Accounting & Information Assurance
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The accounting profession has always provided financial information useful in making economic decisions. In the present Knowledge Economy, relevant, accessible information and its effective management have gained even greater value. The accounting faculty of the Robert H. Smith School of Business, through its teaching and research, enables members of the accounting profession to meet the financial information needs of their stakeholders.
There are three main areas of accounting, differentiated by the information requirements of their specific audiences. Accounting and Information Assurance faculty members in the Smith School of Business possess expertise in all of these areas.
Financial Accounting is the information accumulation, processing, and communication system designed to meet the decision-making needs of external users, including actual and potential investors, creditors, employees, and the general public.Managerial Accounting refers to the process of generating and analyzing data used by management in its decision making to aid in the efficient operation of the firm. This includes information such as unit cost of products; revenue, cost, and profit estimates for strategic alternatives; and long-range budgets. Finally, Income Tax Accounting is important for complying with tax laws, as well as for minimizing tax expenditures.
Faculty members possess a rare mix of "real-world" experience, excellence in research and scholarship, and a commitment to teaching and developing students for careers in the accounting field. Many of the faculty work in partnership with members of the accounting profession to ensure that their teaching reflects the profession抯 needs. Two faculty members co-edit the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, a highly respected academic journal. Another is a member of the federal Cost Accounting Standards Board.
Information assurance is concerned with protecting the integrity and confidentiality of organizations' databases, reports, and computer systems along with ensuring the availability of the information to authorized users. Thus, it is not surprising that information assurance is an integral part of the discipline of accounting. For example, the accuracy and integrity of information is critical to accurate financial reporting and the generation of timely and relevant internal accounting reports for decision-making. Additionally, accountants, including auditors, have responsibility for ensuring proper internal controls are in place to protect the key strategic asset of information. External independent auditors have the responsibility of commenting on the fairness of accounting information and their actions are subject to a code of ethics.
While accounting has always been concerned with information assurance, this concern, however, has been growing rapidly since the development of the Internet. Moreover, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has clearly solidified the interconnectivity between accounting and information assurance. The ethical performance of the work of the independent auditor is now monitored by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Indeed, the importance of information assurance has transformed the research, teaching and practice of the discipline of accounting. Accounting faculty members at the Robert H. Smith School of Business have taken the lead in this area.
Accounting faculty members at the Smith School of Business are actively engaged in various research projects related to economic, behavioral and risk management aspects of information assurance. From the teaching perspective, information assurance is now an integral part of most accounting courses at the Smith School, including such courses as: auditing, managerial accounting, ethics and professionalism in accounting, business ethics, accounting systems, financial statement analysis, taxes, international accounting, and financial planning and control systems for managers and consultants. Several Smith School accounting faculty members are also actively engaged in research on information assurance. For example, two faculty members have published an entire stream of research on the economic aspects of information security. Their research is being supported by the National Security Agency through a grant with the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. Another faculty member does research relating to both accounting and business ethics. Faculty members at the Smith School are also working with corporations on the practical implementation of information assurance.
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