News and Information

College of Business Administration

Dean Aggarwal is a trustee of Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF).

Dean Aggarwal is a trustee of Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF). He is cited in FERF’s Research Forum for his work on reviewing accounting and finance academic research papers and making them available to members of Financial Executives International.

Here is the copy for the Academic Corner section of The Research Forum that appeared in the January 2008 issue of Financial Executive magazine:

Academic Corner

Back in the spring, in the first issue of The Research Forum, we announced the “FEI/AAA Working Paper Series.” The objective of this series is to make academic research working papers available to members of Financial Executives International (FEI) on relevant topics of interest to practitioners.

In the words of Dr. Raj Aggarwal, dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Akron, a member of FEI’s Northeast Ohio chapter, and a trustee of Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF), “Academics in the United States and overseas are performing a great deal of cutting edge research on accounting and finance topics. Without a doubt, there is valuable work being done which may be useful to FEI members. However, there is no efficient and effective procedure to make such research available to FEI members.”

Over the summer, FERF staff reviewed hundreds of academic papers scheduled to be presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association (AAA), which is comprised primarily of academics. Abstracts of a number of those papers were reviewed. The FERF Research Committee and staff agreed on five, and the FERF staff is now working with the authors to summarize their key findings.

“The Executive Committee of the American Accounting Association is pleased to participate in the FERF/AAA working paper series,” says Dr. Arnold Wright, Andersen professor of Accounting at the Carroll School of Management of Boston College and Vice President of Research for the AAA. “Many of us lament the poor level of interaction in the area of research between the academic and practice communities. The Executive Committee of the AAA is very enthusiastic about this working paper series, which is an excellent opportunity to open up the channels of communication between academic researchers and financial executives."