Corporate governance crisis down under: Post-Enron accounting education and research inertia

Abstract

Australian and New Zealand accounting academic responses to corporate governance and reporting failures is a story not simply told in the context of high profile international corporate failures such as Enron and WorldCom. This study notes a sequence of major Australian corporate failures that predate Enron and WorldCom. Through research into professional, business and research literature, profession and governmental/regulatory websites, and interviews with senior accounting academics across Australia and New Zealand, it also highlights a tale of limited response by Australian and New Zealand accounting academics and investigates the manifest and latent drivers of this inertia. The corporatisation and commercialisation of universities and related governance processes emerge as root causes of accounting academics' general failure to address recent major breakdowns in corporate governance and reporting in the business world. The paper closes by reviewing opportunities for change in an otherwise embattled environment.

Keywords:

• Corporate failures
• accounting education
• corporate governance
• accounting academics
• teaching, curricula

Acknowledgements

The comments and insights offered by senior academics interviewed across Australia and New Zealand for this research project are gratefully acknowledged. In particular the author is particularly indebted to Associate Professor Philomena Leung (Deakin University) and Mr Alan Robb (University of Canterbury), for additional information and advice. The contents of this paper nonetheless remain the sole responsibility of the author.

Notes

¹For useful summaries and resource packs, see http://www.bdw.com.au/news/clerp9guide. pdf, http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic_polprac.nsf/byheadline/CLERP + 9?openDocument and http://www.lipton-herzberg.com.au/clerp9.htm

²For reminders of their (relatively recent) attempts to contribute to debate in the arena of accounting education, see Chambers (1999) and Mathews (2001).

³For example, first year undergraduate accounting lecture class sizes (excluding distance students) of 500–1,000 students are not uncommon, with large numbers still reflected in final year undergraduate lecture class sizes of 200–600 students.