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Dick Edwards

Professor Dick Edwards

Professor in Accounting

Cardiff Business School

Email
EdwardsJR@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone
+44 29208 76658
Campuses
Aberconway Building, Room S03, Colum Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF10 3EU

Overview

Background

Before entering academe I qualified as a chartered accountant in the London office of Cooper Brothers & Co. (now PwC). While training as an accountant I took the exams of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and was admitted as an associate member in 1971.

Research Interests

My research interests embrace various aspects of accounting history with a particular focus on the following subject areas: double entry bookkeeping; management accounting; corporate financial reporting; and professionalisation of the accounting craft. I have published widely in academic journals including

  • Abacus
  • Accounting & Business Research
  • Accounting Historians Journal
  • Accounting History Review,
  • Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
  • Accounting, Organizations & Society
  • British Accounting Review
  • Business History
  • Critical Perspectives in Accounting
  • European Accounting Review
  • Economic History Review
  • Financial Accountability & Management
  • Journal of Accounting & Public Policy
  • Journal of Business Finance & Accounting
  • Management Accounting Review

I have also reached out to the wider public with numerous short articles in professional journals.

Book publications include:

  • A History of Corporate Financial Reporting and Britain (2019),
  • A History of Financial Accounting (1989)
  • A History of Management Accounting. The British Experience (2013, with Trevor Boyns)
  • The Birth of Industrial Accounting in France and Britain (1997, with Trevor Boyns and Marc Nikitin)
  • The Priesthood of Industry (1998, with Derek Matthews and Malcolm Anderson)
  • The Routledge Companion to Accounting History (2020, edited with Stephen P. Walker)

Funding for my research has been provided by: the Social Science Research Council, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the Economic & Social Research Council, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.

I sit on the editorial advisory board of Accounting & Business Research, the editorial advisory panel of Accounting History and the editorial boards of Abacus, Accounting History Review and The Accounting Historians Journal.

Teaching

I have taught numerous courses on corporate financial reporting, taxation and auditing during the course of his career. He presently teaches an undergraduate course entitled Development of Accounting.

Publication

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Articles

Book sections

Books

Conferences

Research

Primary research interests

  • Accounting and class conflict in Victorian Britain
  • Asset valuation and profit measurement in corporate financial reports
  • Cash to accruals accounting in British central government

PhD supervision research interests

  • Accounting history

Teaching

Teaching commitments

  • BS3503. Development of Accounting (Module leader)

Biography

Qualifications

  • BSc (Econ) (Wales), MSc (Econ) (Wales)
  • Fellow, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales
  • Associate, Chartered Institute of Taxation
  • Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Honours and awards

  • 2014 Academy of Accounting Historians Barbara D. Merino Award for Excellence in Accounting History Publication (jointly with Trevor Boyns) for A History of Management Accounting. The British Experience (Routledge 2013).
  • 2012 Accounting Historians Journal Manuscript Award (runner up) for paper entitled ‘Accounting on English landed estates during the agricultural revolution – a textbook perspective’.
  • 2011 Accounting, Business & Financial History Basil Yamey Prize, for paper entitled ‘Researching the absence of professional organisation in Victorian England’.
  • 2010 Recipient of the British Accounting Association Lifetime Achievement Award made to ‘individuals who have made a substantial and direct contribution (through research, teaching or public service) to UK academic accounting and finance over the course of their careers’.
  • 2008 Accounting Historians Journal Manuscript Award (jointly runner up with Masayoshi Noguchi) for paper entitled ‘Professional leadership and oligarchy: the case of the ICAEW’.
  • 2007 Accounting Historians Journal Manuscript Award (jointly runner up with Stephen P. Walker) for paper entitled ‘Accountants in the British census’.
  • 1994 Academy of Accounting Historians (USA) 1994 Hourglass Award for an ‘outstanding contribution to the accounting history literature’.
  • 1994 Accounting and Business Research Walter Taplin Prize (jointly with Malcolm Anderson and Roy Chandler) for the article judged by the editors to be the best published in volume 23 (1993/4): ‘Changing perceptions of the role of the company auditor, 1840-1940’.

Professional memberships

  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Associate of the Chartered Institute of Taxation
  • Associate (from 1976 Fellow) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales

Academic positions

  • 2011- present. Research Professor in Accounting, Cardiff University
  • 1992-2011. Professor in Accounting, Cardiff University
  • 1989-1992. Reader in Accounting, Cardiff University
  • 1982-1989. Senior Lecturer in Accounting, University College, Cardiff
  • 1978-1982. Lecturer in Accounting, University College, Cardiff
  • 1977-1978. Senior Lecturer in Accounting, University College of North Wales, Bangor
  • 1971-1977. Lecturer in Accounting, University College, Cardiff

Other scholarly appointments

  • 2014. Visiting Professor in the Discipline of Accounting, the University of Sydney Business School (February-March).
  • 2011. Visiting Professor in the Discipline of Accounting, the University of Sydney Business School (February-March).
  • 2008. Visiting Professor in the Discipline of Accounting, the University of Sydney Business School (February).
  • 2005. Visiting Scholar in the School of Business, the University of Sydney (February-March).
  • 2003. Visiting Scholar in the School of Business, the University of Sydney (February-March).
  • 1998-2002. Adjunct Professor of Accounting, Deakin University, Australia.
  • 1992. Visiting Professor, Department of Accounting, Necastle University, Australia (July-August).
  • 1982. Visiting Associate Professor, New York University Graduate Business School (January-May).