APMAA Conference 2015 - Cultural Visit

The APMAA Conference 2015 ended on a high note with lots of memorable events for each of the participants.  Everyone will remember the Bali Conference 2015.  The Accounting Research Institute (ARI) thanks the six organising hosts for their splendid hospitality.  ARI researchers submitted 16 conference papers within its research niche "Islamic Financial Criminology".  Everyone was happy with the outcome of the conference.  Today, the Indonesian team is organising a cultural visit to interesting places of the Bali Island.

  First destination is UC SILVER in Batubulan and it is a legendary sterling silver company that has been started in 1989.  BALI CLASSIC CENTRE (BCC Bali Mini) is one of the tourism destinations, which describes about Bali as a whole and in detail, PURA ULUN DANU BATUR is the second most important temple in Bali and the tour finishes at FURAMA BUMBU BALI RESTAURANT that proudly offers one of the fresh set selections of seafood which is locally caught in Jimbaran Bay - a famous seaside eating bay in Bali.

APMAA Conference 2015 - Day 3

The conference so far has been amazing - great paper discussions, interesting plenary sessions, delicious foods, great hosts and friendly participants.  APMAA Conference 2015 continues with more parallel sessions on day 3.  The theme of this year's conference is indeed apt and timely.   Management accounting is not just used to feed management with relevant information for optimal decision making and control, more importantly, management accountants must rise to the current need for sustainable development.  In CIMA’s recent report Acting Under Pressure, findings affirmed that a transparent operating culture, support from management and compliance with both local and international regulations and norms, are necessary for effective business reputation. With the potential for unethical business practice, the reputational and operations costs of “being caught out” can be high around how ethics are played out and supported within organisations. Growing research around the topic shows that ethical practice makes a difference in supporting long term success of companies, particularly in relation to risk. From a public perception view point, politically and socially, it is seen as increasingly important, as events playing out globally in the last few years have shown backed by the rise of influence on wider society via social media and web channels.

 The interesting aspect of the conference is the practice of appointing paper discussants for each of the conference paper.  Authors and researchers are given a lot of opportunities to mingle and discuss their papers with renowned international professors.  At the end of the day, all researchers want to find suitable avenue to publish their papers in reputable journals, and as such feedback from conferences such as APMAA 2015 is indeed valuable.  Later in the afternoon, there were two more paper presentations - one by a management accounting practitioner and another from the Secretary General of the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education Indonesia.  Just before the closing ceremony of APMAA conference 2015, special awards were given to two best paper winners.  Congratulations Nik Herda from Universiti Teknologi MARA for being the winner of Best Paper Award APMAA Conference 2015.

APMAA Conference 2015 - Day 2

After a very successful first day with PhD Colloquium, APMAA Conference 2015 proceeded with its second day event at another site.  Udayana University,  the oldest public university in the province of Bali hosts the APMAA conference proper.  The opening ceremony of APMAA Conference 2015 was by itself a very grand event - with a special Balinese dance, cultural show and "hitting" of the gong to symbolize an auspicious occasion.  After the opening ceremony, APMAA conference starts with two plenary sessions that discuss the theme "The Role of Management Accounting Towards Sustainable Development". The morning session was held in the university Grand Ballroom.  In the afternoon, parallel sessions were held in ten different seminar rooms.  This year sees 120 conference papers being submitted by researchers from sixteen different countries.  In the evening, the six organizing universities hosted a welcome dinner for all participants at the Pramar Sanur Beach Hotel Bali.  Audiences were later entertained with Shadow show or more popularly known as "Wayang Kulit" and other Balinese dance.

Wayang kulit is the most popular form of shadow theatre in Indonesia.  It has been extremely important in the development of Javanese and Balinese theatre, as most of the other forms of classical theatre have derived their story materials, stylisation and many performing techniques directly from it.  During the dinner, Chairman of APMAA, Professor Susumu Ueno presented thank you "momentos" and certificates of appreciations to all hosts of APMAA Conference 2015. 

APMAA Conference 2015 - Day 1

The Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association (APMAA) Conference 2015 started today with the Board of Directors meeting in the morning.  Forthcoming hosts for years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 made their respective presentations to the board.  APMAA 2016-2019 will be respectively hosted by the National Taipei University, Taiwan; Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China; Osaka University, Japan and Qatar University, UAE.  Following the BOD meeting was the official opening of the PhD Colloquium of the APMAA Conference.  The opening ceremony of the PhD colloquium was graced by the Rector of Warmadewa University, Prof. dr. Dewa Putu Widjana, DAP&E., Sp.ParK and attended by conference participants, staff and students of six organizing universities - Universitas Warmadewa, Udayana University, Universitas Merdeka Malang, Tri Sakti University, Universitas Mercu Buana and Hasanuddin University.  There were various cultural shows being showcased by the host university.  The PhD colloquium started with a PhD Workshop on Research Method by three professors - Prof Dr Jan Alpenbergh,   the Dean for the Faculty of Accounting and Logistics, Linnaeus University, Vaxjo, Sweden, Prof Dr Normah Omar, Universiti Teknologi MARA and Prof Grahita Chandarain, University Merdeka Malang Indonesia.  

