After spending months translating research for a legislative committee, U professor Robert Allen received the prestigious Wildman Medal Award for his paper on audit failures.
Allen, director of the School of Accounting and an accounting professor at the U, was commissioned by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board to look into how to better minimize auditing failures.
With the help of a group of researchers at the U, Allen gathered information on accounting research and presented it to the board a few months ago.
“This is not something we expected,” Allen said. “When I heard we were nominated, I thought, “there’s no way we’re going to win it.'”
The Wildman Medal, which is awarded to those who make the greatest contribution to the practice of public accounting, is one of only two major researching medals awarded in the field of accounting, Allen said.
The paper, “Auditor Risk Assessment: Insights from the Academic Literature,” will help the board protect investors and public interest by promoting informative, fair and independent audit reports.
The board was created after the financial scandals in the early 2000s, including those of companies like Enron and Waste Management.
Companies self-regulated their audits before the Sarbanes-Oxley Act initiated the board, but additional oversight was necessary, Allen said.
“The need for the PCAOB is to attempt to minimize the likelihood of future audit failures,” Allen said.
The board wanted input from the academic community on how to minimize auditing failures and requested help from numerous colleges across the nation to investigate the matter.
“It was important to…make the (research) usable for the PCAOB,” Allen said.
He said it took months to translate the research in a form that could be useful.
While the motivation for this project was to serve the board, the group was nominated by the PCAOB for their paper and awarded the Wildman Medal in August.
Taylor Randall, associate dean of the David Eccles School of Business, said Allen’s contribution to accounting has positive implications for the U and should provide huge visibility for the U.
Having Allen and Christine Botosan, another accounting professor who has won a prestigious award, is like having two members of the NBA all-star team, Randall said.
“One of the biggest challenges is making research applicable,” Randall said. “(The Wildman Medal) means we have a faculty member who is bridging the gap.”
Robert Allen