BEc(Hons1), PhD (La Trobe)
,
Accounting, auditing and accountability
2011

Professor MARGARET ABERNETHY is the first to hold the Sir Douglas Copland Chair of Commerce at the University of Melbourne. She also holds the Chair in Managerial Accounting and is former Dean, Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne. Professor Abernethy's research interests are in performance measurement and compensation design with a particular interest in the design and implementation of management control systems in the health care sector. Her current research examines how social norms within firms influence compensation contract design and accounting manipulation.

  • Sir Douglas Copland Chair of Commerce; and Chair in Managerial Accounting, the University of Melbourne
  • Dean, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne - January 2004 - 2012
  • Head, Department of Accounting and Business Information Systems and Professor of Accounting, University of Melbourne, 2000 - 2002
  • Professor of Accounting, University of Melbourne, 1997 - 2000
  • Editor, Contemporary Accounting Research, 2010 - present
  • Executive Council, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, 1995 - 2001; Editor 1999 - 2001 Accounting and Finance (journal of the Association)
  • Editorial Board: Accounting, Organizations and Society; Accounting and Finance, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Management Accounting Research; Abacus, Accounting Auditing and Accountability Journal
  • Telstra Business Woman of the Year (Government and Community Sectors) 2008

  • Ethics, Performance Measure Choice, and Accounting Manipulation (with Bouwens and VanLent) 2011 Working paper
  • Controls as Exit Barriers in Multi-period Outsourcing Arrangements (with Y H Phua and Anne Lillis), The Accounting Review, September 2011
  • Role of performance measures in the intertemporal choices of business unit managers (with Bouwens and VanLent), Contemporary Accounting Research Conference 2011
  • Leadership and Control System Design (with Bouwens and VanLent), Management Accounting Research, 2009 Vol 10. David Solomon Best Paper Award
  • Determinants of Control System Design in Divisionalized Firms (with J Bouwens and L VanLent), The Accounting Review, 2004 Vol 79(3)
  • Power, Organization Design and Managerial Behaviour (with Emidia Vagnoni), Accounting, Organizations and Society, 2004 (Vol 29)
  • Interdependencies in Control System Design: A Test in Hospitals (with Anne Lillis), Journal of Management Accounting Research, 2002
  • The Consequences of customization of management accounting system design (with J Bouwens), Accounting Organizations and Society, 2000, Vol 25
  • The Role of Budgets in Organizations Facing Strategic Change: An Exploratory Study (with P Brownell), Organizations and Society, 1999, Vol 24
  • Management Control Systems in Research and Development Organizations: The Role of Accounting, Behavior and Personnel Controls (with P Brownell), Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1997, Vol 22 (3/4)
  • A Field Study of Control System Change: The Impact of Institutional Inducement on Managerial Choice (with W F Chua), Contemporary Accounting Research, November, 1996.