The PhD colloquium followed immediately after the workshop with 16 international PhD students and another special track for Indonesian students where presentations were in the Indonesian language. APMAA Conference 2015 made history with the highest number of PhD colloquium papers.  The event was carried out in the newly renovated "Pascasarjana Building " of Warmadewa University.  In the evening, Warmadewa University hosted a welcome conference dinner.  A Memorandum of Understanding was then signed by the six host universities with the Asia Pacific Management Accounting Association.  APMAA was represented by its 2015 President, Prof Dr Normah Omar

Asia Pacific Management Accounting Conference 2015

The Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association (APMAA) is the leading association of scholars and specialists in the field of management accounting in the Asia-Pacific region. The proposal to form the Association was first mooted at the Asian Management Forum and the first APMA forum was held November 2002 in Japan. The decision to establish the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association was made at the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Forum held on 24-25, November 2004 in Malaysia, and hosted by Universiti Teknologi MARA(UiTM).  APMAA forums (now called ‘Conferences’) have been held annually since then.  This year the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association holds its 11th Conference (APMAA 2015) in Bali, Indonesia at Udayana University and Warmadewa University from October 26-29, 2015.  Themed "Management Accounting for Sustainable Development", the main goal of the conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners to exchange theories, ideas, techniques and experiences relating to all aspects of management accounting. This conference provides a very good opportunity for our members to interact face-to-face with experts from all over the world. We received around 120 papers from academics, doctoral students and accounting professionals from countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, United Arab Emirates, China, Poland, Qatar, Thailand, Taiwan, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany, Estonia, India and Iran. The APMAA 2015 conference has a plenary session, a panel session, and over 30 parallel sessions. The doctoral colloquium has three sessions.  In the past three years, the Indonesian Conference Organizing Team has poured their passion and tremendous energy to lead APMAA 2015 to success. It is time for their hard work to be rewarded fully. On behalf of APMAA, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the devotion of the organizing team in making this conference unique and inspiring through the blend of different kinds of programmes to cater to the different palates.　The Accounting Research Institute is sending 16 participants to present papers at APMAA Conference 2015.

Congratulations APMAJ

The Accounting Research Institute (ARI) congratulates all editorial members of the Asia Pacific Management Accounting Journal (APMAJ) for the journal's recent inclusion in Thomson Reuters' new citation index called the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).This inclusion provides the journal a platform to be read and cited by Thomson Reuters' (TR) millions of Web of Science (WoS) users, which might eventually lead to the acceptance of the journal in TR's Core Collections. The APMAJ was first published in 2006 by Universiti Teknologi MARA.  Aimed to encourage active discussions and research in management accounting particularly within the Asia Pacific region, APMAJ is published twice a year.  APMAJ is also the official journal of the Asia-Pacific Management Accounting Association (APMAA). The journal is also currently indexed by various indexing agencies such as Ulrich International, Ebscohost, Cabells Directory, Excellence Research Australia (ERA) and Australia Business Deans Council (ABDC).  Congratulations APMAJ....

Publication in High Impact Journals

As part of his scheduled activity, ARI's Visiting Professor Paul Barnes conducted a special workshop on "Publication in High Impact Journals".  He defines High Impact journals as journals that have been recognized internationally by the academic community and are often ranked highly by reputable indexing bodies.  The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in science and social science journals. Publication in journals with a high impact factor is regarded as an indication of the quality of the research published and, by implication, the quality of its authors.

Not  surprisingly, publishing in highly ranked journals is an aspiration for most authors and often plays an important role in one’s own career prospects and progression. Yet, as more and more researchers aspire to publish in top rated journals, the competition gets tougher and the success rate far lower than publishing on low-impact journals. Two of the most used indexing bodies are SCOPUS and Thomson Reuters (ISI). Journals in these indexing bodies are often ranked as Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 - often as a result of some form of journal citation analysis.  In Australia for example, business academics are encouraged to published in "A" and "B"-ranked journals of the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) directory.  In his talk, Prof Barnes encourages researchers to present their papers at conferences, get feedback, review papers and then submit them to journals.

UiTM Global Leadership Program

In 2014, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) established a student-based leadership initiative called Global Leadership Program.  Basically the program provides leadership skills to selected students by inviting renowned scholars and practitioners to share their leadership experiences.  The first cohort comprises seventy-two students who have been "hand-picked" by their faculties and deans as pioneer participants for the program.  Basically. these are Deans' List scholars who have achieved commendable academic results and are keen to make time to learn some very important leadership skills.  At the end of the program (which lasts over a period of one year), students are expected to have acquired life and leadership skills.  In addition to their already very good academic performance, they are also well-groomed leaders with good communication skills, strategists, visionary and adjust well with the environment they live in.  They are better-prepared for the job-market.  Some even want to start their own business and become employers themselves.  In a recent workshop, Accounting Research Institute (ARI) Director, Professor Dr Normah Omar has been invited to share ARI successes as Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) winners for two consecutive years: GIFA 2014 for "Best Islamic Finance Education Provider" and GIFA 2015 for "Pioneering Islamic Financial Criminology Research". 

