The School of Business aims to offer postgraduate students the supervision and facilities necessary for them to achieve their postgraduate qualification in a friendly environment. A postgraduate suite exists in the department equipped with computing and study facilities. All students have full access to their supervisors on a regular basis and benefit from advice from other staff members at frequent postgraduate presentation sessions.
The main research interests are:
Management and Management Accounting
The School has a strong history of research in management and management accounting. Past research projects have focused on performance measurement across different sectors in various countries. Current research interests include: management accounting change; the (changing) role of accountants; management control and accounting for new product development.
Financial Reporting
The School has excelled for many decades in its research of financial accounting. Recently, staff have supervised in such areas as the nature of Islamic accounting, International Financial Reporting Standards, accounting regulation, and the impact of pronouncements by regulatory authorities.
Corporate Finance and Financial Markets
Our team of finance researchers explore the operation of security markets in both developed and emerging economies. They also examine how companies communicate their performances to financial markets through dividend and other announcements. Recent projects of our finance group include corporate governance, the impact of codes of practice on company activities, and risk management.
Accounting Education
Several of our staff are researching issues such as the use of computer-based technology in accounting education, the role of the accounting profession in developing the potential of their students, recruitment to the accounting profession and comparative analyses of how students learn.
Critical and Social Analysis of Accounting
This area theorises accounting and related business practices through a critical and interpretive methodological lens. In particular, our research specialists in this area focus their attention towards a critical analysis of international accounting and accounting history.
Social and Environmental Accounting
Staff who research in this area particularly explore the impact of accounting in the natural environment and in not-for-profit organisations. Previous postgraduate students have studied various attempts by different countries to mandate social and environmental accounts by organisations. They have also examined the role of accounting in both public and private organisations where profit is not the dominant goal.