Accounting Faculty's Research is Classic

A citation study by Lawrence D. Brown of SUNY­Buffalo ranked the GSB first among business schools whose professors had authored influential research in accounting. Significantly, the Stanford faculty was found to do a superlative job of passing its research prowess to the next generation. More Stanford accounting PhDs (23 percent) went on to publish influential articles than those from any other institution.
Brown culled articles published in seven leading accounting journals between 1963 and 1992 to identify the most important accounting research before 1990. In addition to listing the top 100 articles in the field, he identified 26 "classics"---so called because each was cited at least four times yearly since publication. Five current GSB faculty members were noted in Brown's study, which was published in Accounting, Organizations and Society last year. Four were the authors of classics.
William Beaver's capital markets research, says Brown, includes some of the most enduring work in accounting. Beaver's work forms the core of the literature on corporate earnings and securities returns. "[It] spurred a growth industry in empirically based accounting research," says Brown. Beaver is the Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting. Richard Lambert, the Joseph McDonald Professor of Accounting, who worked with Beaver on security price research, coauthored one classic and one "near-classic" with Beaver.
James Patell, the Herbert Hoover Professor of Public and Private Management, wrote one of the first papers in the management forecasting area. George Foster, the Paul L. and Phyllis Wattis Foundation Professor of Management, was also recognized for his lasting work in forecasting. And Associate Professor of Accounting Maureen McNichols was coauthor of one of the top 100 papers.
The study was limited to publishing in financial research; it did not include articles in accounting theory and tax that might have appeared in economic, tax, and other related journals.

Alain Enthoven, the Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management, was named by California Governor Pete Wilson to head a 30-person bipartisan commission that is examining health care service plans (commonly known as HMOs) in the state. Established by an act of the legislature last year, the Managed Health Care Improvement Task Force is researching and reporting on all aspects of current health care service plans. It will determine whether the goals of managed care are being satisfied and examine the effect of managed care on the patient­ physician relationship. The final report is due by January.
Charles O'Reilly, the Frank E. Buck Professor of Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior, with his coauthor, Michael L. Tushman of Columbia, received the Andersen Consulting Award, which is given annually to the article in California Management Review that has made the most important contribution to improving the practice of management. The subject of their winning article, "The Ambidextrous Organization: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change," is discussed at length in this magazine. Runners-up for the award were Robert Burgelman, the Edmund W. Littlefield Professor of Management, and lecturer Andrew Grove for "Strategic Dissonance."

The Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota presented Robert Jaedicke, dean emeritus of the Stanford Business School, with its outstanding achievement award. Jaedicke, who earned his PhD from the Carlson School in 1957, was cited for his leadership in expanding the curriculum at the GSB and for developing an interdisciplinary environment. It also cited his service on a series of corporate and nonprofit boards of directors. Jaedicke retired as dean in 1990 after a 30-year tenure at Stanford.

Daniel Kessler, an assistant professor of economics, law, and policy, has been awarded a year-long research fellowship by the Hoover Institution to assess the impact of legal and regulatory policy on medical treatment decisions, health care costs, and patient health outcomes.

John Roberts, the Jonathan B. Lovelace Professor of Economics, delivered the inaugural Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies in April and May at Oxford University. His three addresses, under the general title of "The Modern Firm: Economics, Strategy, and Organization," dealt with the complex of organizational changes that firms worldwide are currently implementing. The lectures will provide the basis of a book to be published by the Oxford University Press.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK HUNDLEY

GSB accounting researchers recognized (above) are Patell, Foster, McNichols, Lambert, and Beaver. (Below) Dean emeritus Jaedicke.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF REINKING