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Corporate Directors Forum

College of Business Administration

Panelists:

Robert Bushman is the Forensic Accounting Distinguished Professor at UNC Kenan-Flagler, has conducted several ground-breaking studies of the link between financial accounting and corporate governance, both in the United States and overseas. His well-timed studies, which started in the late 1990s right before the Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia and other big financial scandals broke, have shown just how important accounting information is in supporting effective corporate governance. In a recent study, Bushman and two fellow researchers isolate two distinct factors that characterize how different countries structure business financial information. Using data spanning 45 different countries, they find that "corporate transparency," a measure of the information about publicly traded firms that is available to investors, analysts and the general public, can differ greatly across countries because of fundamental differences in legal and political institutions. To their surprise and delight, the researchers discovered that corporate transparency is actually comprised of two basic components - "financial transparency" and "governance transparency."

Mark Lang is Thomas W. Hudson, Jr./Deloitte and Touche L.L.P. Distinguished Professor of Accounting. He teaches and conducts research in financial accounting. Dr. Lang's research interests include corporate governance, stock market valuation of accounting information; international accounting and analysis; employee stock option valuation, taxation and exercise behavior; causes and effects of voluntary disclosure; and multinational tax strategy.He serves on the International Accounting Standards Board's Share-Based Payment Advisory Group and the American Institute of CPAs Blockage Factor Task Force.

Per Olsson is an Associate Professor of Accounting at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. He earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. from the Stockholm School of Economics. Before joining the faculty at Duke, he taught financial statement analysis and valuation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Olsson research interests focus on corporate governance and the role of accounting information in investment decisions, both in the U.S. and internationally.

Donna Street is professor of Accounting,  Mahrt Chair in Accounting at the University of Dayton. She is the president of International Association of Accounting Education and Research and immediate past president of International Section of American Accounting Association.