Accounting and Finance CSR workshop attracts

outstanding research scholars from across the

UK…. (More on page 5).

Welcome Welcome to the 2015 edition of the Accounting and

Finance Research Newsletter. The REF2014 produced some excellent results for BAL,

placing us inside the top 50 for Business and Management research. This confirms our position as the leading Business School in Leicester and the top modern university in the Midlands. Drilling down further, we are now placed 3rd overall amongst modern universities, with 64% of our research being ranked as ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. Whilst we are obviously delighted with these outcomes and with our outstanding NSS results, our attention must now turn to the challenges of both maintaining these positions and building upon them. The department continues to appreciate the need to achieve significant advances in both ‘research’ and ‘teaching and learning’ and recognizes the shared benefits of these two objectives. Attention is now upon the REF2020 and our aim of ensuring that as a department we have a significant impact upon the same. The department was also very well represented at the Faculty Research Conference on 17 September 2015 with Kemi, Neil, Nick, Rachel and Fred all presenting.

I hope that you find this publication interesting and that it encourages you to engage with the department’s research initiatives. May I take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to this edition. Best wishes Alexandra Charles Acting Head of Department, Accounting and Finance

Department of Accounting and Finance

De Montfort University Autumn 2015

Contents

Featuring …….

Latest Journal Articles 2

Conference Papers 3

Professional Publications 3

Books and Book Chapters 4

Individual Highlights

Research Student News 4

CSR Workshop 5

Awards and Other News 6

Autumn 2015

Research Newsletter

Journal Articles

2

During 2014/2015, members of the Department have had various research papers published in subject related journals. The following are the most recent publications: Professor David Crowther

Social responsibility and intellectual disabilities; Revista Internacional de Sociología Vol 72, No Extra_1 (2014) 71-91 (with

Duarte T)

Fred Mear

“A critical debate on the budgetary framework of the United Kingdom, in BAUDU (A.) et LASCOMBE (M.), "Europe’s

Golden Rule of Public Finances: Its Impact on National Budget Systems", Gestion & Finances publiques, n° spécial, octobre

2014, pp. 33-38 (with A. Guigue).

Ashok Patel

“Exploring the Theological Foundation of Corporate Social Responsibility in Islam, Christianity and Judaism for Strengthening Compliance and Reporting: An Eclectic Approach” Issues in Social and Environmental Accounting 7(4), 228-249 (with Raimi, L., Yekini, K. and Abdus-salam, A.) 2014

“Corporate Social Responsibility, Waqf System and Zakat System as Faith-Based Model for Poverty Reduction” World

Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. 10 Iss: 3, pp.228 - 242 (with Raimi, L. and

Adelopo, I.) 2014

Dr Kemi Yekini

“Impact of Board Independence on the Quality of Community Disclosures in Annual Reports. Accounting Forum Online First (ABS List 3*), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.accfor.2015.05.004 (with Adelopo, I., Andrikopoulos, P. and Yekini, S.L.) 2015

“Exploring the Theological Foundation of Corporate Social Responsibility in Islam, Christianity and Judaism for Strengthening Compliance and Reporting: An Eclectic Approach” Issues in Social and Environmental Accounting 7(4), 228-249 (with Raimi, L., Patel, A. and Abdus-salam, A.) 2014

An Evaluation of Management Perspectives of Sustainability Reporting in the Nigerian Oil Industry Journal of Management and Sustainability Vol 4(2), 70-81 (with Uzonwanne, G., Yekini, S. L. and Otobo, P.) 2014

“An Examination of Information and Communication Technology Adoption Barriers by Small and Medium Enterprises in Nigeria. Review of Public Administration and Management, Vol 3(5), 197-204; (with Abiola, J.O. and Ashamu, S.O.) 2014

Editorial

This edition of the Departmental Research Newsletter presents news about the research efforts and scholarly activities of members of the Department (including those of our doctoral students). The research news includes details of recent books and book chapters, articles published in 3* and other highly rated journals and refereed conference papers written or presented by members of the Department, while also noting distinguished awards for research and other scholarly activities undertaken by staff. This edition also highlights professional publications and the research seminars and conferences organised by colleagues in the Department and include news on invited talks delivered by staff.

