four along with Maastricht University (Netherlands), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and the University of South Wales (Australia). ISAR’s past venues—Shanghai, Quebec City, Sydney, and other sites—further attest to its global presence.

And Isenberg’s own significant footprint includes appointments of two of its accounting professors— Chris Agoglia and Bradley Bennett—to ISAR’s 14-member Scientific Committee.

“Our role as host reinforces Isenberg’s reputation as a leader in audit research at the highest level,” emphasizes Bennett, who is also Isenberg’s associate dean for finance and administration. “It confers external validation with peers and colleagues in the research community.” Bennett and his Isenberg colleagues devoted many hours to venue selection, logistics, and program scheduling, as well as evaluation and selection of the symposium’s submissions, a task which Isenberg shared with the other principal sponsors.

During the Boston conference, Agoglia chaired the opening plenary session, Audit Research in the ISAR Era: Reflecting and Looking Forward. Bennett chaired the closing plenary, The Future of Auditing: Opportunities and Challenges Facing Auditors and Regulators. Two Isenberg professors also chaired “Concurrent” (i.e., topical) sessions. Elaine Wang, who coordinates the department’s PhD program, led the session, Are Auditor Negotiations Impaired During Depleting Times? And Matt Sherwood chaired Do Audit Firms’ Internal Inspection Programs Have Teeth?

In addition, Isenberg’s Yoon Ju Kang was a participant in the session, Revealing Oz: Audit Firm Partners’ Experiences with National Office Consultations. The session drew inspiration from her award-winning paper of the same title.

Based on their performance in refereed journals, Isenberg’s accounting faculty ranks second in the nation in research devoted to auditor decision-making in the top 6 accounting journals over the past decade.

ACCOUNTING FACULTY

#2 #7

in the nation for Auditor Judgment and DecisionMaking Research

in the nation for Financial Accounting Judgment and Decision-Making Research

#5 #8

for all Accounting Judgment and Decision-Making Research

in the nation for all Audit Research

Source: 2018 BYU Research Rankings, top 6 accounting journals, past decade

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FACULTY NEWS RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS Isenberg’s nationally acclaimed faculty members have been actively conducting research for publication in the field’s top journals over the past year: The Accounting Review • Chris Agoglia and Bradley Bennett.“Managing the Auditor-Client Relationship Through Partner Rotations: The Experiences of Audit Firm Partners,” with M. K. Dodgson (UMass PhD ’14) and J. R. Cohen (UMass PhD ’87), in press.

• Jeremy Bentley.“Decreasing Operational Distortion and Surrogation Through Narrative Reporting,” 2019.

• Jeremy Bentley and Elaine Wang.“The Effect of Increased Audit Disclosure on Managers’ Real Operating Decisions: Evidence from Disclosing Critical Audit Matters,”with T. Lambert, in press.

Journal of Accounting and Economics • Elaine Wang.“Who Likes the Jargon? The Joint Effect of Jargon Type and Industry Knowledge on Investors’ Judgments,” with H. T. Tan and G-S. Yoo, 2019.

Accounting, Organizations and Society • David Piercey, Editor • Chris Agoglia and Elaine Wang, Editorial Board Members • Yoon Ju Kang.“Are Audit Committees More Challenging Given a Specific Investor Base? Does the Answer Change in the Presence of Prospective Critical Audit Matter Disclosures?” in press.

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Contemporary Accounting Research • Yoon Ju Kang and David Piercey. “Does Implementing an Auditor Judgment Rule Increase Auditors’ Likelihood of Conducting More Innovative Procedures?” with A. Trotman, in press.

• Elaine Wang. “Using Cultural Mindsets to Reduce Cross-National Auditor Judgment Differences,” with A. Saiewitz (UMass PhD ’14), in press.

Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory • Chris Agoglia, Senior Editor • Yoon Ju Kang, David Piercey, and Elaine Wang, Editorial Board Members Behavioral Research in Accounting • David Piercey and Elaine Wang, Editorial Board Members • David Piercey. “Too Big to Comprehend? A Research Note on How Large Number Format Affects Voter Support for Government Spending Bills,” with A. Saiewitz (UMass PhD ’14), in press.

Journal of Management Accounting Research • Tim Mitchell. “Inequity Aversion, Incentives, and Personal Norms: The Effects on Budget Preparation and Use,” with J. Fisher, S. Peffer, and A. Webb, 2019.

