Thursday, January 27, 2011

Academia and the profession working together!

There’s a paradigm shift about to emerge: a forum in Adelaide next week will bring together accounting practitioners with leaders in accounting academia. The aim is to investigate the contemporary challenges around accounting education, academe and the accounting profession in Australia.

What makes this event particularly interesting is that academics and practitioners will participate on the panels of discussion at the same time. Our profession has not seen this approach often and I am optimistic that it will lead to some frank and open conversations. It makes good sense to have these two groups together and engaged on the right issues.

From a practitioner’s perspective, over many years I have always felt torn with academic research. I have seen considerable research that is quite innovative and challenging and leaves me curious for more, while also spurring me to apply these findings to my own work environment. In short, the research is achieving its goals - engaging and driving practitioners to solutions.

But I have also seen research that leaves me underwhelmed – being left with questions like: why has this research been done, what is it trying to achieve, or in particular, I think this research is very helpful but it has been published long after, making the research practically obsolete! This last point – for me – is a particular challenge.

Practitioners see business conditions move significantly – we have all seen this with the GFC in recent times. Because they are working within these dynamic conditions – their expectations for academic research is equally time-sensitive. Some may suggest that this is not reasonable – research needs sufficient time to draw the facts together, undertake the analysis and formulate views and recommendations – and I can accept that too. But where is the optimum positioning with these two views?

The forum in Adelaide could be a potential start to a new working partnership between academia and the profession.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Total performance in the spotlight

The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Forum held in London just before Christmas drew over 200 business, community, investor and professional accounting leaders from around the globe. I represented the Institute at this event, along with our technical expert, Geraldine Magarey, Manager Sustainability and Regional Australia.

Held at St James’s Palace State Apartments, HRH the Prince of Wales and the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne MP, spoke passionately about how the global economy needs to evolve to meet the challenges of the sustainability revolution. The future is uncertain and people are judged, remunerated and recognised largely by what they achieve today rather than tomorrow.

How we plan and provide for the future will determine our ultimate success and, indeed, survival.

One thing is clear – there is still an urgent need for businesses to put a value on and better account for the social and environmental impacts of their operations.

Now some of you may say this appears to be a re-run of the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ reporting which has been around for some years, but this is not the case. The focus of the forum was to highlight the emergence of ‘Integrated Reporting’ – an enhanced reporting mechanism increasingly used by businesses to better meet the information needs of stakeholders.

Smart businesses are already well ahead of their competitors with integrated reporting – this is not only for the future, but for now!

I’ve expanded further on the topic of Integrated Reporting in my regular Dealbook column on AFR.com.