The Badger Account Year in Review 2020-2021

Graduation Reimagined P. 5

THE

BADGER ACCOUNT 2020-2021 Year in Review

Succeeding When the Rules Change Overnight P. 2 Anatomy of the Internship Experience P. 17 Ella Mae Matsumara, Al Talarczyk: Indelible Legacies P. 24

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR

Succeeding When the Rules Change Overnight

Faculty and staff invent the pandemic playbook from scratch Companion opening, “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.” It certainly has not been a quiet year for the AIS Department.

And when asked what consumed our strategic and operational agenda in my first year, it was pandemic, pandemic, and pandemic. I still mention to Terry that, despite his help and generosity with my leadership transition, he forgot to leave a playbook for how to manage in a pandemic. But, I suspect he is also looking for his playbook in the dean’s office. Essentially, you make it up as you go: lots of decisions with incomplete information, without precedent to draw from, without the ability to call “time-out” to figure things out. This scenario must sound all too familiar to many of you in the practice world.

A seamless transition thanks to all hands on deck

Last year’s Letter From the Chair started

with Professor Terry Warfield’s very generous welcome to me as the new chair of the AIS Department. So, I begin by acknowledging and thanking Terry for his incredible reign as chair.

Under his guidance our department flourished in research, teaching, and service—to the university, the accounting profession, and the community. It is fitting that Dean Samba asked Terry to continue leading as senior associate dean for the School.

Who could have known about this thing called Covid-19? As a converted Midwesterner, it reminds me of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home

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THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

In short, we did our best under very trying circumstances. I am very thankful for and proud of our staff, students, and faculty for how they addressed the challenges. First, there’s Terry.

Although he didn’t leave me a playbook, he did leave me an organization and culture with a “can do” and “pivot on the dime” attitude that continues to address these difficult circumstances head on without losing sight of our mission and obligation to our students.

Then there is the staff. People rarely see all the behind-the-scenes stuff, but our faculty and students were the beneficiaries of large classes (e.g., AIS100, AIS211, AIS 300) functioning relatively seamlessly between virtual and in-

person teaching. It reminds me of the saying, “You probably don’t want to see sausage being made, but it sure does taste good.” Our staff put in endless hours making sausage and keeping our teaching mission going (and going well) during the pandemic.

Thanks also to the AIS faculty for their adaptability and energy this year. For some of us more senior faculty, this was a year “teaching the old dogs new tricks” as we learned and adapted to teaching in a virtual environment.

For our younger faculty it was an unselfish devotion of time that diverted energy from important research agendas so we could leave the lights on in Grainger Hall (figuratively speaking) and fulfill our teaching mission.

On behalf of our faculty and staff, I also want to thank others who were critical to our successes this past year, including the groups we serve (alumni, employers, and the community).

We were not able to be as outwardly facing as we normally are. And, of course, we could not invite you into Grainger Hall to visit. I suspect that you and your organizations had unique operational challenges and priorities to divert your attention as well. I think we can all agree that it will be nice to reconnect.

Salute to our “above average” students Finally (saving the best for last), we need to thank our wonderful student group for their perseverance. Being an undergraduate or graduate student is supposed to be a period of excitement, exploring, and learning—not sitting for endless hours in front of a computer. I have two sons in graduate schools in other parts of the country so I am acutely aware of the price paid in personal and professional development by our student group. I realize that we all did what we had to do, but putting the energy of youth on hold for a year plus seems particularly unfair. It will be good to see their smiling faces back in the hallways. And in Garrison Keillor’s words, our students all continue to be above average.

Welcome back, everyone!

Mark Covaleski Robert Beyer Professor in Accounting Richard J. Johnson Chair of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems Wisconsin School of Business

“For some of us more senior faculty, this was a year “teaching the old dogs new tricks” as we adapted to a virtual environment.

For our younger faculty, it was an unselfish devotion of time that diverted energy from important research agendas so we could leave the lights on in Grainger Hall (figuratively speaking) and fulfill our teaching mission.”

— Mark Covaleski

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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COVID-19: CREATIVE PIVOTS

SMART RESTART: THE UNIVERSITY MANAGES THE UNKNOWN The Spring 2020 semester prompted a summer of learning, planning, and preparation for what would prove to be a very unique year. The university embarked on the Smart Restart to bring students back to campus and resume some campus operations. This was no small undertaking and required the reconfiguration of classrooms, stocking of vast amounts of cleaning supplies and personal protection equipment, and investment in technology resources—in addition to the ongoing learning and training to ensure instructors were prepared to deliver courses in the new environment.

Faculty taught in many formats: socially distanced classrooms, live lectures from offices in a fully virtual format, or with new technology, recording mini-lectures in front of a digital lightboard.

The goals were the same: continue delivering high-quality educational experiences to our students while keeping the campus community safe. There were certainly bumps along the way, but we are extremely proud of everyone’s perseverance.

A student employee prepares Grainger Hall for in-person courses

Professor Fabio Gaertner records a lecture in front of a digital lightboard

Professor Stacie Laplante teaches an in-person section of Corporate Taxation

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SERIES Alumni return to campus to help deliver professional development events throughout the year.

Though virtual, this year was no different. Accounting students had a wide variety of valuable interactions.

BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND Delivered by Carver Smith (BBA ’91), partner with Baker Tilly Search & Staffing PROFESSIONAL EXPLORATION

Students engaged with five alumni who have followed different paths with their degree in accounting: – Jason Parsons (BBA ’01, MAcc ’02), audit partner, KPMG – Leah Schmid (BA ’10, MAcc ’16), financial advisor, Wipfli Financial Advisors – Michelle Goetsch (BBA ’03, MAcc ’04), chief financial officer, Girl Scouts of Wisconsin, Southeast – Tim Klagos (BBA ’10, MAcc ’11), director, deal advisory–financial due diligence, KPMG – Brent Wegner (BBA ’02, MAcc ’03), revenue operations, Americas–ZenDesk

PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES Led by Brad Zastoupil (BBA ’04, MAcc ’05), partner, PwC TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP Led by Alex Lacklore, senior manager, EY and Alyssa Curl, campus recruiter, EY

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THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

CONTINUING TO SHINE

GRADUATION REIMAGINED With family, friends, and supporters watching a live feed, Spring 2021 graduates streamed into Camp Randall for their graduation celebration. It felt different with nobody in the stands, but there was an overwhelming sense of gratitude from the graduates themselves to have the opportunity to celebrate their accomplishments all together—just how they started their time on campus. It was a step toward normal and the smiles said it all. There were two ceremonies four hours apart to ensure proper distancing, with undergraduate students first, followed by a ceremony for graduate students.

