American Accounting Association

Financial Accounting and Reporting Section

Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting

August 9, 2004

Bruce Johnson, Section President, called the meeting to order.

The minutes of the annual business meeting held August 4, 2003 were distributed among participants. A motion to approve the minutes was made, seconded and passed unanimously.

Midyear Meeting Report:

Bruce Johnson summarized highlights of the 2004 mid-year meeting. He noted that participants had the opportunity to choose from among 12 research sessions and four teaching sessions. The number of PhD students attending the Doctoral Consortium was 78, up from 45 in 2003. The number of registrants (paid and comp) increased from 91 in 2003 to 121 and approximately 90 papers were submitted for consideration. The growth in attendance and submissions is evidence of the success of the mid-year meeting. Bruce Johnson expressed gratitude on behalf of the section for Tom Linsmeier’s efforts in initiating the mid-year meeting. Bruce Johnson also thanked Renee Price, Kathy Petroni, numerous reviewers, Elizabeth Oliver, Bob Libby and Pat Hopkins for their work on the mid-year meeting. Bruce Johnson noted that unfortunately Ron Dye was unable to participate in the Doctoral Consortium as planned due to a problem with his travel arrangements, but he noted that Ron Dye has agreed to participate in the 2005 Doctoral Consortium along with David Burgstahler.

The team charged with organizing the 2005 conference includes K.R. Subramanyan, Elizabeth Oliver and Phil Shane. The mid-year meeting will be held on the west coast in keeping with the plan to rotate the location of the meeting around the country. The deadline for submissions is September 15, 2004. Bruce Johnson noted some difficulty getting electronic submission capabilities operational, but he expects that electronic submission will be possible beginning in a few days.

Dan Givoly asked if an important objective of the conference continues to be meeting the needs of younger faculty and PhD students. Bruce Johnson indicated this had worked well so far, and there are no plans to change the focus at this time. The focus on the conference on less-experienced faculty is noted in the materials used to advertise the conference. Referees are encouraged to give preference to less-experienced participants provided the quality of the work is acceptable.

Bruce Johnson asked if the members would like to cap the number of doctoral students accepted for the Doctoral Consortium at 70 or implement a formal policy limiting the number of doctoral students from any one institution. It was noted that the number of doctoral students attending from a given institution tends to be highly sensitive to the location of the conference since many doctoral students cannot afford to travel long distances to attend the conference. It would be difficult to accommodate this if the number of students allowed to attend from any one institution is capped. Someone questioned whether, given the surplus cash position of the section, it made sense to cap the number of doctoral students accepted for the Consortium at 70. Tom Linsmeier noted that since the Doctoral Consortium is providing a beneficial experience for students and we have sufficient resources to do so, we should consider expanding the size of the Consortium as opposed to capping it. Bruce Johnson agreed that given sufficient advance planning to ensure that the size of the meeting could accommodate a larger group, the Consortium could be expanded. Terry Warfield noted that the 2005 site for the conference is somewhat more expensive than last year’s which might affect the number of doctoral student registrants as well as paid registrants, but he indicated he was in favor of removing the cap on the size of the Doctoral Consortium. Elizabeth Oliver suggested setting a dollar value cap on the net amount the section should subsidize the mid-year meeting. Elizabeth made a motion to limit the subsidy to $30,000 per year. Christine Botosan asked if the limit should be specified in terms of the maximum amount to be spent on the Doctoral Consortium as opposed to a maximum subsidy for the conference as a whole, given that support for the Doctoral Consortium is the primary objective. Tom Linsmeier responded that it might be best to simply remove the cap. Elizabeth Oliver amended her motion and made a motion to remove the cap on the number of PhD students accepted for the Doctoral Consortium. Elizabeth’s motion was seconded and passed with a unanimous vote.

Phil Stocken asked what expenses are covered by the section for students attending the Consortium. Bruce Johnson stated that the registration fee is waived and one night’s accommodation is provided. However, if students share a room, then two nights accommodation are covered.

Treasurer’s Report:

Christine Botosan, Secretary/Treasurer of the section, distributed a Cash Flow Report, a comparison of budget to actual for the FARS 2004 mid-year meeting and preliminary budget projections for the section for 2004-2005. Christine opened the discussion by noting that the net cash flow of $208 is less than the budgeted cash flow for the year of $8,450. However, two months of the year remain, during which time a positive cash inflow has been experienced historically. Based on projections built on prior year experience, Christine indicated that she expects the net cash inflow to amount to approximately $5,600 by year-end. This figure is about $2,800 below budget. She noted that two expenditures account for the variance between budget and actual. The section spent $17,104 on the mid-year meeting, net of registration fees. $16,000 was budgeted for. In addition, the section reimbursed a speaker for prior year expenses in the amount of $1,036 which should have been matched against the 2003-03 budget.