Further, this newsletter presents news of a successful CSR workshop organised by members of the department.

I trust that readers will find this edition informative and stimulating. The aim of the newsletter is to serve as a springboard to connect people with common research interests across the Faculty and beyond.

Dr. Kemi Yekini Editor

Conference Papers

3

Dr Neil Lancastle presented the following two papers:

“How Should We Regulate the Carry Trade?” at the 2014 European Conference on Banking and the Economy (ECOBATE 2014) held at Winchester Guildhall on 8 October 2014.

“Six Key Features of the Emerging Consensus Between Club Class Central Banks” at the Annual Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE) held at Southampton Solent University, 2-4 July 2015.

Fred Mear presented the following papers:

“Crises of Chinese Local Government Debts, Opportunity for Public Sector Accruals Based

Accounting – The reforms of China’s Governmental Financial Reporting System” at the

International Academic Symposium on Chinese-Foreign Co-operative Education held at

Sun Wah International Business School Liaoning University.

“Strategically Using the Issue Affecting the Adoption of a Common Currency

for Uniting and Developing the Arab Gulf Region” held at Word Finance Conference in

July2-4, 2014, Venice.

Darren Sparkes presented a paper entitled “‘Project Management – A ‘Lesson’ for Sir Alan’s Next Apprentice!” at the DMU Project Management Network Quarterly Event in April 2015. Aaron Toogood presented the following papers at the 2015 British Education Research Association (BERA) Conference in Belfast, 11-12 September 2015:

University-Primary School Interventions: Closing the Higher Education Participation Gap.

The Expectation-Experience Gap of Higher Education Tourists.

Becoming Less ‘Adult' or Less ‘Child' as Researchers. Lisa Wakefield presented a paper entitled "How Do You Solve a Problem with Accountants?" at the DMU Pillars of Learning Conference in September 2015. Dr Kemi Yekini presented the following two papers at the Annual British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) conference at the University of Manchester, 23 – 25 March 2015:

“Impact of Board Independence on the Quality of Community Disclosures in Annual Reports”.

“Does Media Coverage Influence Corporate Community Disclosures?” The department was well represented at the faculty research conference held on 17 September 2015 with five members of the department presenting at the conference as follows:

Rachel English “Why Are EU Generalized System of Preferential Tariffs not Being Fully Utilized by Eligible Importers?”

Dr. Neil Lancastle “Key Features of the Emerging Consensus Between Club Class Central Banks”

Fred Mear “Crisis of Chinese Local Governmental Debts and the introduction of IPSAS (International Public Sector Accounting Standards) to Assist in Fiscal Sustainability? -The Reforms of China's Governmental Financial Reporting System” (with Dr Jingchi Huang of Wuhan University)

Dr. Nick Webber “Social Meaning, Social Knowledge and Social Learning in a Practice Framework” (with Panos Andrikopoulos)

Dr Kemi Yekini “Evaluating the Quality and Veracity of CSR Narratives: Can Semiotics Help?”

Contributions to

Professional

Publications

In addition to academic publications, members of the department also published in professional magazines as follows:

Michelle David: “Liquidity Problems: Can There Ever Really Be Effective Water Accounting?” CIMA Financial Management (FM) magazine, April, 2015. Available online at http://fmapp.cimaglobal.com/seven/financialprototype/index.html#issue/april2015/portrait/29 Rachel Tattersall:

“Working Capital Management” CIMA Study Notes, November 2014

“CIMA’s Code of Ethics” CIMA Study Notes, October 2015

Beverley Vickerstaff and Rachel English produces reports on the Top 200 Leicestershire businesses published yearly in the Leicester Mercury. This league table identifies and ranks Leicestershire’s businesses, providing a measure of climbers, non-movers and fallers, which is passionately reviewed by the Leicestershire business community.