TOP: The show goes on. Graduates return to Camp Randall for Spring 2021 graduation BOTTOM: Names of all graduating WSB students shine across Grainger Hall the evening of graduation

STANDING OUT

U.S. News & World Report Rankings:

#7

#10

UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS PROGRAM

UNDERGRADUATE ACCOUNTING PROGRAM

(PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES)

(PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES)

(#16 overall)

(#16 overall)

TOP 10

CPA exam pass rates

#28

MASTER OF ACCOUNTANCY PROGRAM

2019 Candidate Performance on the Uniform CPA Examination, National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA)

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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PhD PROGRAM

Making Their Mark KIMBERLY WALKER EARNS HIGHLY SELECTIVE GRANT FUNDING Kimberly Walker (PhD ’20) is off to a fast start in her new role as assistant professor in the Accounting and Information Systems Department at Virginia Tech. The Center of Audit Quality (CAQ) is funding two of her research projects. CAQ aims to enhance investor confidence and public trust in the global capital markets by fostering high quality performance by public company auditors. Its highly selective Access to Audit Personnel Grant program requested proposals that contribute to understanding how technology affects auditor judgments when completing specific audit tasks. The grants give researchers access to audit staff to support high quality research.

Kimberly’s research explores the effects of audit technologies on auditor judgments and decisions. Her first winning proposal is entitled “Data Analytics and Skeptical Actions: The Countervailing Effects of False Positives and Consistent Rewards for Skepticism.” Professional skepticism plays a fundamental role in the audit process and plays a vital role when auditors draw conclusions based on the evidence obtained throughout the audit process. This research explores how audit evidence derived from a data analytic tool, with varying rates of false-positive, influences auditors’ ability to exercise professional skepticism when completing substantive analytical procedures.

Kimberly’s second proposal is “The Effect of Clients’ Usage of Artificial Intelligence on Auditors’ Judgments and Decisions.” Analysts forecast that nearly 40% of audit clients worldwide utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Companies are increasingly utilizing AI to improve their accounting processes’ accuracy, often augmenting human judgment when calculating accounting estimates. Regulators caution that clients’ use of advanced technologies to produce financial information may affect how auditors assess the accuracy, reliability, and completeness of audit evidence (PCAOB 2020). This study examines how a client’s use of AI in its accounting processes influences its external auditors’ judgments and decision-making.

Well done, Professor Walker!

STUDENT PUBLICATION HONORS Current PhD student David Samuel is well on his way to a successful career in impactful research having recently published a paper in The Accounting Review.

Harald J. Amberger, Kevin S. Markle, David M. P. Samuel; “Repatriation Taxes, Internal Agency Conflicts, and Subsidiary-level Investment Efficiency.” The Accounting Review, 2020 This paper was also nominated for the VHB Best Paper Award.

The VHB is the German Academic Association of Business Research.

David’s research focuses on the effects of taxes on corporate decisionmaking. He is interested in international taxation and the taxation of the financial sector. More of David’s research was featured in the Bloomberg Tax “Daily Tax Report” looking at tax avoidance activities by state-owned enterprises.

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THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

WELL-EARNED NEW ADVENTURES Despite the absence of our traditional hooding ceremony recognizing the academic achievements of doctoral graduates, we celebrate the accounting PhD students who completed their studies and defended their dissertations. We wish them all the best as they move into faculty positions at new institutions.

In Gyun Baek (PhD ’21) joined the faculty at the National University of Singapore where he will continue his research around management control systems, corporate culture, and the design of performance measurement, especially from the standpoint of creativity and innovation.

Mary Vernon (PhD ’21) has joined the faculty at the University of Connecticut where she will continue her research focus around corporate tax avoidance, multi-jurisdictional taxation and tax avoidance, and federal tax policy.

Gyun Baek (PhD ’21)

Mary Vernon (PhD ’21)

WELCOME NEW PHD CANDIDATES Dongsheng Li, CPA (Canada), (PhD ’26) earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Saint Mary’s University in Canada and his bachelor’s degree in finance from Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai in China.

Dongsheng worked as a senior audit professional at the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, performing audits of federal departments and crown corporations. He also worked as an auditor at Grant Thornton (Canada). Dongsheng is interested in audit research.

McKay Jones (PhD ’26) earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from Brigham Young University. McKay is interested in managerial experimental research.

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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AWARDS BANQUET

Celebration and Recognition— With a Virtual Twist The annual Accounting Awards Banquet, held last year on November 19, is a time-honored tradition that brings us together as a department to celebrate the accomplishments of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Since we could not gather in person, Department Chair Mark Covaleski took on the challenge of delivering a virtual program celebrating the accomplishments of our students, recognizing the generosity of our donors, and honoring our distinguished alumnus. Although lacking a meal and refreshments, it was a wonderful evening celebrating so many great contributors to the Department of Accounting.

Mark kicked off the evening with some introductory remarks, in which he also gave a heartfelt thank you to outgoing Chair Terry Warfield for his service to the department. Dean Samba expressed his pride in the state of the Accounting Department overall—the leadership of our faculty, and in the great students who graduate, succeed, and become leaders in the field—ultimately coming full circle as alumni, champions of the School and university, and paying it forward to help support future students.

The Department of Accounting (Virtual) Awards Banquet

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THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

OUTSTANDING GRADUATING SENIOR AWARD Each year, the department recognizes the top ten academic performers in the undergraduate accounting major. With an average cumulative GPA of 3.96, these students have certainly earned this recognition.

Top 10 Graduating Seniors

Carissa Gillispie (BBA ’20)

Lisa Hanson (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

Devan Klaus (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

Alyssa Klecker (BBA ’20)

Kelsey Meyer (BBA ’20)

Emma Richlen (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

Benjamin Rodheim (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

Katelyn Stoddard (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

Alex Tetzlaff (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20)

Isabella Zimmer (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

TEACHING ASSISTANT AWARD Many of our graduate students are appointed as teaching assistants and are the primary in-class instructors for the introductory financial and managerial accounting courses. This is no small undertaking and requires a significant amount of preparation throughout the semester. Each year we recognize two MAcc and two PhD TAs for their success in front of the classroom.

