Minutes of the 1995 ABO Annual Business Meeting

Orlando, Florida
August 15, 1995

The meeting was called to order at 4:05 PM. The following officers, editors, committee chairs and coordinators were among the members present: Lawrence Ponemon, Don Finn, Norman Macintosh, Jacob Birnberg, Philip Siegel, Seleshi Sisaye, Dennis Bline, Ben Wier, Gail Wright, Mike Bamber, Alan Lord, Steve Sutton and Kay Means. In addition, approximately 30 other section members were present.

Lawrence Ponemon, outgoing section chair, opened the meeting and announced that section elections of officers were being held at the meeting. A discussion was undertaken where it was revealed that there were 17 responses to mailed ballots out of over 1,200 members and the cost of mailing ballots is over $800. Ballots were distributed and collected. Don Finn took possession of the ballots for determining results.

The agenda for the meeting was outlined and discussed as follows:

1. Second ABO Conference (Don Finn): Twenty-nine papers were submitted for the conference and nine papers were accepted. These papers will be published in a special issue of BRIA if the authors meet the reviewers' requests. The keynote speakers for the conference were Jim Gaa and Abraham Briloff. There were 62 attendees to the conference.
2. Upcoming Third ABO Conference (Mike Bamber): Scheduled for June, 1996 at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. The submission deadline is December 15, 1995. The theme for the conference is "Accounting, Organizations and Behavior." Mike made a request for assistance in various areas of the conference.
3. Upcoming Fourth ABO Conference (Seleshi Sisaye): Scheduled for May 1-3, 1997 in Pittsburgh, PA. The submission deadline is November 30, 1996. The submission fee will be separate from the registration fee. A flyer for the conference was distributed. The date of the conference was discussed. Some members suggested that the date could conflict with final exams and regional meetings in some instances.
4. Doctoral Dissertation Award (Seleshi Sisaye): Committee members Jim Peters (chair), Mike Bamber, Jane Kennedy and Seleshi Sisaye. Eleven summaries (20-25 pages) were submitted. Three finalists submitted complete dissertations and the winner was Sandra Vera-Munoz (University of Texas at Austin) for "The Effects of Accounting Knowledge and Context on the Omission of Opportunity Cost in Resource Allocation Decisions." The dissertation chairman was Bill Kinney.
5. Outstanding Behavioral Research Award (Larry Ponemon): The awards committee used the criteria that the recipient should have demonstrated a stream of seminal work. The first recipient of the award was Bob Ashton.
6. Annual Meeting (Alan Lord): Forty-nine papers were submitted to the section. Three papers were sent to other areas and 46 papers were reviewed. There were 109 reviewers and the authors of the papers reviewed were from 41 different colleges and universities. Fifteen papers were accepted for regular sessions (5) and 11 papers were accepted for the research forum. Vicky Arnold will be the 1996 annual meeting coordinator.
7. ABO Research Monograph (Steve Sutton): The monograph's tentative title is " Behavioral Accounting Research: Foundation and Frontiers." It is being prepared with doctoral seminars and faculty refreshing their background or retooling as the primary audience. The target for completion is Spring 1996.
8. Election Results (Don Finn):
   • Chair Elect: Philip Siegel
   • Secretary-Treasurer: Dennis Bline
9. Behavioral Research in Accounting ( Jacob Birnberg): July 1994-June 1995
   • Three papers held over from Ken Ferris (two accepted and one under review)
   • Twenty-nine papers submitted to Birnberg during previous year (one accepted for research conference, seven accepted for BRIA, 14 rejected and seven under review)
   • Thirty-eight papers submitted to Birnberg during the current year (16 rejected, three accepted, 13 revised and resubmitted and six under first review)

   Jake commented that a longer lead time is needed for the new editor of BRIA. Don Finn was announced as the next editor for BRIA.

10. FASB Liaison (Gail Wright): A brief overview of the FASB liaison project was made and a reminder of the panel presentation at the annual meeting on the first research project (joint ventures) was announced.
11. Regions (Kay Means): Several regional coordinators made brief comments on the activity in their respective region.

Larry Ponemon turned the meeting over to the incoming section chair, Norm Macintosh.

A plaque was presented to the outgoing chair (Larry Ponemon) for a job well done.

Philip Siegel presented the treasurer's report on behalf of the outgoing Secretary-Treasurer (Gary Mann). The report indicated that the section's membership has grown to 1,329. The cash balance of the section increased approximately $7,000 during the 1994-95 fiscal year to approximately $18,800.

Minutes of the 1994 annual meeting in New York were distributed and accepted.

Philip Siegel presented the Working Papers Series Report on behalf of Jerry Strawser. A call was made for all members to encourage members to provide information for the working papers series. John Rigsby was announced as the coordinator of the working papers series for the 1995-96 fiscal year.

Philip Siegel made a presentation for the ABO Reporter. Phil requested that regional coordinators submit the titles and authors of papers accepted for the regional meeting as soon as the information is available. The deadline for the next ABO Reporter is November 15, 1995.

Norm Macintosh commented about the European Management Control Conference that was held during 1995.

Norm also announced that the ABO mid-year meeting would be held on November 5, 1995 in Toronto at the Royal York Hotel.

The meeting adjourned at approximately 5:15 PM.