Business School

Academics

• Dr Ali Ataullah (Senior Lecturer in Finance)
  Economic theory of firm; Corporate diversification; Real options; Corporate payout policy; Determinants and effects of international capital flows
• Grahame Boocock (Senior Lecturer in Banking and Finance)
  Small business finance; Entrepreneurship
• Dr Rhoda Brown (Senior Lecturer in Financial Accounting)
  
• Professor Lin Fitzgerald (Professor of Management Accounting)
  Performance measurement and cost information for decision-making in service organisations
• Professor William Forbes (Professor of Accounting and Finance)
  Statistical/econometric issues in valuing firms and policy issues raised by the new economy
• Dr Regina Frank (Lecturer in Innovation and Entrepreneurship)
  M&A; Valuation; Synergies; Bank Mergers; Entrepreneurship
• Dr Robert Hamilton (Lecturer in Economics and Banking)
  Credit scoring; Small business finance; Financial services and consumer behaviour
• Dr Andrew Higson (Lecturer in Accounting)
  Financial instruments; Regulation; Fraud
• Professor Barry Howcroft (Professor in Retail Banking)
  Measurement of bank branch efficiency utilising DEA; customer retention strategies and customer service in banks and building societies; the mutuality vs. the PLC debate in building societies; and the evolution of delivery channels in banking
• Dr Alper Kara (Lecturer in Business Economics)
  Syndicated Loan Markets, Emerging Market Financing, Banking and Corporate Governance, Bank Lending
• Dr Laurie McAulay (Reader in Accounting and Financial Management)
  Financial expertise, management control systems and the management of IS
• Dr Keith Pond (Senior Lecturer in Banking and Economics)
  Insolvency and regulation
• Dr George Saridakis (Lecturer in Business Economics)
  Economics of Small Firms, Economics of Crime
• Professor Will Seal (Professor of Management Accounting)
  Accounting for Networks, Supply Chains and Relational Contracting; Management Accounting in Local Government; Management Control in Shared Service Centres; Management Control and Corporate Governance
• Dr Jonathon Seaton (Reader in Business Economics)
  Market diversification of firms; Micro econometrics analysis; Specifically panel estimation; Limited dependent variable techniques
• Dr Yoshikatsu Shinozawa (Lecturer in Corporate Finance)
  Mature fund unit trust performance; Efficient Markets Hypothesis; Management of fund Management Groups; Corporate Governance in Financial Services
• Dr Kai-Hong Tee (Lecturer in Finance)
  Asymmetric Risk Estimation, Efficiency of Funds’ Performance, Derivatives Securities
• Dr Andrew Vivian (Lecturer in Accounting and Financial Management)
  Asset Pricing; Corporate Finance; Financial Markets; Market Efficiency

Associate Members

• Ian Herbert (MBA, Academic Co-ordinator and Tutor; Lecturer in Accounting and Financial Management)
  Financial Expertise; Knowledge management and Organisational Decision Making Ranking
• Ruth King (Programme Director BSc in Banking, Finance & Management; Lecturer in Accounting)
  Regulation; Accounting education; Financial literacy
• John Whittaker (Acting-Director of the Business School; Lecturer in Financial Accounting)
  Financial instruments; Accounting education

 

Researchers

• Christine Guo (Research Associate)
  Macroeconomics; Dynamic modelling; Econometrics

Visiting Academics

• None at present

 

Research Themes

Work in the group falls into three major themes: management accounting, banking and finance.

Management Accounting

Work on this theme includes studies on corporate governance, fraud, supply chain management, venture capital, the interplay of strategy and performance and knowledge management.

Banking

Research in the banking area includes work on consumer attitudes toward risk, bank efficiency, credit scoring, syndicated loan market and market discipline and structure.

Finance

In the area of finance, work covers areas such as equity valuation and risk premia, behavioural finance, analyst coverage issues, raising of finance and corporate insolvency and bankruptcy.

 

These themes offer many overlaps and fruitful areas for collaboration between different subject areas. For example, the study of financial instruments from both an accounting and financial valuation perspective provides a better understanding of the off-balance sheet nature of these commitments and the nature of the risks involved. There is also research in the group that cuts across disciplinary boundaries, with members of the group bringing an accounting and finance perspective on issues concerned with innovation, information systems, performance measurement and sustainability.

Publications

Examples of recent publications include:
A. Ataullah, A. Higson and M. Tippett, “The Distributional Properties of the Debt to Equity Ratio: Some Implications for Empirical Research”, Abacus, 43(2), 2007, pp. 111-135.

J. Boocock and M. Shariff, “Measuring the Effectiveness of Credit Guarantee Schemes: Evidence from Malaysia”, International Small Business Journal, 23(4), 2005, pp. 427-454.

G. Cook and K. Pond, “Explaining the Choice Between Alternative Insolvency Regimes for Troubled Companies in the UK and Sweden”, European Journal of Law and Economics, 22(1), 2006, pp. 21-47.

A. Ataullah, I. Davidson and M. Tippett, “A Wave Function for Stock Market Returns”, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 388(4), 2009, pp. 455-461.

A. Ismail and I. Davidson, “The Determinants of Target Returns in European Bank Mergers”, Service Industries Journal, 27(5), 2007, pp. 617-634.