Douglas Clarke Memorial Teaching Award (PhD)

Ted Ahn (PhD ’23)

David Samuel (PhD ’22)

Excellence in Teaching Award (MAcc)

Eric Brown (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20)

Ethan Liebe (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20)

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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AWARDS BANQUET

Words of wisdom from an exceptional career

Recognizing Distinguished Accounting Alumnus Richard Johnson Richard Johnson (BBA ’72) is the 2020 Distinguished Accounting Alumnus. Dean Samba described Richard as a Badger through and through, with an ever-present smile and a devout interest in helping others—the best of everything Badgers stand for.

Richard is executive vice president and chief financial officer at Barker Pacific Group, a real-estate development firm based in Los Angeles. Before joining Barker Pacific in 1986, he was a senior vice president at Guardian Savings and Loan in Houston, where he managed a $450 million commercial real estate portfolio consisting primarily of new construction. He previously served as CFO of Michels Financial Corporation in Milwaukee and as an audit manager in the Milwaukee office of Arthur Andersen & Co. At the awards banquet, Richard shared words of wisdom from his extensive professional career.

He encouraged students to confront challenge and to be proactive and seek out complex work where they will learn the most. Always learning, he reflected on a unique business challenge that he encountered just that day. Richard talked about the client service role in the accounting profession and emphasized the importance of experience and of understanding a client’s whole business: the more you know, the better you will be. He encouraged students to set short-, mediumand longer-term goals and reminded them that their goals will change over time, making goal setting and reevaluating all the more important. Finally, Richard encouraged all of us to give back— consider where you came from, who helped you get there, and give back! The virtual room filled with applause.

Recognizing Excellence After Richard’s inspiring words, Mark Covaleski honored the generous donors who supported so many of our students with scholarships and fellowships. More than 40 donor funds supported 120 individual scholarship recipients. The evening concluded with awards recognizing the Top 10 graduating seniors and excellence in teaching from our outstanding teaching assistants.

With great sadness we note that Richard Johnson passed away on May 11, 2021. It was a great privilege to have Richard address the department’s annual awards banquet in November 2020. We were able to capture his insights and thank him for his substantial contributions to our program and to the accounting field. He will be missed.

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THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

2020 WSB Distinguished Alumnus Richard Johnson displays Badger pride with Dean Vallabh Sambamurthy

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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MAcc PROGRAMS

STUDENTS AWARDED INTERNSHIPS Master of Accountancy (MAcc) students Devan Klaus (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21), Henry Mirsberger (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21) and Ally Gustke (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21) earned highly competitive post-graduate technical assistant (PTA) internships. Devan is working with the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) while Henry and Ally are working with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

As interns, they gain an in-depth understanding of the roles played by preparers, auditors, and users of financial information.

Devan Klaus (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

Henry Mirsberger (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

Ally Gustke (BBA ’20, MAcc ’21)

PTAs may analyze written submissions on documents issued for public comment, analyze published research, prepare memos on technical issues, draft due-process documents, and evaluate accounting proposals. PTAs may also participate in public board, task force, and other project-related meetings.

Congratulations, Devan, Henry, and Ally!

IN KEEPING WITH TRADITION The MAcc program has a long tradition of students selected for these prestigious internships.

RECENT GASB INTERNS INCLUDE

RECENT FASB INTERNS INCLUDE

Matt Baker (BBA ’14, MAcc ’15)

Alex Debbink (BBA ’12, MAcc ’13)

Carolyn Lapins (BBA ’16, MAcc 17)

Shelby Cameron (BBA ’17, MAcc ’18)

Andrew Debbink (BBA ’15, MAcc ’16)

Kevin Machut (BBA ’17, MAcc ’18)

Emily Frieler (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20)

Tanner Engmann (BBA ’15, MAcc ’16)

Sarah Maule (BBA ’18, MAcc ’19)

Kayta Gruneberg (BBA ’15, MAcc ’16)

Austin Heckman (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20)

Maddie Nash (BBA ’17, MAcc ’18)

Liesl Seiser (BBA ’13, MAcc ’14)

Kate Konetzke (BBA ’12, MAcc ’13)

Andrea Willett (BBA ’13, MAcc ’14)

ELIJAH WATT SELLS AWARD WINNER Ellen Lettenberger (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20) is one of 89 recipients of the 2020 Elijah Watt Sells Award given by The American Institute of CPAs. Ellen is an audit and assurance senior assistant with Deloitte in Chicago.

The award recognizes CPA test takers for a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections of the CPA Examination, passing all four sections of the exam on the first attempt, and completion of all testing in 2020.

Well done, Ellen!

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THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

Summer writing assignment

Howard Carver Ethics and Professionalism Program As part of the Howard Carver Ethics and Professionalism Program, all students in the MAcc program must participate in a summer writing assignment focused on ethics. Students are first asked to read a book by author David Callahan, The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead. This book provides a framework on why there is more cheating now than ever. With a vast number of examples, from sports, to education, to business failures, the book provides a strong foundation for students to engage the topic.

With the foundation from Callahan’s book, students then pick another book from a list of titles, including some recent books like James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership and John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup along with some titles that have been around for a while but are still impactful, including Cynthia Cooper’s Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower and David Cay Johnston’s Perfectly Legal.

With these readings, along with interviewing a leader in their community, students are asked to reflect on the framework that Callahan articulates and consider ways in which the cheating culture can improve, through ideas such as having a strong tone at the top, whistleblower programs, and a move away from shareholder primacy with a focus on balancing the needs of a broader set of stakeholders, including employees, customers, and communities.

The paper culminates with students articulating their personal statement of limits that they will abide by in both their personal and professional lives.

At the start of each fall semester, we gather as a larger group to debrief the summer writing assignment, share insights gained from the readings and interviews, dive into a whistleblowing scenario, and push students to consider a statement of values for their MAcc class. We are always impressed with the level of engagement students have in this very important topic. We emphasize the importance of practicing ethical behavior throughout their time in school and as they start their careers. Having these conversations now will help these students develop awareness of how to proceed when faced with an ethical decision.

It is easy to ‘say’ the right thing, it is easy to ‘write about’ doing the right thing, but much harder to actually DO the right thing!

While our Fall 2020 debrief looked a bit different in that we met virtually, the discussions were impactful all the same.

We would like to express our appreciation to Howard Carver for his continued support of ethics within the accounting program at WSB, to the students for taking some of their summer to engage with this important topic, and to the community leaders who shared their time and insights with our students.

UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS

Unstoppable

Students Persevere Beyond the Classroom OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES ADD DEPTH TO THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE Like all things in 2020, our active student groups transitioned from weekly in-person activities to figuring out how to maximize the virtual environment and take advantage of the many professional development opportunities still available to them. We are so proud of the flexibility and perseverance they demonstrated during this unique academic year.

BETA ALPHA PSI The Sigma Chapter of Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) did not let the virtual environment slow them down.

Bolstered by a record number of pledges joining the organization, they instituted a Beta Buddy mentorship program to connect the newer and older members. Beta continued to offer excellent development and networking opportunities to its members by hosting eight virtual professional meetings with a wide variety of public and industry employers. Members also had the opportunity to connect one-on-one with employers in the accounting industry. Beta also found time to continue its long-standing tradition of giving back to the community. Members contributed over 100 hours of virtual community service to foundations such as Ronald McDonald House and Letters Against Isolation.

INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANTS The student chapter of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) kept its 54 members quite busy with a lot of great opportunities throughout the year. IMA hosted nine virtual professional events, allowing members to hear from many different types of organizations that employ students who major in accounting, including the FBI. To incorporate some fun and games into their activities, IMA hosted five social events that allowed members to come together virtually and get to know each other while playing some fun games like Codename, Family Feud, and Skribbl.io. In an effort to accommodate all members, IMA pioneered a program that encouraged members to volunteer in their home community, individually and safely. This included sending letters to frontline workers and residents in assisted living, doing a good deed, and participating in cleaning up garbage in their community.

WOMEN IN FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING Although this past year looked a bit different, Women in Finance and Accounting (WIFA) continued to deliver a meaningful virtual experience to its members. During the spring of 2021, WIFA hosted eight professional events with a variety of accounting and finance firms, which gave members the opportunity to network with professionals and develop skills in communication, leadership, and critical thinking. WIFA also encouraged relationship building between members by coordinating virtual social events such as game and trivia nights. This past year WIFA also introduced a new initiative, “WIFA Connect,” within its mentorship program. WIFA Connect gave members the opportunity to reach out to and collaborate with other members taking the same classes, which was especially beneficial during online learning.

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THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

Addressing current audit and assurance issues

The Deloitte Audit Innovation Campus Challenge Each year a group of undergraduate students has the opportunity to compete in the Deloitte Audit Innovation Campus Challenge where participants must think creatively on how to address a current challenge in the audit and assurance profession.

The UW–Madison team, consisting of Hanna Russell, Claire Andries, Josh Leland, Mitch Kastanek, Nick Best, and Matthew Kohlmeyer, advanced out of the regional round in the fall and competed in the virtual national competition in April. While they did not place in the top three at the national competition, we are proud of the work they did. Faculty advisor Joanna Wangerin commented, “Our team really worked together in challenging times to make us all proud!”

A virtual meeting of the UW–Madison team competing in the Deloitte Audit Innovation Campus Challenge

Deloitte asked the team to consider a challenge statement “How can we use innovation and technology to enable people to have a professionally rewarding experience while continuing to deliver exceptional client service and meeting stakeholder needs?”

Summary of the team’s audit innovation contribution In order to expand diversity in the accounting field, we want to use innovation and technology through a new Deloitte-specific mentorship and learning platform geared toward introducing and connecting high school students to accounting professionals and the accounting field at little to no cost to Deloitte. The accounting industry has been historically dominated by white men, and as of 2015 only 3% of new hires among accounting firms were African American. Partnering with both high- and low-income school districts to introduce high school students to accounting and Deloitte will aid in developing the future diversity of both Deloitte and the entire accounting field.

The Deloitte Audit Innovation Campus Challenge provides an educational experience designed to help students develop skills for success while helping develop an appreciation for the role of innovation in their careers.

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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INTERNSHIPS: INTEGRAL STUDENT EXPERIENCE, FIRMS’ TALENT PIPELINE

Zoom Rooms, happy hours, trivia

Interns Adapt and Thrive in a Virtual Work World Fortunately, for the 65 IMAcc students planning to leave for internships, public accounting firms had nearly perfected the virtual work world to accommodate COVID. From ‘Zoom Rooms’ and daily virtual check-ins, to happy hours and trivia, our IMAcc interns had excellent experiences.

During individual debrief sessions with each student, the feedback was uniformly positive.

Students experienced real, relevant work. They had the opportunity to get to know their team members and interact virtually with clients. While most reported anticipation and excitement to have in-person experiences when they begin their full-time careers (college housing was not always conducive to busy-season work hours), we are beyond thankful for the experiences of this unique year.

Critical thinking, professional judgement, effective teams

Professional Issues Course Ties it All Together

Professor Dan Wangerin

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The IMAcc undergraduate degree culminates with an intense three-week professional-practice issues course after the busy-season internship. The course places strong emphasis on critical thinking, professional judgement, and working effectively in teams. All activities were conducted virtually this past year. Despite the challenges of working remotely, Professor Dan Wangerin observed outstanding engagement from all of the students. “This is a testament to the professional skills that they developed during their internships—not only being able to participate effectively during a Zoom meeting but having the adaptability to work remotely in a team-based setting. We have an outstanding group of young professionals beginning the MAcc degree program,” said Wangerin.

THE BADGER ACCOUNT | 2019-2020 YEAR IN REVIEW

Fostering an inclusive culture

Assistant Dean Binnu Palta-Hill

Week one focused on fostering an inclusive culture, both in a classroom and in a professional setting. Assistant Dean Binnu Palta-Hill led a kick-off session including an interactive training session on implicit bias. This was followed by a panel discussion on inclusive leadership with Amy Jo Fisher (agency experience director, American Family Insurance), Terra McKinney (inclusive excellence manager, American Family Insurance), and Tina Paulus-Krause (CEO, TrueYouTeams).

Another highlight of the week included a visit from Peter Georgescu (CEO emeritus, Young & Rubicam), current contributor to Forbes and author of Capitalists, Arise! Mr. Georegescu’s talk highlighted how companies with inclusive leadership have lasting success through investment in their employees and superior customer service. The week culminated in a team-based research project in which students made recommendations about how accounting firms can improve their profitability through a commitment to inclusive culture.

Speakers and case studies add perspective The second and third weeks of the course built on these foundational activities. Students completed team-based cases involving the application of the FASB Conceptual Framework definitions of assets and liabilities, and an international tax research case on the interaction between valuation allowances, NOL credit carryforwards, and the GILTI provisions under the TCJA. Guest speakers helped kick off each project and included Jim Leisenring (senior advisor, FASB), Matt Lorencz (partner, KPMG), Patrick Byer (BBA ’11, MAcc ’12) (manager, KPMG), and recent MAcc graduates Austin Heckman (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20) (FASB) and Emily Freiler (BBA ’19, MAcc ’20) (GASB) currently serving the boards as post-graduate technical assistants. Finally, J. Robert Brown (former board member, PCAOB) wrapped up the course with an interactive classroom visit on the future of the auditing profession.

