Ken Trotman AM

Citation

Ken Trotman is a career-academic par excellence. For the greater part of his adult life he has been involved in academic pursuits at the highest intellectual levels. As a research academic Ken Trotman has built an enviable reputation in the field of audit judgment and decision making and research design. As a behavioural scientist he is without peer in Australia and ranked in the highest echelons internationally. Not surprisingly his publication record is extensive with multiple contributions in all of the leading accounting and auditing research journals. His output, which has been sustained over a period of more than thirty years has not only had a profound impact on the intellectual debates but has seen him named among the most prolific researchers of the period. He was named as the most prolific Australian author for the period 1991-2005 and in the top fifty, and highest ranked home-based Australian, internationally for the period 1959-2008. While Ken has used his academic output to further his reputation and career he has also devoted considerable time in support of young, upcoming academics presiding at numerous doctoral colloquia, sitting on many doctoral committees, supervising fourteen doctoral students together with myriad masters and honours students. As a mark of his mentorship and interest in young researchers Ken Trotman has managed to coax a significant number of theses completed under his supervision into eventual co-authored journal publications thereby facilitating early engagement with the academic community by his students. As well as authorship, Ken Trotman has held appointments to the editorial boards of leading accounting and auditing journals including The Accounting Review, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, ABACUS, The International Journal of Auditing and Accounting and Finance. His papers on research methods and research design are used extensively around the world in training research students. The wider accounting profession has not escaped his view as he has given his time in the service of CPA Australia, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. Naturally Ken Trotman's extraordinary contribution has not gone unrecognised by his peers. The American Accounting Association conferred an Outstanding Educator Award in 2001, a Notable Contribution to the Auditing Literature Award in 2008 and a Notable Lifetime Contribution Award in Behavioural Accounting Literature in 2009. The Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand conferred an Outstanding Contribution to the Accounting Literature Award in 1998 and Life Membership in 2002. Ken Trotman's commitment to accounting and accounting research led, in 1998, to his election as a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

The Australian Accounting Hall of Fame honours Ken Trotman as a researcher, author, mentor, and educator. In so doing it acknowledges academic leadership of the highest order.

Biography

Ken Trotman has made a significant contribution to accounting research, accounting literature, accounting education and the accounting profession over a period of more than 30 years.

At both the undergraduate and postgraduate level (M.Com, MBA, PhDs) Ken has educated generations of accountants. He is the author of three textbooks, the most recent of which is Trotman and Gibbins Financial Accounting: An Integrated Approach. He is highly respected as an educator of post-graduate research students having trained eleven PhD with three more close to completion. In addition, he has been on many PhD committees and supervised numerous masters and honours research theses. His contribution to education includes eight years as Head of the School of Accounting and five years as Presiding Member of the Faculty of Commerce and Economics at University of New South Wales.

Ken has published consistently in the leading international and Australian research journals for thirty years including the Journal of Accounting Research (4 papers), The Accounting Review (4 papers), Contemporary Accounting Research (4 papers), Accounting, Organizations and Society (8 papers), Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory (5 papers), Abacus (4 papers) and Accounting and Finance (6 papers). In addition he has published in many other respected international journals. Overall, while Ken is best known for his research in auditing, particularly with regards to auditor judgments, he has made significant contributions in other areas of accounting including financial, managerial and social responsibility. His papers on research methods and research design are used extensively around the world in training research students. While his major papers are primarily published in USA journals, he has a record of enthusiastically supporting other journals around the world. This is particularly so in Australia, where he has been involved in reviewing, editing and publishing in national journals, with the aim of promoting experimental research and encouraging others in the area.

As a Coopers & Lybrand Research Foundation Visiting Professor in 1993/4 he wrote a monograph on research methods. This monograph outlines research methods for judgment and decision making studies in auditing and is used in PhD programs in Australia, Hong Kong, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the USA. Since then he has made other major contributions to research methods. Ken is passionate about how audit judgment and decision making research can be done better and providing directions and insights into future directions for this research. Few accounting researchers would have such an outstanding and consistent publication record over such a considerable time.

Ken devotes a lot of his time working with junior academics and is particularly active in encouraging junior authors to publish often via a co-authorship arrangement. He is also a frequent presenter at both Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) and American Accounting Association (AAA) Doctoral Consortiums. In more recent times for example he participated in the 2009 AAA Audit Doctoral Consortium, Florida, 2010 AAA Audit Doctoral Consortium, San Diego, 2010 AAA Doctoral Consortium as plenary speaker, Lake Tahoe and the 2010 AFAANZ Doctoral Consortium in Wellington, New Zealand.

