Research Communities

Archival/Empirical Research Community

The Archival/Empirical Research Community considers the role of information and information intermediaries in capital markets, particularly in the areas of financial reporting, tax, information systems, and governance. Research questions include: how firms leverage IT to achieve and sustain competitive advantage; how taxes affect corporate decision-making; the use of accounting information in firm valuation; and, the impact of different governance mechanisms on tax avoidance and aggressive financial reporting. We use advanced econometric techniques in analyzing databases to answer these important questions.

Archival/Empirical Research Faculty

Andy Bauer

Corporate tax, influence of agency issues on tax planning, including governance mechanisms, and the role of uncertainty in shaping tax planning, including risk assessment.

Changling Chen

Capital markets research on financial accounting issues, time-series attributes, stock pricing, consequences of new accounting rules, and market inefficiencies in recognition of accounting information.

Elizabeth Demers

The role of non-financial information in assessing and predicting firm performance, and the impact of disclosure and communications on the firm’s cost of capital and stock price crash risk.

Steven Fortin

Intersection of Financial Reporting, Assurance, and Governance.

Daniel Jiang

Information disclosure, managerial performance evaluation, debt contracting and earnings management.

Duane Kennedy

Earnings management and the impact of the US sub-prime crisis on Canadian financial institutions.

Ken Klassen

Effects of tax on corporate decision making, corporate data, factors that influence the role of taxes in international operations, and examine settings in which decisions may have been predictably altered in response to tax environments.

Ross Lu

Financial disclosure, corporate governance, related party transactions and debt contracting.

Seda Oz

Information Environment, Accounting Regulations, Financial Institutions, Firms' Disclosure Activities.

Sasan Saiy

Corporate governance, economic consequences of accounting information and disclosure, financial statement analysis and valuation, and accounting for financial institutions.

Theo Stratopoulos

Economics of information technology (IT), how firms leverage IT enabled strategies to achieve and sustain competitive advantage and superior financial performance.

Joyce Tian

Managerial performance evaluation, corporate governance, organization designs and information disclosure.

Kaishu Wu

Corporate tax avoidance, the interaction between financial reporting and taxation, and international tax issues.

Behavioural Research Community

The Behavioural Research Community applies theory from social science disciplines such as economics, psychology, and sociology to understand the nature of judgment and decision making and behaviour in accounting, auditing, and ethical contexts. The group tests theory using a variety of research methods, including lab and field experiments, interviews, and questionnaires. The group's research investigates factors that impact managers' and professional accountants' behaviour such as management control systems, decision support systems, expertise, incentives, and resource constraints. The group's findings contribute to multiple accounting disciplines, including financial, managerial, auditing, ethics, and information systems.

Behavioural Research Faculty

Tim Bauer

Judgment/Decision-Making in Auditing, Accounting, and Taxation.

Efrim Boritz

Investigating areas of professional practice in external auditing and internal auditing which rely on the exercise of professional judgment.

W. Alec Cram

Information systems governance and control initiatives and how these can contribute to improving the performance of organizational processes.

Krista Fiolleau

Auditor's use of accounting information in decision making, the effect of organizational objectives on ethical reasoning, and accounting ethics.

Brad Pomeroy

Assurance, governance, professional judgment, and decision making.

Adam Presslee

Theory from psychology and economics to understand how various incentive systems and control environments affect employee effort and performance.

Linda Robinson

Auditing, Assurance, and Forensic Accounting.

Adam Vitalis

Economic, behavioural, and informational processing theories to experimentally investigate cognitive limitations in processing risk and other information cues in both audit and financial reporting settings.

Alan Webb

Behavioural consequences of management control system elements such as targets, incentive schemes, and the motivational effects of non-cash rewards (e.g. gift cards, merchandise and 'games').

Finance Research Community

The Finance Research Community conducts research into numerous aspects of financial markets including the pricing of financial securities, investment strategies, financial intermediation, risk management, and the financing of corporate activities. Research methodologies include theoretical modelling to systematically investigate frontier questions, advanced empirical techniques to investigate specific testable hypotheses, and simulation techniques to provide insight when general solutions become intractable. The Finance Research Community also takes advantage of cross-disciplinary expertise, often focusing on research questions that integrate with the accounting, economics, statistics and computer science disciplines.