The MAcc program has a long-standing tradition of hosting dinner for students at the culmination of the professional issues course at campus favorite, The Nitty Gritty. The dinner connects students as they prepare to begin their graduate degrees the following semester. Short of the ability to host a dinner, Professor Wangerin pulled together a competitive game of trivia involving three truths and a lie about many of the accounting faculty. Who knew accounting professors led such interesting lives!

It was a rousing success and served as a nice punctuation on a very unique semester.

Professors Publish on How Interns Become Professionals

Anatomy of the Internship Experience MAcc internships became the basis for a research study by two of our faculty members, Karla Zehms and Mark Covaleski, (with co-author Professor Christine Earley from Providence College) that explores the socialization process—from student to intern to professional, “The Lived Reality of Public Accounting Interns” forthcoming in the Journal of Accounting Education.

(Continued on page 18) Karla Zehms

Mark Covaleski WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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INTERNSHIPS: INTEGRAL STUDENT EXPERIENCE, FIRMS’ TALENT PIPELINE (Continued from page 17)

Here are highlights: Shifts in the accounting profession have resulted in labor market tensions and interns challenging previously held norms. Accounting firms engage in intense competition to ensure a robust talent pipeline. Interns engage in sometimes sophisticated cost-benefit calculations about what firms offer and expect, and what it takes to obtain a coveted line item on their résumés. This research explores some of the implications of these shifts.

How did the research team investigate the socialization process of interns?

Careful planning, screening, and mutual assessments identify intern-firm fit.

Qualified MAcc students are conditionally accepted, pending Graduate School admissions procedures and a successful firm ‘match.’

The research team surveyed three consecutive academic classes of students accepted into WSB’s MAcc program and who went on to participate in internships. Ninety-one percent interned with one of the Big 4 firms. The team also interviewed 30 students from the fourth consecutive class of students.

What did the researchers find?

Engaging in real work. Some interns expressed a seamless transition in the internship and others expressed tremendous angst or feelings of failure.

Many interns view the internship as their first time engaging in real work.

One stated: “[I am on] the perfectionist side. In an audit situation, that’s hard to pull that off, if you have budget constraints ... I’ve just become ... a lot more experiencebased and less focused on the tasks that need to happen in my daily life ...

[I’m] a little bit more flexible with when and how things get done.”

Encountering ethical dilemmas. Some experiences involved responding to ethical dilemmas, most commonly around time and expense reporting, client confidentiality, and matters of work quality.

Interns often reported that the choice to compromise work quality was the result of ‘a wink and a nudge’ by a supervisor: “I was performing an analytical procedure and the difference was greater than the acceptable difference and I was told to make it work; my supervisor said I should cut a corner on a certain work step because it didn’t really matter; I was asked to selectively choose another sample.”

While some students admitted to acquiescing to the pressures they faced, others use the opportunity to define a different path: “I could have ignored the error, but I reported it to my supervisor ... We cannot only make sure everything passes management’s review. We must be true to ourselves ...”

Addressing gender-related challenges. Only female interns expressed gender-related concerns.

The researchers were struck by female interns’ expressions of inspiration and confidence, demonstrated by thoughts and actions despite facing obstacles in a historically male-dominated profession. While a glass ceiling may persist, some young women are savvy enough to recognize it and confident enough to take positive actions. One intern expressed how she purposefully worked to break ‘into the men’s circle’: “The partner invited me ... to go to their big client ... So, I got to sit in, and we took a break ... It was a chemical company, so it was mostly men. I ... was coming back [from the break] and the partner was out there with ... a little men’s circle. I think they were talking about football, and I walked [past] and I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do’. So, I just walked back into the conference room, and I was standing there by myself... I sat there on my phone for a minute, and I was like, 18

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you know what? I need to go back out there and introduce myself ... I can either sit here on my phone, and they’ll come back in, and we’ll continue the meeting, and no one will notice or say anything, or I can just go out there ... So, I made my way into the little circle, and I was like, ‘Hi!’ Surviving unpleasant reality shocks. Interns report interesting contradictions in which some elements of stress are unintentionally self-imposed. Some are excited to apply their knowledge, but they express a contradictory expectation to be assigned basic tasks, which (ironically) they worry will be mundane. Or they desire that work be meaningful and challenging, but express a contradictory desire that the work should not be so challenging that they make mistakes or seem unprofessional. Many interns opt for an office in a larger city as a chance to explore, acknowledging that work hours will be consuming, leaving little time for exploration. Interns selecting the audit line-of-service may want client and location variety, yet fail to anticipate the realities of commuting, traveling, and hotel living.

Coping through shared suffering. A comradeship of (shared) suffering is a notable coping mechanism. Team cohesiveness seems to mitigate shared suffering and is achieved through respectful team hierarchy, helpful colleagues, a personal interest in others, and a positive team dynamic. Deep satisfaction from work was another coping strategy. Nearly all interns felt that it was meaningful and that it added value to the collective team.

The occasional internship failure. A minority of interns expressed that the internship was a difficult and frustrating transition, fraught with stress, negativity, and sometimes crushing disappointment: “The hours towards the end (i.e., Monday to Monday around 85-90 hours) [were awful]. I guess I am glad to have done it now, but it just doesn’t fit my personality.”

“I selected audit probably for the wrong reasons. I picked it because I like to travel and everyone else picked it. By the end of the internship I still did not understand the purpose of many audit procedures or how to perform them. In retrospect, I might have enjoyed something else more.”

One intern recalled becoming an outcast, spending the majority of her internship unassigned.

The rare occasion that she did have work, she reported to an abusive boss: “I feel like she would maybe be having a bad day and would take it out on me ... She was just cruel ... the things that she would say, I was just shocked ... And it was like, ‘It almost seems like you are trying to make me leave ... walk out the door’. It was just so mean, that [it] said to me: ‘You hate me.’

Conclusions The research provided detailed qualitative evidence through open-ended surveys and in-depth interviews revealing how interns begin identifying as professionals while completing their internships, embarking on graduate school, and preparing to enter the full-time labor market.

The interns unabashedly communicated their experiences with the researchers, freely exchanging information and earnestly engaging in self-reflection.

Interns were not shy about ‘testing the waters’ by selecting internship opportunities that they consider novel or differentiating, either in terms of line-of-service or geographic location.