Christine then reviewed the cash flow report for the mid-year meeting. She noted that an increase in the number of doctoral students attending the doctoral consortium from 45 to 78, pushed expenses related to the Consortium to $10,708, well in excess of the $7,000 budgeted. This was offset by a significant increase in registration fees due to growth in the number of paid registrants from 87 to 117, yielding $24,075 in registration fees, well above the $18,000 budgeted.

Christine asked if any one had any questions regarding the distributed documents and a discussion ensued about the cash balance and what if anything should be done about the balance and its growth. Bruce Johnson noted that the size of the cash balance allows the section the flexibility to consider new initiatives that would benefit the membership. He invited any one with ideas for new initiatives to send them to himself or Terry Warfield.

Report of the Nominating Committee:

Bruce Johnson, on behalf of Renee Price, chair of the nominating committee, provided the report of the nomination committee. Bruce Johnson proposed a single slate:

President-Elect: David Ziebart, University of Illinois

Vice-President for Practice: Teresa Iannaconi, KPMG

No nominations were received from the floor and the slate was approved unanimously.

Bruce Johnson then turned the presidency over to Terry Warfield.

Terry Warfield thanked Bruce for his service to the section. Terry Warfield noted that the biggest job of the President-Elect is to choose volunteers to fill various positions during the term of his/her presidency. He noted that he received more offers to serve than positions available, and appreciated the show of support and willingness to serve demonstrated by the members.

Looking ahead, Beverly Walther is the 2005 Annual Meeting Program Chair. This is a big job and an important task, and Terry expressed his appreciation to Beverly Walther for taking it on. He also expressed appreciation for members serving on the Steering Committee and other roles in service to the section. He stated that the names of the people appointed to various positions will be posted on the website shortly. Terry welcomed the input of the Steering Committee and members on several issues including venues for future mid-year meetings and the possibility of a joint mid-year meeting with the International Section.

Terry indicated that the mid-year meeting will be moving back east in 2006. Should it move to the southeast, New Orleans or Atlanta for example? The International Section’s request for a joint meeting follows on the heels of a conflict in scheduling between the FARS and International Section’s 2004 meeting, which caused some individuals who are members of both sections to choose between the meetings. The International Section is doing a joint mid-year meeting with the Auditing Section in 2006, so the earliest we could schedule a joint mid-year meeting is 2007. It may be preferable to see how the 2006 joint meeting works out for the Auditing and International sections before making a final decision regarding the desirability of agreeing to a joint mid-year meeting.

Following this discussion, the meeting was adjourned.

President Terry Warfield (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Vice President (from Practice) Teresa Iannaconi (KPMG)

Immediate Past President Bruce Johnson (University of Iowa)

President-Elect David Ziebart (University of Illinois)
Secretary/Treasurer Christine A. Botosan (University of Utah)

Newsletter (Financial Reporting Journal) To be announced.

Webmaster Robert Bricker (Case Western Reserve University)

CPE Committee Ray G. Stephens (Ohio University)

Best Paper Award Krishna Kumar (George Washington University)

Best Dissertation Award Kirsten Ely (Georgia Institute of Technology)

National and Regional Meeting Coordinators

National Meeting Beverly Walther (Northwestern University)

Mid-Year Meeting Program Bruce Johnson (University of Iowa)

Mid-Year Meeting—Research To be announced

Mid-Atlantic Uma Velury (University of Delaware)

Midwest Mark Kohlbeck (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Northeast Ray Pfeiffer (University of Massachusetts-Amherst)

Ohio Gyan Chandra (Miami University)

Southeast Abdel Agami (Old Dominion University)

Southwest Mary Lea McAnally (Texas A & M University)

Western Vivek Mande (California State University)

Steering Board

James Boatsman (Arizona State University)

Jeff Boone (Mississippi State University)

Mark DeFond (University of Southern California

Donna Philbrick (Portland State University)

K. Ramesh (Michigan State University)

D. Shores (University of Washington)

Thomas Stober (University of Notre Dame)

Phillip Stocken (Dartmouth College)