A profile of researching the office

The aim of the Essex Accounting Centre (EAC) research seminar series is to support our world-class research activities in four key areas: social responsibility and corporate governance; (management) accounting change (in privatized, public and third sectors); global development, corruption and accountability; and reporting, regulation and capital markets. The seminar series is also expected to promote inter-disciplinary research that links the work of members of the centre with others both within the university and with external institutions.

Event Abstract

This seminar will look at the Five Office Studies:

• Jeacle, I & Parker, L.D. 2013, ‘The “Problem” of the Office: Governmentality and the Strategy of Efficiency’, Business History, vol. 55, no. 7, pp. 1074-1099.
• Parker, L.D. 2016, ‘From Scientific to Activity Based Office Management: A Mirage of Change’, Journal of Accounting and Organizational Change, vol. 12 no. 2, pp. 177-202. 
• Parker, L.D. and Jeacle, I. 2019 (In Press) ‘The Construction of the Efficient Office: Scientific Management, Accountability and the Neo-Liberal State’, Contemporary Accounting Research.  
• Parker, L.D. and Schmitz, J. (under review) ‘The Reinvented Accounting Firm Office: Impression Management for Efficiency, Client Relations and Cost Control’.
• Parker, L.D. (in progress) ‘Managing the Record: Viewing Office Accountability Work Through the Medium of Film’.

Booking

This is an open event; there is no need to book. Please feel free to attend and bring your colleagues, classmates and friends.

Speaker Bio

Professor Parker is an RMIT Distinguished Professor in Accounting in the School of Accounting at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, and Visiting Professor in the School of Management at Glasgow University. Previous academic posts include the Universities of Glasgow, Dundee, Monash, Griffith, Flinders, Adelaide, South Australia and Royal Holloway University of London, and visiting professorships in the USA, UK, Australasia, Asia and the Middle East.

His research appears in over 200 articles and books on management and accounting internationally. His Google Scholar H index is 51 and his Google Scholar citations presently total over 10,000. Professor Parker is joint founding editor of the internationally prominent ISI listed interdisciplinary research journal Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal and serves on over 20 journal editorial boards internationally. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research at the University of St Andrews, and research advisor/assessor to universities, government research granting bodies and professional associations internationally.

His academic leadership roles have included President of the Academy of Accounting Historians (USA), the American Accounting Association (AAA) Public Interest section and Vice-President International of the AAA. He currently chairs the AAA centennial celebrations taskforce. He has also been Deputy Chair of the Australian Institute of Management Board and state President of CPA Australia in South Australia. Currently he is member of the Council of the Adelaide College of Divinity.

Employed on a fractional basis at RMIT, Professor Parker is heavily committed to supporting supervisory teams, serving advisory roles to School of Accounting staff researchers and PhD students, and mentoring research projects across the School.