The interns are thirsty for exploration, eagerly anticipating and reflecting upon their formative experiences during the internship and providing insights that help researchers make assimilation inferences. We report evidence of four primary formative experiences, including ethical dilemmas; pressures to conform and perceptions of fairness (or lack thereof); gender challenges for female interns; and unpleasant reality shocks. The most notable coping mechanisms included embracing a sense of shared suffering with the team, along with team cohesion, satisfaction with the work itself, and the helpful use of a positive attitude in overcoming obstacles. In terms of expressing success versus failure, the successes that these interns reported are relatively consistent—including accomplishing challenging work with people with whom they identify and like.

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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DATA ANALYTICS CASE STUDY

Tax Case Helps Build Skills in Data Analytics and Tax Planning

Bucky Corporation’s CEO Needs Your Help A Madison-based CEO presides over a large regional sporting goods company, Bucky Corporation, that is doing extremely well. The CEO is still fairly new in her role at this company though, and has some trepidation about her lack of accounting background and because of an IRS audit at her previous company. She’d like to meet with you, the staff accountant, to review a few things with which she’d like your help.

The above scenario is fictional—an intentionally designed case study—but it’s not too far afield from what Wisconsin School of Business accounting students might face once they’re out in the real world, working with their own corporate clients as tax professionals.

Stacie Laplante, the James L. Henderson Professor and an associate professor of accounting and information systems, and Mary Vernon (PhD ’21), a WSB doctoral student in accounting and information systems, developed this Bucky Corporation case for a master’slevel class for fourth and fifth year accounting students to build data analytics skills in the tax planning process.

Professor Stacie Laplante

Mary Vernon (PhD ’21)

Data analytics skills are in high demand, says Stacie, and the idea for the case grew in part from frequent employer requests that students come in with greater data analytics experience. She recognized the importance of these skills, but also the difficulty in adding new coursework to tax students’ already full schedules.

“We thought, how do we start incorporating some of what our students will see out in the real world into our class without losing all the technical aspects that we still have to cover?” says Stacie.

Together, Stacie and Mary created a survey and gathered data from tax professionals on everything from the kind of topics that should be covered to best platforms to use. Later, they looked at the literature on corporate tax cases and realized that not a lot exists. They co-authored a paper that contributes to the literature, setting out the parameters of their case study and the specific learning objectives for students. The paper was accepted for publication in Issues in Accounting Education.

Learning to work with the data The case requires that students familiarize themselves with two distinct platforms: Excel for technical tax problems and tax workpapers (the client documents the preparer pulls together), and Tableau, a tool that allows for data interpretation and visualization.

Working through the case helps strengthen six specific skills: technical tax skills, data manipulation, data visualization, data interpretation, critical thinking, and written communication. Given how closely tax preparers work with their clients—and confidential information—the focus on communication skills is not surprising.

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As Stacie and Mary note in their paper, tax planning is both a forward-looking task as well as one of hindsight analysis. Students must be able to examine the client’s overall financial history and make recommendations. They’re often working with large amounts of data that must be interpreted and visualized.

Both Stacie and Mary say they were impressed with many of the students’ data visualizations done in Tableau. “Some students are so amazingly good at the way they analyze the data and then present it and explain it,” Laplante says. “When that happens, it’s always nice to see.”

“Communication, both written and verbal, is critical,” Stacie says. “You need to be able to communicate verbally to let the client know exactly what you need and why you need it. You can’t expect the client to know about tax law; you have to get the right information.”

Learning to make data-based decisions One of the benefits of the case is that it forces students to perform the professional judgment calls they would need to make with a tax client in real life.

“The nature of accounting draws students who like things that work, that balance, because our debits always have to equal our credits,” Stacie says. “In their mind, it’s pretty black and white.

But once they get into the tax area, there’s lots of gray. So, students struggle with not being able to say, ‘this is the absolute right answer.’ Having to take the data and decide on their own how to best present it, how to interpret it—they have to deal with that unknown of what’s right or what’s wrong.”

Mary agrees that sometimes it’s about giving students that gentle push to “get a little comfortable with the uncomfortable.”

“Tax planning is both a forward-looking task as well as one of hindsight analysis. Students must be able to examine the client’s overall financial history and make recommendations. They’re often working with large amounts of data that must be interpreted and visualized.”

— Professor Stacie LaPlante and PhD Student Mary Vernon

Tax preparers also must function with some degree of risk, Mary says, and they’re getting it from “both sides of the spectrum.”

“There’s a risk from the IRS side that maybe you did something wrong or there’s something they will not like, but there’s also a risk related to the client that perhaps you’re not taking advantage of all of the tax planning that you could be taking advantage of and you’re therefore leaving some opportunity on the table for that client.”

Stacie says it’s rewarding not only to see students clear these hurdles, but to hear from them after their summer internship. “They often send me an email a year later to say they got to the internship with some exposure and knowledge in hand so they felt more prepared than they would have otherwise.”

With several semesters under their belt, Stacie says she and Mary have discussed whether they can now iterate on what they’ve created.

“The underlying idea is really that data analytics can be used for different things like descriptive work, predictive work, and prescriptive work. In this case study, we’re looking at the very basic descriptive level, the most basic level of data analytics,” says Stacie. “We’d love to take the other two elements and build them into a tax class at the level of this one. I think that’s one thing we’d definitely like to pursue in the future.”

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FACULTY SET STANDARDS, MAKE THEIR MARK

Al Talarczyk, Ella Mae Matsumara

Indelible Legacies

With mixed emotions, we bid a very fond farewell to two long-standing members of the Department of Accounting. Al Talarczyk retired at the end of the Fall 2020 semester, Ella Mae Matsumura in August 2021. The contributions of each are too many to list. From their service to the department, School, and research community, to the students they have taught, mentored and advised, to say their time was impactful is an understatement. They leave big shoes to fill and will be sorely missed by their colleagues and students alike.

Al Talarczyk: Why did the chicken cross the road? With Al’s retirement, we may never know. Al really connected with students, including with a bad joke to start every class!

Whether teaching Fundamentals of Taxation to undergraduates or Tax Research to graduate MAcc students, everybody took part in the joke challenge. Al would start, a student would challenge with a joke, and the class voted.

If the students came out ahead by semester’s end, Al brought Greenbush Bakery. If Al won?

Well, it never happened!

Jokes aside, Al was an integral part of the Department of Accounting. His passion for all Colleagues celebrate Al’s retirement things tax was contagious. He won multiple teaching awards and was recently recognized as a distinguished senior lecturer. He worked hard to give students unique learning experiences, including having his graduate tax research students argue an appeal in front of actual IRS appeals officers. Beyond teaching, Al contributed in many ways—co-leading the review of the tax curriculum, serving on School and department committees, and leading students in tax-based case competitions. We are thankful for his impact on the School and the thousands of students he’s taught and wish him the best in his retirement!

