Research Center Accounting Theory & Research
Head
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Albrecht Becker (Department of Organisation and Learning, Management Accounting)
Deputy Head
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Silvia Jordan (Department of Organisation and Learning, Management Accounting)
Research Objectives
The research center Accounting Theory & Research pursues research on the role and significance of accounting in companies, organizations, and society. In an interdisciplinary social-scientific perspective, practices of quantification and calculation form the core of accounting. While accounting practices such as financial and managerial accounting, risk management, quality management, tax management, or integrated reporting have originally been developed in and for companies, today they have spread into the fields of public and notfor-profit management as well as wider fields of society. For example, rankings based on some form of performance measurement are now ubiquitous in western societies, ranging from international rankings of universities to TV shows ranking almost every aspect of people’s lives imaginable. In our research, we study accounting practices in their interrelation with their organizational contexts, more encompassing practices of regulation and standard setting, societal norms, and political interests. Current research projects focus, for example, on practices of regulation and standard setting in financial reporting; roles and patterns of action of management accountants; the role of digitalization and big data in management accounting; individual perception of taxes and their significance for action; quality assessment and quality management in healthcare; performance measurement in academia. These topics are studied against the backdrop of social scientific approaches, drawing on heterogeneous, pluralistic, and interdisciplinary methodologies.
Interview with Albrecht Becker (Video)