Kurt Gee and Dr. Jeffrey Wilks, School of Accountancy
This project gave me a wonderful opportunity to experience the research process first-hand. The purpose of our study was to assess how investors in corporations respond to oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the corporations’ accounting and disclosure practices.
Professor Wilks and I worked with another professor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to analyze stock market data and records of SEC scrutiny of companies. We found preliminary results shedding evidence into the causes of the scrutiny. I presented these preliminary results at the 2011 BYU Accounting Research Symposium.
From the conference, we decided to focus our efforts on the effect the scrutiny has on investors and managers. Unfortunately, despite many compelling theories, we found no results. The biggest challenge with our question is the difficulty of separating targeted, important scrutiny from routine scrutiny. Investors and managers are likely affected by targeted scrutiny, but not routine scrutiny. Due to our data limitations, we ultimately abandoned the project.
Despite lack of results, I gained valuable experience in conducting research. I learned the process of proposing hypotheses and testing those hypotheses in order to approach truth. Professor Wilks is an outstanding mentor who has inspired me to expand my mind and to be open to all kinds of rigorous research.
With another faculty member, I was ultimately able to work on a separate project that did find results, and we are submitting those results to an academic journal.
Thank you for your support of undergraduate research. I will pursue a Ph.D. in Accounting in the Fall of 2013 because of my experiences.