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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

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)

Accounting Professionals and the Accounting Profession: Linking Conduct and Context

Accounting and Business Research, 2002, vol. 32, n° 1, pp 41-56, (in coll. with F. ANDERSON-GOUGH, C. GREY)

Spanish Utilities during the Civil War

Accounting History Review, 2002, vol. 12, n° 2, pp 347-368, (in coll. with L. FERNANDEZ-REVUELTA, D. GOMEZ)

Budgetary Control and Institutional Reform: Constructing the Accountable School

Financial Accountability & Management, 2001, vol. 16, n° 4, pp 309-325, (in coll. with P. EDWARDS, M. EZZAMEL)

Tests of Time: Organizational Time-Reckoning and the Making of Accountants in Audit Practices

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 2001, vol. 26, n° 2, pp 99-122, (in coll. with F. ANDERSON, C. GREY)

In the Name of the Client: the Service Ethic in Professional Service Firms

Human Relations, 2000, vol. 53, n° 9, pp 1151-1174, (in coll. with F. ANDERSON-GOUGH, C. GREY)

Ritual Legitimation and the Budgetary Process: Managing Organizational Hypocrisies in a Multi-national Company

Management Accounting Research, 1999, (in coll. with L. FERNANDEZ-REVUELTA)

Social Analyses of Accounting Institutions: A Commentary on Bryer

Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 1999, vol. 9,

Connecting Accounting and Education in the UK: Discourses and Rationalities of Education Reform

Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 1999, vol. 10, pp 469-500, (in coll. with M. EZZAMEL, P. EDWARDS)

Work Hard, Play Hard: An Analysis of Organizational Cliche in Two Accountancy Firms

Organization, November 1998, (in coll. with F. ANDERSON, C. GREY)

Books

Chapters in edited books

Proceedings

Working papers

Scientific articles

Problematizing profit and profitability: discussions

Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 2020, vol. 33, n° 4, pp 753-793, (in coll. with A. LOWE, Y. NAMA, A. BRYER, N. CHABRAK, C. DAMBRIN, I. JEACLE, J. LIND, P. LORINO, C. BOTTAUSCI, C. SPENCE, C. CARTER, E. SVETLOVA)

The multiplicity of performance management systems: heterogeneity in multinational corporations and management sense-making

Contemporary Accounting Research, Spring 2019, vol. 36, n° 1, pp 451-485, (in coll. with M. EZZAMEL, D. COOPER)

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)

Books

Chapters in edited books

On Understanding the Development of the Accountancy Profession in the UK

Critical Accounts, D. J. Cooper, T. M. Hopper (Eds), Macmillan

Power and Management Control

Critical Perspectives In Management Control, W.F. Chua, E.A. Lowe, A.G. Puxty (Eds), Macmillan

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