Researchers and resources 

Composition of the research team and division of labour

The research team consists of 7 persons. Professor Hannu Schadewitz (TSE), researcher in charge of the joint consortium; Assistant Professor Markku Vieru (UO); Associate Professor Yuan Ding (China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Shanghai, China); Ph.D. Janne Peltoniemi (UO); Ph.D. candidate APA Antti Fredriksson (TSE); Ph.D. candidate Antti Pitkänen (TSE), and Ph.D. candidate Henry Jarva (UO). 

Professor Schadewitz is specialized in firm-to-else business communication in domestic and foreign business environments. Assistant Professor Markku Vieru is specialized in behavioural finance and emerging markets. Dr. Yuan Ding is Associate Professor of Accounting at CEIBS, Shanghai, China. His current research is focused on intangibles, international accounting harmonization, earnings management, corporate governance issues, and accounting reform in China. He is the Academic Deputy President, Research Centre of Complex Data analysis of Beihang University, Beijing, China, and a member of the European Accounting Association, French Accounting Association and American Accounting Association. He is also Board Member of the Global Perspectives on Accounting Education Journal and Editorial Review Board Member of The International Journal of Accounting. In the year 2005 he achieved his French national doctoral tutorship qualification. Schadewitz, Vieru and Ding have published actively in the academic refereed journals on the area of their expertise. Ph.D. Janne Peltoniemi has already defended his thesis successfully on relationship financing and continues with his post doctorate research. Ph.D. candidate APA Antti Fredriksson is working on his Ph.D. thesis on accounting conservatism and relationship banking. Ph.D. candidate Antti Pitkänen is working on his Ph.D. thesis on defining and measuring firm’s intellectual capital. Among other things he tries to figure out what factors explain intellectual capital level of a firm.  Fredriksson, Jarva and Pitkänen have been accepted as students at the Graduate School of Accounting (GSA). Ph.D. candidate Henry Jarva is working on his Ph.D. thesis on value relevance of different earnings components. He explores the role of impairment write-offs and managerial discretion in explaining the lower persistence of the accrual component of earnings.

 Regarding the division of labour we are following the relative superiority principle. Those who have the best understanding and know-how regarding some special issue in the agenda will be responsible for that. Theoretical foundations are jointly conformed. Table 1 below shows the general division of labour among universities for the subprojects.

Table 1. Division of labour among TSEBA, UO, and CEIBS team members

Notes: Subprojects are presented in section 2.2. above, Equal = Equal responsibility in the universities of TSEBA, UO, and CEIBS. 1) focus in Ph.D. thesis of Pitkänen, 2) focus in Ph.D. thesis of Jarva, 3) focus in Ph.D. thesis of Fredriksson.

Regarding the data, the TSE and UO team members will collect the Finnish data and the CEIBS team member will collect the French and Chinese data. The collection of Baltic data will be done by TSEBA and UO team members and/or stock exchange personnel in those stock exchanges. Preliminary contacts to Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE in Riga) have been very promising. When possible, we are going to co-operate also with the faculty in SSE in Riga. Furthermore, the personnel of all three Baltic Stock Exchanges (Riga Stock Exchange, Tallinn Stock Exchange, and Vilnius Stock Exchange) have been co-operative. Regarding other ongoing projects Schadewitz is involved in the project Chasing trends down Wall Street with Ph.D. Hannu Kahra and Professor (emeritus) Dallas R. Blevins. The study proposes a price-trend model as an alternative to the random walk hypothesis. The model is applied to S&P 500 index from 1940 to 2004. The primary finding is that a trading rule based on the model beats the buy-and-hold strategy during 20 year period. This project does not have outside funding. Another research project (at an early stage) Schadewitz is involved is International financial reporting standards (IFRS) and corporate governance with Professor Hector Perera (Massey University, New Zealand). The common issue concerning corporate governance include the quality of published information (Doupnik and Perera, 2007). Schadewitz and Perera are studying whether and how new IFRS standards advance corporate governance function of Finnish firms. Finally, Schadewitz and Frederick Lindahl (George Washington University, USA) are pursuing research regarding US GAAP and IFRS dis/harmony. They use financial reports of European foreign private issuers that are traded in the U.S. to assess similarity of the two sets of standards.

Researcher training

Regarding the research training our plan is to produce three dissertations out of this project. Research cooperation will be done actively between TSE, UO and CEIBS. This will strengthen the already existing co-operation with the universities, and with the team members. Ph.D. students are recommended to participate actively in the relevant Ph.D. level courses and workshops organized e.g. such scholarly organs like the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM). Ph.D. students are also strongly encouraged to submit their research proposals to national and international doctoral colloquiums (organized e.g. in conjunction with the annual congress of the European accounting Association, EAA). Besides receiving external feedback for their research, joint workshops by TSE, UO, and CEIBS will facilitate feedback for the Ph.D. projects by the members of the FINNON team. The international dimension of the project is strengthened by the co-operation with Associate Professor Yuan Ding (CEIBS). In practise this co-operation means site visits in order to strengthen the academic network. Further, the research results are planned to be published systematically. Article manuscripts will be produced in co-operation by researchers at TSE, UO and CEIBS. The preliminary versions of the articles will be presented at conferences. Also the dissertation committees are planned to have a foreign member/s.

Finnish and international cooperation within the project

There are networks and projects with which FINNON will cooperate. Finnish networks include Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) research network (Piia Nurmi). Ph.D. students are also encouraged to participate courses and workshops organized by Graduate School of Accounting (GSA). There are also two ongoing research projects financed by the Academy of Finland that are touching upon the subject: Corporate environmental responsibility and the ecosystem approach (CORECO, lead by docent Matti Kamppinen, University of Turku) and Corporate Social responsibility and its links to business competence, COCO, lead by Professor Eerik Lagerspetz, University of Turku). The possibilities to interact with these projects are being prepared.

Internationally, events organized by Global Reporting Initiative (GRI, www.globalreporting.org) will be closely monitored and participation will be encouraged. Furthermore, seminars and workshops organized by the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM, www.eiasm.org) will be participated when relevant topics are available. Annual meetings of the European Accounting Association (EAA) and the European Finance Association (EFA) are also suitable forums to receive external feedback and establish networks.

Research environment

All seven members of the research team are employed by well recognized and established universities. TSE and UO team members are working at the Department of Accounting and Finance, and CEIBS team member is working at the Area of Accounting and Finance. To characterize CEIBS, it is the only EQUIS-accredited (European Quality Improvement System) Business School on Mainland China. Furthermore, in global rankings of Financial Times the overall success of CEIBS’s programs has been superb. All the necessary office and computer equipment and facilities are available for successful execution of the project. In addition to that, all three universities have high calibre and dedicated support staff, among other things, for office and data handling operations as well as for information search and other library services.

Financial plan for the project

The main idea followed in the financial plan was to ensure sufficiently long research periods especially for Ph.D. candidates. The financial plan contains also financing for a shorter research period. The financial plan for the project covers, among other things, researchers’ scholarships, conference participation costs, and publishing activity as described in Table 2 below. The project is planned to be financed by the Academy.

Table 2. Projected costs (in line with Academy granting) during funding period 2007-2010.