Business professor launches corporate reporting study

Business professor launches corporate reporting study

Madison, Wis.Lori Holder-Webb, an assistant professor of accounting and information systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, is part of a four-person research team recently awarded a grant to research corporate reporting.
The NASD Investor Education Foundation recently awarded more than $295,000 to Holder-Webb, David Wood and Jeffrey Cohen, both of the School of Management of Boston College, and Leda Nath of the sociology department at UW-Whitewater.
The team will explore corporate reporting of social, industry cohort and governance information – in other words, how non-financial performance measures are reported – in an effort to determine the extent to which investors value this information.
“Congress, the SEC, the professional oversight boards – these regulatory bodies are struggling with preserving the integrity of the capital markets in the wake of numerous scandals stemming from reporting failures,” Holder-Webb said. “In particular, they are responding to a dramatic rise in demand for information about public companies.”
“We will be able to provide useful information to inform the processes rather than simply reflecting on the adequacy of rules that have already been passed,” she said.

From UW-Madison Communications