Ella Mae Matsumura: Words simply will not do justice to the impact that Ella Mae has had on the Department of Accounting, WSB, and the accounting profession overall. With almost forty years of service, Ella Mae has truly influenced all areas of the School. Ella Mae is an award-winning teacher and researcher, recognized for her significant contributions.

Ella Mae has taught undergraduate, MAcc, MBA, PhD, and executive education courses. She has advised and mentored many doctoral candidates, serving a key role in developing their research interests and capabilities. She was elected a lifetime fellow of the university’s Teaching Academy, formed to promote effective teaching.

Ella Mae is a widely recognized leading researcher in management accounting. Her research addresses managerial accounting and control, including cost management and performance measurement, and incentives linked to compensation, sustainability reporting and accounting and audit quality. She has published numerous articles in top journals, actively served the American Accounting Association (AAA) in a variety of roles, served as an editor and on editorial boards of top journals and as president of the Management Accounting Section of the AAA. While serving in the dean’s office, Ella Mae continued to publish impactful research, most recently presenting a paper at the inaugural Sustainability Accounting

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Standard Board Alliance Academic Series in 2021. Ella Mae is also the author of a leading managerial accounting textbook, recently publishing the 7th edition of “Management Accounting: Information for Decision Making.”

Ella Mae served as senior associate dean for the past five years, helping lead the School through an unprecedented period of disruption. She is a thoughtful leader, instilling confidence and trust.

She was a constant during a period of change, helping recruit and onboard two WSB deans. Ella Mae is always willing to help and be a resource; with her deep institutional knowledge, she always found an answer to even the most complex questions. The School is lucky to have benefitted from her contributions and will deeply miss having her as part of our team. We wish her the best in her well-earned retirement.

ACCOUNTING FACULTY TAKE SERVICE TO A NEW LEVEL Many WSB faculty and staff provide service to the School, from curriculum and planning to search and hiring committees. Three faculty members from the Department of Accounting have taken the meaning of service to a whole new level. Ella Mae Matsumura, Terry Warfield, and Brian Mayhew are all contributing to the leadership of the School through their roles in the dean’s office.

Ella Mae Matsumura: Ella Mae served as the senior associate dean for academic programs for the previous five years. In this role, Ella Mae served as the chief academic officer of the School, overseeing teaching innovation and assessment, global programs, undergraduate and master’s academic programs, and serving as liaison to campus administration.

Brian Mayhew: For the last four years, Brian has served as the associate dean of undergraduate programs, leading the efforts to ensure the undergraduate experience, both curricular and cocurricular, delivers on the established program learning outcomes.

Terry Warfield: After stepping away from his role as department chair— another great service to the School—Terry transitioned into the dean’s office as the senior associate dean for faculty and research. In this role, Terry oversees the School’s internal governance (e.g., faculty and department chair meetings), the School’s research activities, and PhD programs. In this role, he co-leads development of strategy and policies and serves as central support for faculty hiring, which this year resulted in successfully recruiting and hiring 11 new faculty (one in accounting).

These roles in the dean’s office are valuable and have come during a time of significant upheaval.

We are so thankful to this strong leadership and know the School is in good hands!

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AWARDS, RESEARCH GRANTS, PUBLICATIONS, AND PRESENTATIONS

Noteworthy Ann O’Brien Ann received a PwC Inquires Grant to develop materials to enhance student understanding of workflows, joins, dynamic input tools, data, metadata, primary keys, documentation, and the capabilities of Alteryx.

The work funded by this grant allowed Ann to improve an Alteryx case she had developed with colleague Dan Stone and used in an accounting capstone course for MAcc students.

Ann’s paper, Developing Business Process and Query Skills for Solving Business Problems, co-authored with Faye Borthick and Gary Schneider, was selected to receive the Accounting Information Systems (AIS) and Strategic and Emerging Technologies (SET) Midyear Best Education Paper award.

All accounting students at WSB have the opportunity to work through the case written up in this paper when they take Ann’s Accounting Information Systems course.

Ann also received the Outstanding Service Award from the AIS section of the American Accounting Association (AAA) at its annual meeting.

Publications: “A Case Study in Managing the Analytics ‘Iceberg’: Data Cleaning and Management using Alteryx,” Ann O’Brien, Dan Stone, Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting (2021).

“Yes, You Can Import, Analyze, and Create Dashboards and Storyboards in Tableau! The GBI Case,” Ann D. O’Brien, Dan N. Stone, Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting (2020) 17 (1): 21–31.

Dan Wangerin Dan Wangerin was named to a David J. Lesar professorship.

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Tom Linsmeier Publications: Linsmeier, T. and E. Wheeler, “The Debate over Subsequent Accounting for Goodwill,” forthcoming Accounting Horizons (June 2021).

Linsmeier, T., “Discussion of Moving the Conceptual Framework Forward: Accounting for Uncertainty,” Contemporary Accounting Research, Vol. 37 No. 1, 2020, pp. 346-353.

Terry Warfield Publications with former doctoral students: Burke, Q. (PhD ’13), and T.D. Warfield. (2021). “Bank Interest Rate Risk Management and Valuation of Earnings,” Accounting and Finance.

Convery, A. (PhD ’15), M. Kaufman (PhD ’16), and T.D. Warfield. (2021). “Stakeholder Engagement and Effective Standard-Setting,” Accounting Horizons.

Ella Mae Matsumura Ella Mae and her co-authors (Rachna Prakash, University of Mississippi; Sandra Vera-Muñoz, University of Notre Dame) were invited to present their research paper, “Climate Risk Materiality and Firm Risk,” at the inaugural Sustainability Accounting Standard Board (SASB) Alliance Academic Series in March 2021. Ella Mae also received the WSB Dean’s Distinguished Service Award in April 2021. She completed her service as senior associate dean for academic programs at the end of June and retired in August 2021.

Robert Misey Robert presented, “Ethics in Tax Practice,” to both the ABA International Section and the National Equine Law Conference. He recently accepted an appointment as vice-chair to the International M&A and Joint Venture Committee of the American Bar Association.

Robert continues to author his quarterly column, “Global View,” for the Journal of Tax Practice & Procedure.

Publication: “A Primer on the Deduction for Foreign-Derived Intangible Income,” 99-5 Taxes 45 (2021).

Willie Choi Willie has held the David J. Lesar Professorship in Business since July 2020.

