How to use research for CPD

Academic research could be an invaluable resource. By Louise Ross, advisor accountant, technical services, CIMA.

The mandatory requirement for CPD from January 2006 means that many of us will be thinking more carefully about our development needs and how to fulfil them. One solution may be to take more interest in academic research. CIMA encourages greater links between academics and practitioners.

How to access academic research

There are two main outlets for academic research – conferences and articles. Academic conferences are where researchers discuss current work, exposing their methodology and interim results to scrutiny from their peers. In my experience, few accountants attend academic conferences, even though they would be welcomed. Academics are keen to strengthen their relationships with industry and find organisations willing to participate in research.

Academic journals are where the findings are finally made public, marking the end of a long process of review. You could subscribe to a journal that covers your interest or industry (let’s assume you already read Financial Management and Insight, which regularly run articles about CIMA-funded research). Some publishers and clearing houses rank journals according to their practitioner-friendliness so finding a suitable journal should be easy. CIMA’s Technical Information Service can advise.

Another, possibly better, strategy would be to focus on articles covering the topics that interest you, no matter where they appear. Business Source Corporate, in CPD Solutions, allows you to search for and download thousands of academic articles as PDF files for free. It also contains news and company reports from more than 3,000 journals (see Financial Management July/August 2005 for more details).

Corporate libraries, which are rarely used to the extent they should be, may perhaps be the best source for industry-specific research.

Picking a conference

To find out about forthcoming academic conferences, you can subscribe to Research Update, CIMA’s newsletter about management accounting and related research. Or you can check Accounting Education under ‘events’.

Certain types of conference may be less relevant. Those about accounting history or ‘summer schools’ tend to focus on research methodology for more junior researchers. Organisers should be happy to discuss the suitability of the conference, and may be able to provide a draft programme.

Conference strategy

Most conferences have some plenary sessions, but mainly consist of parallel sessions, each being perhaps three presentations on a common theme. This means that you have to choose which sessions to attend but it also means you can miss the odd one to do some networking. A conference programme, usually including abstracts of papers, will help you to plan your time – preparation will pay dividends.

Inevitably, there will be a clash when you want to be in two places at once. All you can do is try to obtain the paper for the presentation you missed. Although there may seem to be nothing in a session that interests you, you could try it out – you never know what useful nuggets might come out of presentations you had initially dismissed. If you plan to leave during a session (not during a presentation), sit where you can exit with minimum disturbance as the turnaround time between presentations can be very short.

Remember that many of the findings discussed at a conference, and in the associated papers, are under embargo until the research is more fully advanced. The findings or the methodology could also be challenged so you should take care how you use the research. You could think of research like wine – some will acquire an impressive reputation immediately, some will benefit from laying down until its latent qualities become apparent and some might never achieve more than ‘house red’ status.

If you have questions about academic conferences, either on conference etiquette, or which conferences are most appropriate for a CIMA member, please email Louise.Ross@cimaglobal.com.

Another useful tip is to go through the background and literature review sections of the research paper (usually discussed less at the conference than the methodology) where there can be some rich pickings. They give concise summaries of previous research findings in the area supporting or challenging the current research hypothesis.

Research initiative

The aim of improving communication and collaboration between industry and academia is shared by CIMA and can be seen from our research initiative on management ideas, tools and practices. This welcomes proposals from academics and practitioners. Applications close on 30 September.

September 2005