Books, Book Chapters and Book Reviews Professor David Crowther: Books

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Digital Age, 2015; Emerald (with Adi A & Grigore G)

Governance, Accountability and Sustainable Development; 2015; Cambridge Scholars Press (with Oubrich M, Abdaless S & Barzi R)

Dr Neil Lancastle: During 2014/2015 Dr Neil Lancastle reviewed the following book and also wrote two entries for the Encyclopedia of Central Banking:

Teaching Post Keynesian Economics by J. Jespersen and M. Ove Madsen. Review of Keynesian Economics 2(4), pp. 545-6.

Random Walk. In: Rochon, L.P. and Rossi, S. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Central Banking. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Asset Management. In: Rochon, L.P. and Rossi, S. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Central Banking. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Dr Peter Scott: Book “Accounting for Business” 2nd Edition published by Oxford University Press in December, 2015.

Dr Kemi Yekini: Book Chapter

“Bridging Governance Gap with Political CSR" in "CSR in Developing Countries: Towards a Development-Oriented Approach. in Development Oriented Corporate Social Responsibility: Volume 1, Greenleaf Publishing, Editors: Dima Jamali, Charlotte Karam and Michael Blowfield, ISBN: ISBN 978-1-78353-476-0 (with Raimi L. and Adelopo, I) 2015

Guest Speakers and Keynote Addresses

Other Related Scholarly Activities

4

Members of the department were invited to give guest lectures at various events and universities across the UK. These included the following:

Professor David Crowther was invited to give keynote address at the following conferences:

o 2nd International Interdisciplinary Scientific Conference, Zagreb, November 2015

o 5th Organizational Governance Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, September 2015

On 4 November 2014, Dr Neil Lancastle was invited to speak at Queen Mary’s Grammar School on the topic “Rethinking Economics”.

Neil also presented a working paper to the Young Scholars Initiative at the Institute for New Economic Thinking on their Financial Stability Group in May 2015.

During 2014/15, Dr Neil Lancastle was a peer reviewer for the Economics eJournal. He was also appointed as a trustee for Post-Crash Economics.

During the same period, Dr Kemi Yekini reviewed for the following academic journals:

Corporate Governance: An International Review

Managerial Auditing Journal

Greenleaf Publishing

Research Students News

Congratulations to Our PhD Students!

Congratulations to two of our PhD students on successfully completing their doctoral degrees. Their topics are:

Dr Lukman Raimi “Corporate Social

Responsibility and Entrepreneurship

in the Nigerian Telecommunication

Industry: A Structural Equation

Modelling (SEM)” in May 2015.

Lukman was supervised by Ashok

Patel and Dr Kemi Yekini.

Dr Antonio Tencati, “Corporate Social

Responsibility and Firm Performance:

State of the Art and Perspectives in

Social, Environmental and

Sustainability Performance

Management” in February, 2015.

Antonio was supervised by Professor

David Crowther and Dr Ismail

Adelopo.

Thomas Olusola, Yinusa Olumuyiwa Ganiyu and Menatallah Samir Darrag successfully defended their theses with minor corrections. Thomas was supervised by Ashok Patel and Dr Kemi Yekini; Yinusa by Dr Yulia Rodionova and Dr Panagiotis Andrikopoulos and Menatallah by Professor David Crowther and Dr. Ismail Adelopo.

Welcome on Board!

We welcome our new PhD students to the Department. Michelle Stirk is being supervised by Ashok Patel and Dr Richard Bull of the Faculty of Technology, Rachel English is being supervised by Professor David Crowther and Fred Mear, Katarzyna Jaskowiec is being supervised by Ashok Patel and Dr Nick Webber.

...at the Departmental Level...

In June 2014, the department successfully hosted a CSR workshop. The workshop, which is the first of its kind at

DMU, recorded an attendance of more than 30 participants both from within and outside the University.