Journal of Information Systems • Graham Gal, Editor

Chris Agoglia

David Piercey

Bradley Bennett

Yoon Ju Kang

Jeremy Bentley

Tim Mitchell

Elaine Wang

Graham Gal

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ALUMNI HIGHLIGHTS ISENBERG GRADUATE TRANSFORMS THE BOSTON ACCOUNTING INDUSTRY When Jayne McMellen ’64 decided to major in accounting at UMass Amherst, she knew there wouldn’t be many women in the program with her, but she was surprised by just how small her cohort was.

“There were no other women in accounting while I was there,” McMellen says. “The whole four years.”

She knew at the time that she didn’t want to be a teacher or a nurse, and she knew about accounting because her father was a CPA in Wellesley, where she grew up. “I always liked math, so I decided I would major in accounting,” she says.

Haskin & Sells, Ernst & Whinney, Peat Marwick Mitchell, Price Waterhouse, and Touche Ross—came to campus, two recruiters told McMellen straight out that they would not hire women.

But one firm, Arthur Young, had decided that the time had come, and offered McMellen a job. She was excited, but once she started, she admits to feeling less like a groundbreaker than a wrench in the works: “They didn’t really know what to do with me, so they followed child labor laws,” she says. “In auditing and accounting,

Although she recalls that two other women were studying business at the time—one in management and one in marketing—McMellen felt alienated in her classes and did most of her socializing with her Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters (most of whom were, indeed, studying to become teachers and nurses). “The business school just wasn’t equipped for women,” she recalls. “Some professors would ask students to go to their houses, but I didn’t get any of those invitations. If anything, I was kind of ostracized.”

But she enjoyed college and learned the material. As graduation approached, McMellen considered her career options. She knew her father would welcome her into his practice: “I think my dad was really happy that I chose accounting—he felt like I picked something to do that would offer me a lifetime career. But I didn’t want to become a sole practitioner.”

Breaking Into the Big Eight What she wanted was a job with a public accounting firm, but not a single woman was working as an accountant at any of the Big Eight firms in Boston at the time. When those firms—which included Arthur Andersen, Arthur Young, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Jayne McMellen ‘64

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They didn’t really know what to do with me, so they followed child labor laws.”

— JAYNE MCMELLEN ‘64, THE FIRST WOMAN TO BE HIRED AS AN ACCOUNTANT AT A BOSTON BIG EIGHT FIRM

people work really long hours, but I had to leave at 6 p.m. That was a little excessive.” She also was never allowed to travel with her male coworkers.

32 before she left the job in 2003 as a senior vice president. “We grew that department into something that was well-respected and on par with some accounting firms,” McMellen says. She finished off her formal career with a stint at the investment firm Massachusetts Financial Services, where she built an in-house tax department from scratch. She retired in 2009 as senior vice president.

“It’s been interesting and fun,” McMellen says of her work and career, despite and partly because of the challenges of being a trailblazer. And she credits her Isenberg education with enabling her to succeed as the first woman accountant working in Boston for at a Big Eight firm: “I’m a big believer in giving back to the school.”

When she took her oral exam in front of the state’s Board of Public Accountancy about five years after starting at the firm, she was pregnant with her first child. She received her CPA license, but left Arthur Young soon afterward. “Obviously, they wouldn’t have a pregnant person working there,” McMellen says. She spent a dozen years doing per diem work for other CPAs and focusing on individual tax returns while raising her two kids.

Embracing Opportunities Then, at a social gathering, she ran into someone she had worked with at Arthur Young who wanted to know what she’d been up to. The firm needed a person to assist with its individual practice, and invited McMellen to step into the role. When Arthur Young merged with Ernst & Whinney in 1989 to form Ernst & Young, McMellen stayed on, focusing on individual returns and mutual fund taxation issues.

She left that firm as a principal in 1996 for a new opportunity with the financial services company State Street, where she ran the tax department within the Fund Administration Department—she started with eight people in her group and expanded to

Jayne’s 1964 Yearbook photo

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ALUMNI HIGHLIGHTS YOUNG ALUMNI MAKE THEIR MARKS In the past decade, Isenberg graduates have thrived in academia, independent roles, and accounting firms.

Ryan Guggenmos PhD ’15 Assistant Professor of Accounting at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University “On any given day, I could be in front of a classroom of MBAs, working with a PhD student on a research project, peer-reviewing a paper for a journal, or talking with a co-author about a project we are working on—or, often, all of the above.

“At Isenberg, I had the opportunity to work closely with faculty that consistently publish in the top journals in the field. The PhD program is one of the best in the world for experimental research. I was encouraged to take classes and make connections across campus that I could bring to my research, and which helped lead to my first publication.

