1,700 Accounting Scholars and Practitioners at Bocconi for EAA 2018
THE ANNUAL CONGRESS OF THE EUROPEAN ACCOUNTING ASSOCIATION, ORGANIZED BY BOCCONI'S DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING, WILL START ON WEDNESDAY, 30 MAYAn unprecedented 1,700 scholars and practitioners, presenting a total of 1,089 papers, will take part in EAA 2018 the 41st Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, at Bocconi University, 30 May-1 June. “We closed registrations long ago because we had filled the venue capacity”, says Annalisa Prencipe, Full Professor of Accounting at Bocconi and member of the Local Organizing Committee. The Congress marks the 40th anniversary of the Association, that was established during the first congress.
“The organization of the Congress started four years ago”, Prof. Prencipe says, “and involved many members of the Accounting Department. Many of us are in the Organizing Committee, chair important sessions and present our own papers”.
“Even if the majority of the participants will be scholars, numerous practitioners will attend, including top officers from international standard-setting agencies and professional associations”, says Angelo Ditillo, Associate Professor of Accounting at Bocconi. The most represented among the 55 countries whose scholars will present papers at the Congress is Germany with 131 presentations, followed by the US with 128, the UK with 115, Australia with 90, Spain with 58 and Italy with 57.
“Recently the head of a major European auditing professional body argued that a problem that auditors and accountants face is that they are still using 20th century techniques even though we are in the 21st century which is characterized by many ongoing innovations. Personally I hope part of the principal roles of the conference is to highlight how accounting educators can innovate in their teaching and research to train accountants and auditors in new 21st century techniques”, says Miles Gietzmann, Chair of the Conference.
All the current research topics in accounting will be discussed, including two emerging themes on big data and integrated reporting.
“Data is growing faster than ever and more data has been created in the past two years than in the history of the human race. Big data comes with challenges to the accounting profession and fosters innovation in research and practice of the accounting discipline”, says Gabriel Pereira Pundrich, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Bocconi and Chair of the Big Data Symposium at EAA 2018.
“Integrated reporting represents the latest international attempt to connect a firm’s financial and non-financial performance in one single document to overcome the drawbacks in the format and usefulness of current corporate reporting”, says Ariela Caglio, Associate Professor of Accounting and Chair of the Integrated Reporting Symposium at EAA 2018.
Established with the aim to link together the Europe-wide community of accounting scholars and researchers and to provide a platform for the wider dissemination of European accounting research, EAA publishes two of the leading journals of the field: European Accounting Review and Accounting in Europe.
by Fabio Todesco
