Shiva Rajgopal, Ranjani Krishnan, and Jan Bouwens, as editors of the accounting section of Management Science, would like to draw attention to the upcoming 2025 Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) Management Science conference, to be held in Washington DC on September 26-27.
The conference, which is focused on registered report proposals relating to audit-related topics, aims to facilitate collaboration among academics, practitioners, and regulators to address emerging challenges in the audit landscape by stimulating academic interest in areas of significance to the PCAOB’s mission. Interestingly, researchers may submit proposals that would require access to specific PCAOB data to perform the necessary analyses.
The deadline for submissions is May 15 2025.
Example Research Topics of Interest include:
- Labor trends in accounting markets, including demand and supply of talent, wage dynamics, job assignments, teamwork, turnover, and incentives.
- The impact of audit regulation on capital flows and public companies’ cost of capital, including how audits and audit standards influence investor trust in reported financial data.
- Changes in the funding sources and ownership of audit firms and implications for their incentives, independence, workforce dynamics, and technology adoption.
- The role of information efficiency and disclosures (auditor or issuer) in shaping growth, entrepreneurship, financial stability, and stock returns.
- The consequences of mergers and acquisitions on the industrial organization of the audit profession, including implications for competition, service quality, pricing, firm efficiency, and staffing models.
- Board of Directors governance and oversight, including audit monitoring mechanisms, and their implications for audit quality.
- Accounting scandals and the influence of auditor independence, economic dependence, professional skepticism, and conflicts of interest on audit outcomes.
Further information on the conference is available at the following link:
