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Thursday, August 4, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS
Ross faculty outlines efforts in research,
teaching, outreach and entrepreneurship
School highlights
sustainability and
collaboration
By ALEXA ST.JOHN
Daily Staff Reporter
Through
leadership
and
entrepreneurship
practices,
concern for global sustainability
and areas of study spanning from
business economics to finance to
management, the University of
Michigan Ross School of Business
has consistently ranked among the
nation’s best — ranking fourth in
undergraduate schools nationwide
by the U.S. News and World
Report. Yet there is an additional
aspect of the business school that
has greatly expanded since the
school’s establishment in 1924:
research.
Whether one is studying an
arguably more traditional aspect
of business, such as accounting
and marketing, or focusing on
innovative
business
models,
researchers at Ross are exploring
a variety of topics to sustain a
successful
business
program
and improve economic relations
throughout the world.
Accounting – Role of Business
The Paton Center for Research
in Accounting was established to
honor William Paton, a University
alum
and
former
University
accounting professor. Some of
Paton’s accomplishments include
developing innovative accounting
techniques and founding of the
Accounting Review — the oldest
scholarly journal in accounting —
in 1926.
Paton’s
students
—
many
now in their 80s — created
the center to recognize Paton
as a respected member of the
academic community and world-
known thought leader, Catherine
Shakespeare,
faculty
director
of the Master of Accounting
Program, said.
“He created a sense of excellence
around accounting — made it a
rigorous
scientific
discipline,”
Shakespeare said. “The center
was founded in his honor and the
purpose of the center is excellence
in all things accounting.”
Shakespeare
said
having
a
center specifically focusing on
accounting didactics and research
has been beneficial to advancing
Paton’s mission, especially for
doctoral students.
“We
are
the
number
one
accounting Ph.D. program in the
country with a long history of
incredibly successful alums, and I
think that’s in part to do with the
support of the Paton Accounting
Center,” Shakespeare said.
In addition to encouraging
students to enter the accounting
field, the center helps to change
common misconceptions about
what the field actually entails,
Shakespeare
said.
One
such
misconception is that accountants
work in isolation with a calculator,
but Shakespeare said accounting
— especially modern accounting
— is much more interactive and
collaborative than people think,
as accountants work with many
people in companies and firms to
review their information and make
decisions.
“Accounting is about ‘how do
you take information and make
decisions?,’
whether
internally
in the firm or externally as a
stakeholder,” Shakespeare said.
“You have to be able to understand
that
everything
is
based
in
numbers and relationships. That’s
really what accounting is about: is
being able to understand the story
the firm is able to tell you about its
financial performance.”
Shakespeare said while there
are two main types of accounting
— financial and management —
she focuses her research on the
former, which involves businesses
and
publicly-listed
companies
that externally report required
information to their shareholders.
Shakespeare’s work is often policy-
oriented since she works with
global standard setters in relating
the importance of regulation in
financial institutions. Standard
setters
set
strict
guidelines
that establish how companies
should reveal their information
to shareholders and investors,
controlling what consumers and
shareholders see regarding the
See ROSS, Page 9
ROSS
BY THE NUMBERS
THE STEPHEN M.
45,000
ALUMNI IN
88
COUNTRIES
70
STUDENT CLUBS AND
ORGANIZATIONS
OVER
TOTAL ENROLLMENT
3,295
151
FULL-TIME FACULTY
Source: http://michiganross.umich.edu/
about/key-facts
#4
RESEARCH FACULTY IN THE
WORLD
97%
OF THE ROSS MBA CLASS
OF 2015 HAD AT LEAST ONE
JOB OFFER WITHIN 3 MONTHS
OF GRADUATING
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS