Dear IAS Members,

It has been a busy year for the Section!   We have hosted two great meetings bringing together scholars from throughout the world to dialogue and engage in international accounting research,  teaching, and practice issues.  Our Midyear Meeting, held jointly with the International Association for Accounting Education and Research, set a record for attendance at over 200!  Scholars from over 30 countries participated.  Our Second JIAR Conference, co-hosted with The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, included keynote speakers from practice,  academia and standard-setting, plenary research paper sessions, and concurrent paper sessions.  You can read more about each of these events in the Forum Blog.

As we plan for the AAA Annual Meeting in Atlanta, the Section is sponsoring a number of events.   On Monday, from 2 – 3:30 pm, the Section is sponsoring a IFRS Update: Recent Standard Setting Activities by the IASB panel moderated by Jonathan Guthart, KPMG, with panelists:  Mary Tokar, International Accounting Standards Board,             John Hepp, Grant Thornton, and  David Schmid, Pricewaterhouse Coopers.  This panel is scheduled directly after the Section luncheon so you can walk right over and continue lunch discussions!  

Also of interest are CPEs on Sunday with FASB/IASB Update - Part I,  and FASB/IASB Update - Part II.  Also on Sunday, look for the CPE “International Accounting Research” with Rashad Abel-Khalik, Grace Pownall, and yours truly.  Over course of the meeting, The Section has over 39 sessions, including 25 concurrent research paper sessions and 10 paper dialogue sessions!

Importantly, at our Section’s Monday luncheon, we will be holding a business meeting.  One of the key items on the agenda is changes to the Section by-laws.  In June, the Chair of the Advisory Board Susan Hughes sent out to Section members the proposed changes and rationale for them.  These documents are posted on our website.  The proposed changes will allow electronic voting on Section matters including the election of officers.  The other changes mainly clarify the roles and responsibilities of each committee and each office.  Please look through as these changes are important to our successful functioning in the future.    

At our Section luncheon on Monday, we also have several other items on the agenda such as the election for open offices and the budget.  Of course, I look forward to the Section presenting the Ian Hague Outstanding Service Award, the Outstanding International Educator Award, and the Outstanding Dissertation Award. 

This past year has also helped continue to sharpen and focus opportunities and challenges for the Section.  At Executive Meetings meetings, we have discussed many areas but three main areas stand out:

Continue to Build JIAR’s Reputation – we have made great strides in enhancing JIAR’s reputation.  The last three years under Mike Welker’s editorship, JIAR clearly maintained its high quality, increased submissions, and raised rankings.  We still have more to do such as furthering outreach through the JIAR conferences and gaining position in other rankings.

Sustain and Grow Membership – over the last few years, membership in the AAA and IAS (and many other Sections) has declined.  Our challenge is to retain current members and attract new members.  A focus has been on initiatives to reach out to early stage scholars – Outstanding Dissertation Award, Doctoral/New Faculty Consortium, PhD Travel Grants to annual meeting, Senior Faculty Mentoring breakfast at the Midyear meeting.  We also need to take initiative to better understand and meet the needs of our current members.

Examine Budgets and Surplus  – the number of members directly impacts our budget.   Moving to a three issues a year for the Journal will increase costs.  As we go forward, we will need to carefully consider how we balance the decreased membership revenues, current costs, and increasing costs.  We are fortunate to have surplus funds and need to consider how and whether to use these to grow the section. This year, we already used part of the surplus to fund an additional night at the Midyear Meeting for the participating in the Doctoral/New Faculty Consortium.  Do we take on initiates to reach and serve our global membership through relevant  webcasts?  Do we invest more in the Journal and conferences?  The possibilities are numerous but must be well thought out.

In having this focus on the future, I have to thank all current our Section Officers, Committee Chairs, and Committee Members for their tremendous service and commitment.  Only with involvement and dedication of our members can we best serve our members.  Thank you.

The coming year brings great opportunities and strong leadership.   Our income President, Greg Burton, brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and great ideas.  It has been a pleasure to work with him this year and the rest of the Executive Committee! 

I look forward to seeing you in Atlanta!

Best regards,

Betsy Gordon