For the 2021-2022 academic year, he was elected chair of the UW–Madison shared governance budget committee, which advises the chancellor, provost, Academic Planning Council, University Committee, and relevant colleges and divisional committees on issues of budgetary impact and provides feedback on budget planning and analysis for the offices within finance and administration. Willie will serve another three-year term as an editor at the Journal of Management Accounting Research, an academic journal publishing empirical and theoretical academic research related to management accounting theory and practice. He has received research funding from the Institute of Management Accountants, the BRITE Lab at WSB, the Arthur Andersen Center for Financial Reporting and Control, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Publications and forthcoming research: “Studying ‘and’: A perspective on studying the interdependence between management control practices,” published in Accounting, Organizations and Society.

“Giving customers decision rights: A field study of pay-what-you-want pricing at the box office,” co-authored with J. Birnberg and A. Presslee, and forthcoming in Accounting Perspectives.

WELCOME MINJEONG KIM The department is thrilled to welcome new Assistant Professor Minjeong (MJ) Kim. Kim received her PhD in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Her research focus is mostly in executive compensation. Kim is interested in how incentive systems affect individual behavior and how elements such as the personality of the executive affect incentive system design. She is also interested in what makes people take risks. Kim currently has two papers that examine risk-taking incentives.

One, forthcoming in Management Science, is co-authored with faculty at the University of Illinois and examines how difficulty of performance goals affect risk-taking behavior. The second, which is Kim’s dissertation, examines how setting risk-inducing nonfinancial performance measures can lead to more risk taking and better risk management for firms in the oil and gas industry. Apart from research, Kim is also passionate about teaching.

She was honored by the Gies Business Alumni Association in 2021 with its Award for Excellence in Teaching Assistance.

Says, Kim, “After five years living in the cornfields of Illinois, I’m excited to see the beautiful lakes and parks in Wisconsin. I look forward to becoming a Badger—and attending a winning football game! Furthermore, I’m looking forward to conducting research with the distinguished faculty at UW–Madison.”

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AWARDS, RESEARCH GRANTS, PUBLICATIONS, AND PRESENTATIONS

Tyler Thomas Tyler has accepted an appointment to serve on the editorial board for the Journal of Management Accounting Research starting in 2022.

He also had two articles accepted for publication in the Journal of Management Accounting Research, entitled, “Superiors’ Discretionary Allocations when Agents Face Disparate Performance Risk” and “How Incomplete Information of Team Member Contributions Affects Subsequent Contributions: The Moderating Role of Social Value Orientation.”

Fabio Gaertner Fabio was recognized for his work in the classroom, receiving the Erwin A. Gaumnitz Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award.

Karla Zehms Publications: “The lived reality of public accounting interns,” by M.A. Covaleski, C.E. Earley, and K.M. Zehms.

Forthcoming (2021) Journal of Accounting Education.

“Audit committee members’ professional identities: Evidence from the field,” by K.M. Obermire, J.R. Cohen, and K.M. Zehms.

Forthcoming (2021) Accounting, Organizations & Society.

Emily Griffith Emily received The Outstanding Reviewer Award from The Accounting Review, which recognizes truly outstanding reviewers who provided many high quality and timely reviews to The Accounting Review from 2017–2020.

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Joe Boucher Joe Boucher is a recipient of the 2020 Wisconsin Law Foundation Charles L. Goldberg Distinguished Service Award, which is the Wisconsin Law Foundation’s highest honor.

The award recognizes a lawyer for lifetime service to the legal profession and to the public. Nominees are judged based upon their accomplishments in the law, service to the profession, and service to the community as a whole over an entire career.

Joe also received the Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants (WICPA) Distinguished Career Award. This award recognizes an individual for outstanding achievements and efforts throughout their career and for demonstrating exemplary leadership and ongoing commitment of service to advance the accounting profession, the WICPA, and the community.

Stacie Laplante Stacie was appointed the James L. Henderson Professor of Business. Stacie taught in person in the fall and spring of 2020-21, hoping that this is the only time in her life that this will be considered an accomplishment!

Stacie also presented her paper with Dan Lynch (UW), Christina Lewellen (North Carolina State U), and David Samuel (UW-PhD) titled, “Beating the BEAT: Do firms reclassify costs to avoid the base erosion and anti-abuse tax of the TCJA?” at Peking University, the University of Illinois– Champagne, and the University of Paderborn.

The paper was also presented at the 2020 National Tax Association annual meeting and the 2021 American Taxation Association midyear meeting.

Publications: “The Use of Data Analytics in Tax,” Kelley Laplante, S.; and M. Vernon in Issues in Accounting Education (2021).

“Internal Information Quality and State Tax Planning,” Kelley Laplante, S.; D. Lynch; and M. Vernon in Contemporary Accounting Research (2021).

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS With two full board meetings each academic year, along with many informal consultations throughout the year, we are truly thankful for the time, energy, and feedback provided by our advisory board.

Steven Carter*

Amy Mutziger*

CFO Briess Malt & Ingredients Co.

Vice President, Business Transformation Johnson Controls, Inc.

Dianne Dubois*

Sarah Nemke*

Principal Maple Street Associates

Senior Director, Global Accounting and HQ Finance SC Johnson & Son, Inc.

Katherine Feucht* Audit Partner and Global Real Estate Leader Deloitte

Jason Parsons*

Scott Harmsen*

Jason Schultz*

Partner, Tax Services Grant Thornton

Director, Leveraged Finance Northwestern Mutual Investment Management Company

Brian Kennedy Assurance Partner Ernst & Young

Tim Mattke* Chief Executive Officer MGIC Investment Corporation

Derek Matzke* Assurance Partner BDO

Jessica Mac Naughton* Tax Partner Wipfli

Assurance Partner KPMG

Tom Sheahan* Partner and Assurance Quality Co-Leader Baker Tilly Virchow Krause

Isabel Tarnowski* SEC Compliance Manager Douglas Dynamics

Troy Van Beek* VP, Finance American Family Insurance

Brad M. Zastoupil* Assurance Partner PricewaterhouseCoopers *Alumni

WISCONSIN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | TOGETHER FORWARD

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975 University Avenue Madison, WI 53706

THE

BADGER ACCOUNT STAY IN TOUCH MARK COVALESKI

KRISTEN FUHREMANN

Professor, Accounting and Information Systems Richard J. Johnson Chair of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems Robert Beyer Professor in Accounting

Director, Professional Programs in Accounting kristen.fuhremann@wisc.edu (608) 262-0316

mark.covaleski@wisc.edu (608) 262-4239