Ryan Guggenmos PhD ‘15

"I’m currently serving on my first dissertation committee for a Cornell PhD student, and he happens to be a 2012 Isenberg Accounting BA graduate!”

Jacqueline Tatarzycki ‘11 Independent Consultant “I consult for private startup companies in the biotech industry (between 5 and 50 employees). At the clients where I am acting as the interim controller, I perform all functions needed for finance, including accounts payable, monthly closes, forecasting and budgeting, preparing financial statements, and accounting for/documenting technical accounting issues. Being at startups, I also do anything else that may be needed. My clients are generally all scientists trying to cure diseases, and they rely on me to keep the business side going.

Jacqueline Tatarzycki ‘11

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“I recently reached out to the undergraduate scholarship team and was able to donate to help start the bridge scholarship for Isenberg students, and plan to continue to donate each year, as I benefited from these scholarships during my time at Isenberg.”

Ta-Von L. Wilson ’14 Assurance Manager at EY “On a day to day basis, I have the ability to discuss complex accounting issues with my clients, providing them some valuable insights. I get to be a coach, mentor, and leader to those on my teams. I’m able to listen to their problems and share some wisdom that others imparted to me in my early years.

“I was able to really hone my leadership abilities during my time at Isenberg. Leading our National Association of Black Accountants chapter allowed me to understand at a deeper level how people work and how to work in a team.

“It’s always been my personal drive to see our minority students who came after me be able to build upon the foundation that groups such as NABA were able to provide. Since graduation, staying close to those students has been a top priority of mine.

I’m looking forward to continuing that mentorship—whether my impact is as small as a phone call to a nervous junior on internships or visiting Isenberg to discuss the challenges I’ve faced and how I’ve overcome them.”

Ta-Von L. Wilson ‘14

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FOR ACCOUNTING MAJORS IN THE CLASS OF 2019:

89

%

HAD JOBS 6 MONTHS AFTER GRADUATION

I was able to really hone my leadership abilities during my time at Isenberg. Leading our National Association of Black Accountants chapter allowed me to understand at a deeper level how people work and how to work in a team.”

— TA-VON L. WILSON ’14

$60K

MEDIAN STARTING SALARY

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STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS DOCTORAL RESEARCH TACKLES INVESTOR REACTIONS TO SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM Activist investors, including hedge funds and even bigmoney firms such as Vanguard and BlackRock, use their influence within financial markets and media to pressure companies into making strategic operational changes.

Traditionally, they focus on profitability, but in recent years, they’ve turned to environmental and social issues, says PhD candidate Scott Jackson. He points to climaterelated shareholder proposals and State Street Global Advisors’ Fearless Girl campaign, in which the firm placed a sculpture of a girl in front of the Wall Street bull in Lower Manhattan and called on companies to increase the percentage of women in leadership positions.

Jackson’s dissertation-in-progress explores how the gender of a CEO affects shareholders’ perception of his or her credibility in the face of investor activism. Jackson had seen research showing that companies with female leadership are targeted more often than companies with male leadership. Using Role Congruence Theory to inform his predictions, Jackson hypothesizes that investors perceive a more natural fit between CEOs who are women and activism dealing with sustainability and social issues, whereas leaders who are men will be viewed as more of a match for more traditional, profitability-focused activism.

These perceived matches (or mismatches) might then impact how forecasts issued by management regarding future earnings are received by investors.

“My study, which uses an experimental methodology, builds off of archival data finding that companies increase earnings forecasts, and the precision of those forecasts, in the presence of shareholder activism threats,” Jackson says. Central to his experiment is a survey questionnaire that targets 440 business professionals with 12 to 15 years of experience. They’re asked to review a hypothetical investment scenario in which a company is being targeted

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by shareholder activism, and the CEO issues a statement in response. All survey participants, he notes, are students in Isenberg’s online MBA program.

“On one hand, the dissertation addresses concerns by the SEC that growing shareholder activism is exerting disproportionate influence on financial players and the market itself,” Jackson says. “On the other hand, it dissects the consequences of the unsettling reality that female CEOs tend to be targeted more often than male CEOs.” Jackson, who earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in accounting from Brigham Young University, says he “lucked out” in coming to Isenberg for his doctoral studies. “Isenberg is especially strong in experimental research in both audit and financial reporting,” he says.

“The department’s emphasis on judgment and decisionmaking fits nicely into my work.”

Scott Jackson PhD candidate

Cassandra Raffi ‘20

‘‘

Isenberg is especially strong in experimental research in both audit and financial reporting.

The department’s emphasis on judgment and decision-making fits nicely into my work.”

