The recording is available here.

Most countries in Eastern Europe were part of the former Communist Bloc for more than 40 years. The fall of communism in the region opened exciting new opportunities, and triggered drastic changes to the social, economic and political regimes. While the countries have modernized their legislation de jure to join the European Union (perhaps too much and too quickly), their former communist values still influence the behavior at individual, firm, and country levels.

Accounting in the communist regimes was a technical tool designed to serve the state’s needs, control and discipline the people, and depersonalize entity reporting. While some topics have gained significant interest (e.g., the conditions and implications of IFRS adoption, audit requirements, and characteristics), other topics are still worthy of academic investigation (e.g., the role and impact of corruption, the implications of the predominantly feminine accounting profession, the environmental effect of large industrial projects, etc.).

We thus invite you to join our panel of experts in discussing the exciting opportunities for conducting accounting research in Eastern Europe on Thursday, November 16, 2023, at 16.00-17.00 Brussels time.

Our panel is comprised of:

• Simon Čadež, Professor, Department of Accounting and Auditing, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Dorota Dobija, Professor, Department of Accounting at Kozminski University, Poland
• Voicu Dragomir, Professor, Department of Accounting and Auditing at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania, and
• Maria Rykaczewski, Assistant Professor, School of Accountancy, Arizona State University, USA

The discussions will be facilitated by Catalin Albu, professor of accounting at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania.

Ideally, we would like to discuss at least the following ideas:

• what makes Eastern Europe unique but also what we can learn from the Eastern European perspective;
• what are appropriate methods/methodologies that prove successful in publishing Eastern European-based research in international journals?
• what topics anchored in Eastern European settings should researchers plan to bring to the international literature?
• how can Eastern European researchers better access the international research network, and would that benefit them and their Western peers?
• A Western perspective on the Eastern European region: how do Western scholars perceive the Eastern European economies, and what interests them in the region?

There will be an opportunity to interact with panelists and ask questions/discuss ideas.

We thank the EAA for allowing us to discuss these important ideas and the EAA VARS committee for setting up this event.