A. El-Galfy and W. Forbes, “Are Forecasts of Corporate Profits Rational? A note and further evidence”, Journal of Empirical Finance, 11(4), 2004, pp. 617-626.

L. Fitzgerald., “Performance Measurement” in Issues in Management Accounting, edited by T. Hopper, D. Northcott and R. Scapens, Essex: Pearson Education, 2007, pp. 223-244.

A. Gourlay, J. Seaton and J. Suppakitjarak, “The Determinants of Export Behaviour in UK Service Firms”, Service Industries Journal, 25(7), 2005, pp. 879-889.

P. Hamalainen, M. Hall and J Howcroft, “A Framework for Market Discipline in Bank Regulatory Design”, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 32(1&2), 2005, pp. 183-209.

A. Higson, Y. Shinozawa and M. Tippett, “IAS 29 and the Cost of Holding Money under Hyperinflationary Conditions”, Accounting and Business Research, 37(2), pp. 97-121.

J. Howcroft, R. Hamilton and P. Hewer,. "Customer Involvement and Interaction in Retail Banking: An Examination of Risk and Confidence in the Purchase of Financial Products", Journal of Services Marketing, 21(7), 2007, pp. 481-491.

D. Marginson and L. McAulay, Exploring the debate on short-termism: a theoretical and empirical analysis, Strategic Management Journal, 29(3), 2008, pp. 273-292.

A. Rothwell, I. Herbert and F.  Rothwell, “Self Perceived Employability: construction and initial validation of a scale for university students”, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 73(1), 2008, pp. 1-12,

G. Saridakis, S. Sen-Gupta, P. Edwards and D. Storey, “The Impact of Enterprise Size on Employment Tribunal Incidence and Outcomes: Evidence from Britain”, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 46(3), 2008, pp. 469-499.

W. Seal, “Management Accounting and Corporate Governance: an institutional interpretation of the agency problem”, Management Accounting Research, 17(4), 2006, pp. 389-408

Journal Editorships

Professor Lin Fitzgerald is an Associate Editor of the British Accounting Review, is on both the Research & Development Group and the Research Board of CIMA and is also on the Management Board of the Performance Measurement Association.

Professor William Forbes is on Editorial Board of Qualitative Research in Financial Markets and the International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance.

Dr Andrew Higson is on the editorial board of the ICFAI Journal of Audit Practice (based in Hyderabad, India).

Conferences

Professor William Forbes was the Plenary speaker at the Accounting and Finance PhD Student Colloquium at Brunel University in 2008. In the same year, Prof. Forbes presented on Behavioural Finance to fund managers, analysts and risk managers at a conference organised by ‘Technical Analyst’ magazine.

Dr Andrew Higson was a plenary speaker at the introductory session of the ‘Finance and Accounting: Theory and Practice, Development and Trends’ Conference at the University of Latvia, Institutes of Finance and Accounting, Riga, Latvia, 18-19 September 2008.

Current PhD Students

Henry Agyei-Boapeah
Corporate financing in developing countries: evidence from listed companies in Ghana

Jane Glover
Entrepreneurial qualities required by dairy farmers in order to adapt to the ever changing external environment (co-supervised between Graham Boocock and Peter Ackers)

Yan Sun
What is the behaviour pattern of online banking customers in UK?

Aloysius Igboekwu
Modelling earning momentum

Waleed Alqasrawie
Market structure and profit determinants in the Arad Banks industry

Farangiz Rahimova
Forecasting, modelling & managing credit risk in sterling Eurobond markets

Charles Thornton (part time)
An analysis of the value of comparing the differing resources involved in diversification in UK banking

Helen Gardner
Insights from postmodern organisation theory to explore the means by which organisations construct perceptions of reality (co-supervised between Laurie McAuley and Melissa Tyler)

Tony Stevenson (part time)
Credit access and start up failure amongst UK SMEs and German counter parts

Linna Ye
Developing balanced scorecard

Elizabeth Warren (part time)
Regulation and accounting in the UK electricity industry

Joseph Lanham
Strategic management accounting, performance and control: strategic appraisal tools & strategy in the profit/not for profit sector

Yizhe Dong
Bank efficiency in China

Rima Kordogly
The valuation role of earnings and book value (a study across European Banks)

Recent PhD Graduates

Paul Hamalainen (graduated Jul 07)
Development and Relevance of Financial Regulation in Transitional Economies. Paul was a member of staff with us throughout his PhD but has now left the University)

Yen Hao Chen (graduated Jul 08)
Knowledge Conversion Processes and Leadership: An exploratory study of Taiwanese Managers

Thinking of doing an MRes or PhD?

Doctoral students join a lively and supportive community of research students, becoming an integral part of the School’s research culture. As a research student, you will be encouraged to attend conferences to present your work and develop joint publications with your supervisors. These activities are partially supported by a dedicated fund, open to all research students on a one-year basis.

We welcome approaches from suitably qualified graduates, particularly those with a relevant Masters degree and sufficient funding, who may wish to undertake research projects in the specialist areas of the group, leading to a PhD. For students interested in further information on potential PhD projects and supervisors, please look carefully through our webpages.

For an online application form click here
and for full details of the Business School PhD programme click here

For those interested finding out about our MRes in Business and Management, which is a 12-month full-time programme, please click here.