— SCOTT JACKSON, PhD CANDIDATE

Jackson’s principal Isenberg mentors—Dave Piercey, Chris Agoglia, and Elaine Wang—have encouraged him to pursue diverse projects, including a paper on auditor biases within the evaluation of Internal Controls over Financial Reporting (ICFR) and the impact of CEOs’ strategic language in text versus video earnings conference calls. “The atmosphere here fosters creative research,” Jackson says. “My mentors have supported and nudged me to excel as an educator and researcher.”

ON HER WAY TO CPA Cassandra Raffi has only been at Isenberg for three years, but she’s completing her final undergraduate credits this spring. She has squeezed a lot in to her time here—participating in clubs, competing in case competitions, and completing internships. She has been so successful in her studies that she is spending her senior year serving as a teaching assistant for Principles of Financial Accounting, leading lab sections and holding office hours.

“Accounting often gets a bad rep among other undergraduate students,” Raffi says. “I try to make the subject more enjoyable and understandable.

It’s especially rewarding when students who ask questions in the lab or attend my office hours show the progression from confusion to understanding!”

She’s gained work experience in the field through summer internships, including PwC’s “Start” program, which has students shadow employees in the tax and audit departments.“Over the course of the internship, I also had the opportunity to learn about a specialized group called Capital Markets and Accounting Advisory Services,” Raffi says.“The work completed by this group is more complex in nature, and assists clients with the accounting related to changes in GAAP, IPOs, divestitures, and complex accounting.” She’ll be joining the group again this summer, after graduation, as a Deals intern for PwC. But Raffi isn’t done with Isenberg yet: She will stay on at the school next year to earn her Master of Science in Accounting degree, through which she’ll complete the 30 education credit hours she’ll need for CPA licensing.

“I’m passionate about accounting and find genuine interest in the subject,” Raffi says, adding that Isenberg’s accounting faculty and students have made her time at the school rewarding: “They’re wellrounded and cultivate an environment that is both academically challenging and enjoyable.”

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COMMUNITY

ISENBERG HOSTS INAUGURAL INCLUSIVE LEADERSHIP SUMMIT, WITH PARTNER EY “Are you taking the time to have real conversations with people from other places—getting to know them for real?” asked Ken Bouyer, EY Americas Inclusiveness Recruiting Leader (right), in his keynote address at Isenberg’s inaugural Inclusive Leadership Summit on October 19. Likening surface conversations to the tip of an iceberg, he advised: “Get below the water line. That is what inclusive leadership is about.”

Most of the event’s 350 participants were students— primarily from business and STEM disciplines—who attended to learn about the vital nature of the diversity and inclusion work at American companies. Industry representatives (including many Isenberg alumni) and educators helmed panels and workshops that gave attendees insight into how companies are ensuring that their workforces both include employees from a wide range of backgrounds (including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, and socioeconomic background) and also make full use of the talents and perspectives those workers bring.

“Diversity is about getting invited to the dance.

Inclusiveness is about getting up and dancing,” Bouyer said during his address, paraphrasing diversity consultant Verna Myers (who currently serves as VP of inclusion strategy for Netflix). “If you don’t appreciate and respect

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differences, you will not do well at our firm,” said Bouyer, whose employer partnered with Isenberg to host the summit. “We have dialogue, conversations with employees we don’t agree with.” Coworkers from different cultures view problems from different perspectives, and their insights enhance teamwork and make the business stronger, he insisted.

‘‘

Are you taking the time to have real conversations with people from other places—getting to know them for real?

— KEN BOUYER, EY AMERICAS INCLUSIVENESS RECRUITING LEADER

STUDENTS PREPARE TAXES FOR COMMUNITY MEMBERS Isenberg’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program helps low-income people complete their tax returns for free. From early February through early April, accounting students gather three nights each week to spend a couple of hours working with community members. Every year, the school has one of the five largest VITA programs in the nation, and in 2019, Isenberg won recognition from the Internal Revenue Service as the top superior chapter nationally, for the most tax returns prepared, and for the most Beta Alpha Psi volunteers.

VITA 2019 by the Numbers

109 5 2,699 Number of students who volunteered

Topics covered on the summit’s program included challenges faced by young alumni, changing perceptions of leadership, unconscious biases, LGBTQ issues, implications of technology, and disability challenges. In addition, a plenary panel over lunch explored present and future interfaces between diversity and inclusion and automation, machine learning, algorithmic decisions, and other technologies. Student participants also competed in a case competition.

Number of faculty who volunteered

$1.71

Number of tax returns prepared by volunteers

Total amount refunded to clients based on returns prepared by volunteers

MILLION

19

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