Visiting Professor Paul Barnes

The Accounting Research Institute (ARI) welcomes Professor Paul Barnes who is currently visiting Universiti Teknologi MARA for two weeks as a visiting professor. Professor Barnes has written a number of books and published many academic papers in a wide variety of journals in the UK, Australia and the USA, on various aspects of financial crime and related subjects. He has been an expert witness in many high profile financial crime trials in the UK, mainly involving securities fraud, stock market abuse and insider dealing. He has also provided forensic accounting expertise in a number of civil actions and investigations.  Professor Barnes is an expert in forensic accounting and has acted as an expert witness and consultant in the areas of finance and forensic accounting. He was previously Professor of Finance and Fraud Risk Management at Nottingham Business School in the UK and is, or has been, a Visiting Professor at various universities in the US and Australia. He is a qualified Chartered Certified Accountant (although not a practicing member) an academic member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and has degrees in history and management science, with a Ph.D. in economics.  Do you need an expert in financial crime? Or perhaps your business requires a consultant in forensic accounting?  Forensic Accounting is a specialist field of work which requires detailed knowledge and expertise. Researchers, staff and students are encouraged to meet up with Prof Barnes to discuss potential research in financial criminology and forensic accounting.

FRGS Projects 2015

The Accounting Research Institute congratulates all researchers who have successfully secured the Fundamental Research Grants either as Principal Investigators or co-researchers.  ARI have forged smart partnerships with four faculties namely (i) Faculty of Accountancy, (ii) Faculty of Business Management, (iii) Faculty of Law and (iv) Faculty of Information Management.  Congratulations all.  For the FRGS -1 2015 listing, ARI researchers are involved in the following projects:

Global Islamic Finance Awards

Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) are the first of their kind of awards and emerged as the most respectable market-led awards in Islamic banking and finance. GIFA is based on an objective proprietary methodology developed by Edbiz Consulting.  These awards recognize and celebrate success and contributions of individuals and institutions in the Islamic financial services Industry. The objective of GIFA is to highlight the best practices in Islamic banking and finance and celebrate success of governments, institutions and individuals in Islamic banking and finance, with an ultimate objective of promoting social responsibility, adherence to Shari’a authenticity and commitment to Islamic banking and finance.  Each year, GIFA nominations are announced in the first and second quarter and remain open till the end of the second quarter of the year. The nominees are requested to send in relevant documents, highlighting their performance, objectives in line with GIFA. 

This is followed by detailed independent research work by the GIFA team and deliberations of the GIFA awards committee before the winners are announced.  The GIFA Awards Committee attempts to ensure complete transparency in terms of the following: (i) Innovation - those products and services will be rewarded, which contribute to the growth of Islamic finance through innovative applications and Shariah principles; (ii) Quantity and Quality - the breadth and depth of product/service offerings and where applicable, performance data are taken into account when assessing the performance of the nominated institutions and individuals during the award period; (iii) Cross Border - Provision of products/services that take on an international dimension outside of the established home market is a major criterion for selection of nominations and (iv) Promotion of the Growth of the Industry - Products/services that have established standards of best practices for the national markets and global Islamic financial services industry are also treated over and above other products.

HICoE Strategic Direction

The Higher Institutions' Centre of Excellence or HICoE is an initiative mooted by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia in 2008 with the aim of recognising centres of excellence from various public universities so that they can spearhead their niche research agenda to higher international levels.  The six HICoEs recognized during the 2009 evaluation and their respective niche are namely (i) UM Centre of Research for Power Electronics, Drives, Automation & Control (UMPEDAC) - Renewable Energy; (ii) UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI) - Cancer Biomarkers; (iii) USM Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine (INFORMM) - Diagnostics Platforms; (iv) UPM Institute of Bioscience (IBS) - Animal Vaccines and Therapeutic; (v) USM Centre for Drug Research (CDR) - Behavioural Research in Addiction and UiTM Accounting Research Institute (ARI) - Islamic Financial Criminology.  Recently, all six HICoEs were called by the Ministry of Higher Education to present their strategic planning and strategic action towards becoming global reference centres within the next three years.  ARI presented its four research clusters namely (i) Islamic-based  Business Model  in Enhancing Good Governance and Wealth Creation, (ii) Corporate Integrity, Ethics and Risk Management, (iii) Anti-Money Laundering Mechanisms to Mitigate Financial Leakages and (iv) Methodologies in Financial Fraud Detection and Prevention. ARI's research in Islamic Financial Criminology has gained prominence globally as evidenced by it winning the Global Islamic Finance Awards (GIFA) for two consecutive years in 2014 & 2015.