Research in the Department of Accountancy

How do retail investors and short sellers react to corporate disclosures and potential mispricing? Does internal whistleblowing hurt or help an organization? Why do cities hoard cash?

While other business schools’ accountancy programs focus on capital markets or financials, faculty in the GW Department of Accountancy tackle research through a wider lens. Their work runs the gamut from government accounting to governance to managerial accounting. They apply diverse methodologies to research that resonates at the forefront of their field and across disciplines. Of particular interest is the department’s work bridging accounting with government regulation, data analytics and forensics.

Much of the research leans into the school’s location, just steps from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the IRS, the Office of Management and Budget, as well as international governing agencies and key nonprofits.

Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the department’s research appears in both accounting journals and top-tier publications in other fields.

Research Highlights

Explore how our faculty are advancing this work through impactful research across a range of industries and applications:

Professor Susan Kulp is recognized for her award-winning research in management accounting, as well as her studies that address performance metrics, inter-organizational control systems and internal decision-making within supply chains. She publishes in leading academic journals, among them The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research and Management Science. She is co-author of the widely used Managerial Accounting textbook, now in its 10th edition.

Susan L. Kulp
Director, MBA Programs; Professor of Accountancy

Jenny Zha Geidt — **Jenny Zha Giedt**
*Associate Professor of Accountancy*

Corporate disclosures, including financial statements and their market consequences are the main research interest of Jenny Zha Giedt, an associate professor of accountancy. Her recent research examines companies’ reviews of “strategic alternatives” and documents the disclosure’s consequences on market mispricing, short selling by investors, employee turnover, financial underperformance and corporate transactions. This research is published in Contemporary Accounting Research and Review of Accounting Studies and featured online by Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and Duke Law. Abacus has published work on the model she developed to detect when companies are manipulating revenue through accruals, Review of Accounting Studies has published on her models to measure companies’ accounting accruals comprehensively, and her research assessing companies’ accruals quality appears in The Accounting Review.

Professor Angela Gore’s research focuses on the intersection of accounting, economics, finance and public policy, primarily applied to the governmental setting. Her main technical expertise lies in government accounting and auditing. A national award-winning researcher, her recent work examines federal grant fraud, local government corruption and public sector unions, with applications to the municipal bond market. She has published in top journals such as the Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting & Economics, The Accounting Review, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Law & Economics and the Strategic Management Journal.

**Angela Gore**
*Professor and Benjamin Franklin Distinguished Scholar of Accountancy*

photo - Edward Sul — **Edward Sul**
*Associate Professor of Accountancy*

The way information flows through capital markets is the forte of Associate Professor Edward Sul, particularly in international settings. His research examines how regulation reshapes firm disclosures, equity analysts and investors’ information processing. He is also interested in information frictions and behavioral biases. He is well known for his research on the effects of MiFID II on sell-side analyst research and on voluntary disclosure, and whether accounting signals can help detect market overvaluation. His research appears in top academic journals, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Management Science, Contemporary Accounting Research and Review of Accounting Studies. He sits on the editorial board of Contemporary Accounting Research.

Associate Professor Kyle Welch is known for his pioneering research on whistleblowing. Using a dataset of nearly 2 million internal reports, his work shows that companies with higher volumes of whistleblower reports tend to have healthier corporate cultures, experience fewer lawsuits and incur lower fines. In other areas, he analyzes how corporate culture impacts financial reporting risks and company reputation. He is widely cited in discussions on corporate governance and ethical work cultures, and his research appears in top-tier accounting and business journals, including the Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Accounting Research, Contemporary Accounting Research and the Academy of Management Journal.

Associate Professor Oded Rozenbaum studies how companies tell their financial story, and how markets decide whether to believe it. His research examines corporate disclosure, non-GAAP earnings measures such as EBITDA, analyst forecasting, executive compensation and the information environment surrounding corporate earnings. Rozenbaum combines large-scale archival data, machine learning, textual analysis and established empirical methods to study how information moves through capital markets. His research appears in leading journals, including the Journal of Accounting and Economics, Management Science, Contemporary Accounting Research and Review of Accounting Studies.

The research work of Professor Yun Zhang focuses on accounting theory, agency theory and information uses in capital markets. He has published in premier research journals, including The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies and Management Science. He has also served as an ad hoc reviewer for the Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and the Review of Accounting Studies.

Yun Zhang
Associate Professor of Accountancy

Yanfeng Xue
Associate Professor of Accountancy

Corporate governance, financial reporting and fundamental analysis anchor the research of Associate Professor of Accountancy Yanfeng Xue. She has published work in Accounting Horizons that analyzes whether auditors’ industry specializations are valued by the capital market. For the Journal of Management Accounting Research, she has examined the role of institutional investors in enhancing efficiency in the top executives’ compensation contracting process. Her research in the Journal of Accounting and Economics investigates analysts’ use of stock returns and other analysts’ reports when they forecast earnings. Her research also appears in the Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting and The Accounting Review.

The research of Assistant Professor of Accountancy Riddha Basu asks a central question: How does the production and interpretation of financial information shape capital allocation and economic outcomes? He is especially interested in how financial disclosures and accounting regulations affect credit ratings, investment behavior and corporate decision-making. He has presented his findings before regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, and his work appears in influential academic journals, including The Accounting Review, Management Science, Journal of Financial Reporting and the Journal of Accounting and Economics. He serves on the editorial board for Contemporary Accounting Research and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for several accounting journals. He is a research coordinator for the Department of Accountancy.

Department Chair Robin Tarpley’s interests are capital markets, financial statement analysis and financial regulation. Her award-winning work on auditor decisions is joined by research on earnings management and the impact of accounting regulation on accounting practices. Her work is published in leading journals, including Accounting Horizons and The Accounting Review. Tarpley is widely recognized for her work on a study that examined auditors’ experiences with clients attempting to manage earnings.