Ken Trotman has also found time to provide service to the wider accounting profession. Including a number of thought pieces for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA) and the Australian Accounting Research Foundation (AARF). Among these are Professional Judgment: Are Auditors Being Held to a Higher Standard Than Other Professionals? (August 2006), Differential Auditing Standards (June 2006), Financial Audit Report: Meeting the Market Expectations (June 2003) each prepared for the ICAA and Accounting for Long Term Construction Contracts (1980) and Audit Monograph on Analytical Review (1990) prepared for AARF.

In addition, he made long term commitments to CPA Australia, the ICAA, AFAANZ and AAA. His roles include:

CPA Australia

Member of committee overseeing and writing CPA 101 Assurance Services and Audit modules (2004 to current)
Member of NSW University Committee (5 years)
Member of NSW Careers Advisory Committee (6 years)

Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia

Member of Audit Advisory Committee (2002-2008)
"Future of the Audit" Committee 2004
National Education Committee (1991-1996)
NSW Education Committee (1989-1992)
NSW Professional Development Committee (1985-1988)

Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand President 1993-1994

Executive 1989-1994 Editorial Board of Accounting and Finance
Coopers and Lybrand Visiting Professor from 1993-1994
Plenary speaker at the 1996 Conference

American Accounting Association

Editor of Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 2008-2011. Previously served 2 three year terms as associate editor
Director of Research, Audit Section, 1998-2000
Editorial Board of The Accounting Review: a range of three terms during 1980s and 1990s
International Audit Committee 1993-1995
1997 and 2010 Plenary Speaker at Lake Tahoe annual Doctoral Consortium
Speaker at Audit Section Doctoral Consortium for the last three years

Ken's impact on accounting can be measured in many different ways. He has been identified as one of the most prolific authors in the accounting literature (Jean Heck 'Most Prolific Authors in the Accounting Literature Over the Past Half-Century: 1959-2008 (February 15, 2009)). He was listed in the top 50 international accounting researchers for publications in both top five accounting journals and 25 core accounting journals during the half century 1959 to 2008. In addition, in a recent article in Charter in May 2008 he was identified as the most published Australian author in the top five accounting journals (all A* journals on the ERA list) and top 18 accounting journals over the period of 1991-2005. In the recent Brigham Young University rankings Ken was ranked in the top 10 auditing researchers in the world over the last 6, 12 and 20 years and top 3 or 4 experimental audit researchers in the world over this same period.

Ken's appointment as Editor of one of the American Accounting Association's journals Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory is particularly significant as he was the first non-North American appointee to what is generally considered internationally as the leading international specialist academic auditing journal.

Another prime indicator of Ken's impact is his appointment to editorial boards around the world. They include the editorial board of The Accounting Review for four terms 1987/8, 1988/9, 1992/3, and 1994/5. In addition, Ken was appointed to the editorial boards of both Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) and Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. He is also on editorial boards of other international journals: Abacus; International Journal of Auditing; Accounting and Finance, China Accounting Review and Pacific Accounting Review. Ken was appointed as the first Associate Editor of Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory for 2000-2002 and then again for 2005-2007. In 2008 Ken was appointed Editor of Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory for the period 2008-2011.

Between 2001 and 2005 there have been two important 25th anniversary celebrations for accounting journals and associations: the 25th anniversary of the first issue of Accounting, Organizations and Society and the 25th anniversary of the Auditing Section of the American Accounting Association (AAA). In both cases Ken was one of the few academics in the world invited to contribute. As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of AFAANZ Ken was invited to prepare a paper covering the history of judgment and decision making research in accounting.

Many awards and recognitions have come Ken's way including the Outstanding Contribution to the Accounting Literature Award together with Life Member of the Accounting Association of Australia and New Zealand in 1998. He received in 2001, an Outstanding Educator Award, in 2008 a Notable Contribution to the Auditing Literature Award and in 2009 a Notable Lifetime Contribution Award in Behavioral Accounting Literature. Each of these awards was made by the American Accounting Association. Ken Trotman was appointed Professor in 1985 by the University of New South Wales and subsequently Scientia Professor in 2001-2006 and renewed in 2007-2012. As final testament to the contribution made by Ken Trotman to accounting in Australia he is an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, a highly prestigious status achieved by very few academic accountants.