Accounting and Finance

The Department is responsible for accounting and finance teaching at all academic levels, providing teaching on certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Not surprisingly, given the professional community from which its members are drawn, it is the most homogeneous of all the departments in terms of the functional areas in which the members specialise - both in teaching and research. The Department conducts pioneering qualitative and quantitative research in a range of areas including equality, diversity, inclusion and social justice in different contexts, sustainability and ethics in accounting and finance, accounting, business and financial history, corporate governance, corporate financing and regulatory issues.

Research focus

Staff members are interested in various areas of accounting and finance undertaking research with an interdisciplinary perspective and employing a range of different methodological approaches. These areas include equality, diversity and inclusion within professions, sustainability within the chocolate industry, the circular economy, modern slavery and child labour, fraud, governance and accountability, the public interest in accounting, UN sustainable development goals, gender and financial history, professionalisation of accounting in different environments, asset pricing, corporate finance, institutional investors, and financial markets.

The Department has strengths in both qualitative and quantitative research methods including interview based research, historical research and quantitative research using a range of econometric/statistical techniques.

Centre for Public Understanding of Finance, Institutions and Networks (PUFIN)

Launched in 2013, this unique centre of research excellence focuses on financial education and its impact, consumer behaviours relating to savings, debt and spending and investment choices and decisions. The Centre of Public Understanding of Finance, Institutions and Networks (PUFIN) seeks to lead and engage in events that will enable the public to interact with both academics and practitioners in order to increase their awareness of some of the major contemporary challenges and how these may impact their financial decisions. It seeks to develop a multi-disciplinary research agenda that will enable members of the centre develop research ideas pertaining to decision-making by individuals within a highly connected world. The Centre also seeks to engage with organisations (e.g. charities) and policymakers, where possible, in order to understand and influence mechanisms and/or systems that support people’s financial decisions.

History and Political Economy of Business and Finance (HYPE)

Established in 2020, the History and Political Economy (HYPE) of Business and Finance is a research cluster bringing together scholars who aim at developing a critical approach to business and financial theory. HYPE puts forward an interdisciplinary research agenda using insights from the perspective of political economy (i.e. an interdisciplinary approach to the relations among individuals, governments, and public policy) and history. The cluster aims at providing a critical understanding of the main contemporary issues and challenges facing business and society, such as rising inequalities, and the financial and environmental fragilities. HYPE also works to establishing communication links, dialogue, and knowledge exchange between academics, businesses, and policy makers.