The workshop was well attended by members of the department, 14 members in all and 12 other participants from

outside the department. There were two external speakers: Professor Wayne Rodgers from the University of Hull and

Professor Frank Birkin from the University of Sheffield.

Seven members of the accounting and finance department presented at the workshop: Kemi, Michelle, Fred, John,

Panos, Nick and Yulia who also organized and ran the plenary session. Seven of our PhD students also participated in

the workshop. The workshop was organised by the CSR research group chaired by Dr Nick Webber and sponsored by

the Faculty of Business and Law. The workshop was a valuable showcase of the research work that goes on in the

Accounting and Finance Department.

During the year, the Departmental Research Seminar Series featured a total of ten sessions with wide ranging topics

within Finance, Accounting and Social Reporting. Internal and external guest speakers at these sessions included:

Professor Kozo Yamaguchi from Meisei University Japan on the topic “Accounting Standards in Japan”

Ashok Patel on the topic “Formative Learning: Joint Cognition, Scaffolding and Autonomous Learning Space”

Dr Neil Lancastle on the topic “The Carry Trade Anomaly: Is it a Risk Premium or Liquidity Put?”

Fred Mear on the topic “UK Refusal to Adopt the Treaty on Co-Ordination, Stability and Governance and the

Alternative Model the UK Uses to Ensure Fiscal Stability”

Dr Panos Andrikopoulos from Coventry University on the topic “Intra-Day Herding in Cross Border Exchanges:

Evidence From EURONEXT”

Dr Kemi Yekini on the topic “Community Expectation Versus Community Involvement Disclosures in Annual

Reports: Is There Any Link?”

Dr Nick Webber on the topic “Meaning and Learning in a Practice Framework”

Samuel Komakech on the topic “Ownership Structure and Performance of Listed Firms in Emerging Markets”

Rachel English on the topic “The Utilization of Trade Preferences in the EU” and

Jaypal Jain on the topic “Implications of Fair Value Accounting”

5

Awards and Other News

During this year Dr Neil Lancastle successfully completed his PhD from the Leicester University and now joins our PGR

supervisory team.

During 2014/2015 Beverly Vickerstaff was nominated for the “Unsung Hero Award” at the OSCARs. The award

recognises individuals who go the ‘extra mile’ on a daily basis to make a difference to life at DMU.

Fred Mear was presented with an award for his contribution to the collaboration between DMU and Sun Wah

International Business School at Liaoning University, where he also presented a paper titled, “Crises of Chinese Local

Government Debts, Opportunity for Public Sector Accruals Based Accounting – The reforms of China’s Governmental

Financial Reporting System”

Congratulations to one of our recently completed doctoral students, Dr Lukman Raimi, whose paper won an Emerald

Literati Award. Dr Raimi’s paper “Corporate Social Responsibility, Waqf System and Zakat System as Faith-Based Model

for Poverty Reduction ", published in World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development,

has been selected by the journal’s editorial team as a 'Highly Commended Paper' in the 2015 Emerald Literati Network

Awards for Excellence. The paper was written in collaboration with Ashok Patel and Ismail Adelopo.

Congratulations, too, to our Accounting and Finance 3rd year audit students Ahmed Dhada, Farhan Chohan and

Amanveer Dhesi who had their essay “Be Audit You Can Be” published in PQ magazine in April 2015. The essay was

selected as the winning essay from the final year Audit and Assurance students in 2014/2015 and the essay was

presented to and published by PQ magazine. Thanks to Lisa Wakefield who arranged for PQ magazine to accept and

publish this piece.

We welcome Dr Bo Lan an Associate Professor in Accounting and Finance from Liaoning University, China to the

department. Dr Bo Lan’s research interest is in preparing companies for Bonds issuance. She is currently undertaking a

comparative study between China and the UK on Local Authorities Bond Issuance in collaboration with Fred Mear. Dr

Bolan will be with the Department for one year.

Department of

Accounting and Finance

6 Many thanks to all contributors to this edition. Appreciation also goes to Dr Peter Scott for taking the time to proofread the publication.