Research

The key research areas of Accounting are management accounting and financial accounting.

Recent publications

The impact of board diversity and sustainability engagement on bank performance (2026) – Journal of Management and Governance – Aureli, Selena; Brighi, Paola; Schadewitz, Hannu

Confronting stasis and navigating pathways of change in green finance : Researcher agencies, emotions, and normativities (2025) – Finance and society – Dittrich, Katharina; Gross, Svetlana; Hakala, Niina; McDonnell, Clara

Audit partner narcissism and audit reports readability : evidence from lead and review audit partners (2025) – Managerial Auditing Journal – Rajabalizadeh, Javad; Schadewitz, Hannu

Is professional exam performance associated with career success for Big 4 auditors? Evidence on gender differences (2025) – Contemporary Accounting Research – Fredriksson, Antti; Hay, David; Karjalainen, Jukka; Maghakyan, Arpine; Niemi, Lasse

Climate Risk Disclosures and Auditor Expertise (2024) – British Accounting Review – Pham, Ly; Hay, David; Miihkinen, Antti; Myllymäki, Emma-Riikka; Niemi, Lasse; Sihvonen, Jukka

Readability of auditor reports: does audit market competition matter? Empirical evidence from Iran (2024) – Asian review of accounting – Rajabalizadeh Javad

Digital transformation in public sector auditing: between hope and fear(2024) – Public Management Review – Volodina Tamara; Grossi Giuseppe

For more publications visit: https://www.utu.fi/en/university/turku-school-of-economics/accounting-and-finance/research

Research projects

Performance management for a sustainable future: Exploring the feasibility of prosocial assumptions

Performance management and management control systems (MCS) research has been significantly influenced by economic theory and, therefore, rests on the assumption that individuals are self-interested utility maximisers who might shirk organizational responsibilities for personal gain if an opportunity arises to do so. However, given social theories can have profound performative and thereby even self-fulling effects, we argue that this assumption paradoxically creates a narrative in research and practice that cultivates, rather than challenges, the values and norms of selfish or even antisocial organizational behaviour. Here, we address this concern. We argue that cultivating prosocial behaviour in organizations is one important condition for solving the wicked problems of our time. Drawing on the design principles of Elinor Ostrom, a 2009 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, this project provides a novel approach in MCS research to study performance management in organizations based on prosocial assumptions. This prosocial approach assumes that self-interested behaviour tends to outperform prosocial behaviour within groups, but prosocial groups outperform groups dominated by self-interested behaviour. We explore the prosocial approach in different theoretical domains and empirical settings, including the areas of academic research culture, public sector administration, technology industry, finance industry, gender inequality, and poverty alleviation.

Principal investigator: Jan Pfister (University of Turku)

Project members:

Thomas Ahrens (United Arab Emirates University)

Claire Dambrin (ESCP Paris)

Solomon Darwin (University of California at Berkeley)

Markus Granlund (University of Turku)

Sarah Jack (Lancaster University and Stockholm School of Economics)

Erkki Lassila (University of Turku)

Kari Lukka (University of Turku)

David Otley (Lancaster University)

Zachary Sherman (University of Turku)

For more information, please contact Associate Professor Jan Pfister (email jan.pfister@utu.fi).

Recent Conference Participations

Economic paradigms and their performativity in accounting research, paper presented at ACMAR, Vallendar, Germany, 5 March (Discussant: Vera Linke).

Reconstructing academic freedom: A normative approach to researcher autonomy in the age of rankings, paper presented at the workshop From Observations to Interventions: Rethinking Researcher-Subject Dynamics in Qualitative Accounting Research, Hanken School of Economics, Finland, 15 September (Discussant: Ed Vosselman).

Audit Fees, Firm Characteristics and Trends in Climate and Biodiversity Risk Disclosures: Evidence from Mandatory US Filings, paper presented at the Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, Rome, Italy, May 2025, presenting author Antti Miihkinen.

Factors Explaining Business School Students’ Crisis Resilience: Empirical Findings from the World’s Happiest country, paper presented at the BAFA Accounting Education SIG Conference, Dublin, Ireland, May 2025. (Discussant: Sophia Brink)

The prosocial paradigm: A new foundation for performance management and management control systems, research programme presented at a workshop at Kyoto University, Japan, 12 October.

Performance management in the prosocial market economy, research programme presented at the TSE 75th Anniversary Event: A New Economic Paradigm for Planet and People, Turku, Finland, 29 April.

Performance management in the prosocial market economy, research presented at the Annual Conference of MISUM, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden, 8 April (representing the Accounting Platform).

Performance management in the prosocial market economy, research presented at the webinar From Friedman to Darwin (invited by D.S. Wilson and R. Sisodia), Mexico and US, 10 March.

Performance management in the prosocial market economy, research presented to the Board of MISUM, Stockholm School of Economics, 11 March.

Performance management in universities: Establishing a prosocial paradigm, paper presented at a seminar at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, 3 October.

Rethinking the theoretical foundations of performance management systems in universities, paper presented at a seminar at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, 6 June.

Do academics work prosocially? Paper presented at the Seminar in Interdisciplinary Accounting Research, Turku, Finland, 3 April.