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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

(In)stalling the Eighth Directive in the UK

Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 1996, vol. 7, pp 587-614, (in coll. with D. J. COOPER, A. G. PUXTY, H. C. WILLMOTT)

Budgeting and Resource Allocation in Education: The Construction of Formula Funding in Three English LEAs

Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 1996, vol. 7, (in coll. with P. EDWARDS, M. EZZAMEL, M. TAYLOR)

Accounting in Time: Organizational Time-Reckoning and Accounting Research

Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 1995, vol. 6, pp 149-170, (in coll. with M. EZZAMEL)

The Development of the Local Management in Schools Initiative: Budgets and Organizational Change

Financial Accountability & Management, November 1995, (in coll. with P. EDWARDS, M. EZZAMEL, M. TAYLOR)

Connecting Science to the Economic: Accounting Calculation and the Visibility of Research and Development

Science in Context, 1994, vol. 7, n° 3, pp 497-514,

The Discourse of Inflation Accounting: On the Interrelations Between Economic Theory and Inflation Accounting History

European Accounting Review, 1994, vol. 3, n° 3, pp 195-214,

Ideology and Regulation: Three Episodes in the Recent History of the UK Accountancy Profession

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1994, vol. 19, n° 6, pp 527-553, (in coll. with H. C. WILLMOTT, D. J. COOPER, A. G. PUXTY)

The Management of Professional Enterprises and Regulatory Change: British Accountancy and the Financial Services Act 1986

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1994, vol. 19, n° 7, pp 601-628, (in coll. with V. RADCLIFFE, D. J. COOPER)

Inflation Accounting and Action at a Distance: The Sandilands Episode

Accounting, Organizations and Society, 1994, vol. 19, n° 7, pp 45-82,

Promoting Science and Economic Growth at a Distance: Accounting Representation and the Government of Research and Development

Economy and Society, 1993, vol. 22, n° 4, pp 461-481,

Books

Chapters in edited books

Proceedings

Working papers

Scientific articles

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)

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)

Books

Chapters in edited books

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