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Keith ROBSON

Professor

Accounting and Management Control

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Biography

Keith Robson holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Social Studies majoring in Econometrics (Victoria University of Manchester), a Master’s Degree in Accounting and Finance (Victoria University of Manchester) and a PhD in Financial Reporting (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology). 

He has authored and co-authored three books, seven chapters in edited collections and over 35 articles in academic accounting, management and organization studies journals (Accounting, Auditing and Accountability; Accounting and Business Research, Accounting Business and Financial History; Accounting, Organizations and Society; Contemporary Accounting Research; Critical Perspectives on Accounting; Economy and Society; European Accounting Review; Human Relations, Organization; Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Science in Context).

He is an Editor (and former Editor-in-Chief) of Accounting, Organizations and Society, former associate editor of British Accounting Review, and serves on the boards of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, International Journal of Auditing, Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Organizational Change, and the British Accounting Review.

His research interests include performance measures and diffusion; socio-political studies of accounting regulation; the profession, professional firms and professionalization; management control in schools; auditing methodologies. He is a member of the American Accounting Association, British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA), European Accounting Association (EAA), and is Doctoral Alumnus of the American Accounting Association (AAA) Doctoral Consortium (as the BAA nominee), and of the European Accounting Association Doctoral Colloquium. He has held a Research Fellowship of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Keith was a co-organizer of the Doctoral Colloquium of the European Accounting Association.  

Keith has held posts at Aberystwyth University, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), University of Manchester and Cardiff University. taught management accounting at various levels at Aberystwyth, Cardiff and Manchester. He is an Honorary Professor at Cardiff Business School. At HEC he is currently teaching cost accounting (HEC Master of Science in Management - Grande École), and theories of management control and Empirical Topics in Management Accounting (HEC doctoral program). He supervises one PhD student at HEC Paris and two at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. 

 

Scientific articles

The sociology of translation and accounting inscriptions: Reflections on Latour and Accounting Research

Critical Perspectives on Accounting, July 2018, vol. 54, pp 60-75, (in coll. with C. BOTTAUSCI)

Editorial: Themed Section on Financial Accounting as Social and Organizational Practice: Exploring the work of financial reporting

Accounting, Organizations and Society, January 2017, vol. 56, pp 35-37, (in coll. with J. YOUNG, M. POWER)

The Logics of Budgeting: Accounting, Theorization And Diffusion In The Educational Field

Accounting, Organizations and Society, July 2012, vol. 37, n° 5, pp 281-303, (in coll. with M. EZZAMEL, P. STAPLETON)

Tracing performance in the pharmaceutical industry: ambivalence, opacity and the performativity of flawed measures

Accounting, Organizations and Society, October 2011, vol. 36, n° 7, pp 428-455, (in coll. with C. DAMBRIN)

Discourse and audit change: transformations in methodology in the professional audit field

Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 2008, vol. 20, n° 6, pp 825-854, (in coll. with R. KHALIFA, R. SHARMA, N. HUMPHREY)

Transforming Audit Technologies: Business Risk Audit Methodologies and the Audit Field

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 2007, vol. 32, n° 4-5, pp 409-438, (in coll. with C. HUMPHREY, C. KHALIFA, J. JONES)

Discourse and institutional change: ‘giving accounts’ and accountability

Management Accounting Research, June 2007, vol. 18, n° 2, pp 150-171, (in coll. with M. EZZAMEL, P. STAPLETON)

Auditing firms and auditing professionals

Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2006, vol. 24, pp 231-256, (in coll. with C. GREY, F. ANDERSON-GOUGH)

Locating the sites of professionalization

Accounting, Organizations and Society, July-August 2006, vol. 31, n° 4/5, pp 415-444, (in coll. with D. J. COOPER)

Budgetary Reform and the Structuration of Organizational Fields in Education

Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 2005, vol. 18, n° 6, pp 733-755, (in coll. with P. EDWARDS, M. EZZAMEL)

Books

Chapters in edited books

Proceedings

Working papers

Scientific articles

The cultural fields of accounting practices: Institutionalization and accounting changes beyond the organization

Accounting, Organizations and Society, January 2023, vol. 104, n° 101379, (in coll. with M. Ezzamel)

Organizational responses to multiple logics: Diversity, identity and the professional service firm

Accounting, Organizations and Society, November 2022, vol. 103, n° 101336, (in coll. with F. Anderson-Gough, C. Edgley, N. Sharma)

Editorial: Accounting research and practice in the time of pandemic (v5) (Editorial)

Accounting, Organizations and Society, April 2021, n° 101243, (in coll. with M. Annisette, M. E. Peecher)

Editorial: Themed section on accounting and valuation studies

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 2021, vol. 91, n° 101223, (in coll. with Y. Millo, M. Power, H. Vollmer)

Books

Chapters in edited books

Socio-political studies of financial accounting and standard setting

Accounting, Organizations And Institutions, C. Chapman, D.J. Cooper and P. Miller (Eds), Oxford University Press, 1-29

Firm Histories

Companion To Accounting History, S. Walker, J.R. Edwards (Eds), Routledge, London

Connecting Science to the Economic

Science And Economic Calculation, M. Power (Ed.), Cambridge University Press

Regulating the UK Accountancy Profession: A Changing Relationship between the State and the Profession

Accounting As Social And Institutional Practice, A.G. Hopwood , P.B. Miller (Eds), Cambridge University Press

Proceedings

Working papers

Education

  • Ph.D., The University of Manchester - United Kingdom
  • M.A., The University of Manchester - United Kingdom
  • Bachelor of Arts in Econometrics, The University of Manchester - United Kingdom

Scientific Activities

Membership in Academic or Professional Organisation

  • Management Committee, Board and Doctoral Committee of the European Accounting Association
  • Member, European Accounting Association; Management Control Association

Editorial activities

  • September 2015- Editor-in-Chief, Accounting, Organizations and Society

  • Conference organisation

  • 2011-2011 Co-organizer of the first Financial Reporting as Social and Organizational Practice Workshop (with Professor Michael Power, LSE, & Professor Joni Young, University of New Mexico)
  • Co-organizer of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Tenth Interdisciplinary Perspectives On Accounting Conference (IPA), Manchester July 1994, 1997, 2000 and Cardiff 2006, 2012