Contact:
Email: sazeff@rice.edu
Office

Teaching Areas:
Financial Accounting, International Accounting

Scholarly Areas:
Comparative Hist. Development of Standard-Setting, Financial Accounting, History of Thought

Bio Statement:
Superior Teaching Award Winner, 1985 and 1987

In the world of financial accounting, few academics have worn as many mantles, or won as many awards, as Professor Stephen Zeff.

He is author or editor of 25 books and has written more than 100 articles and comments. He serves on the editorial board of more than 20 research journals edited in ten countries, and he recently completed six years' service as book review editor of The International Journal of Accounting. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley, University of Chicago, Harvard Business School, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas at Austin, and at universities in Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.

For his dedication to teaching and for his research in the area of international accounting, Dr. Zeff received the 1999 Outstanding International Accounting Educator Award by the International Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association. In 2002, he was inducted as the 70th member of the Accounting Hall of Fame, at Ohio State University. A past editor of The Accounting Review and a past president of the American Accounting Association, Dr. Zeff is also active in several European organizations. He is the only non-British member of the academic panel of the Accounting Standards Board of the United Kingdom, and, from 1981 to 2004, he was the only non-European on the executive committee of the European Accounting Association. From 1991 to 2002, he was the International Accounting Adviser for the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, which recognized him as its Honorary Research Fellow in 2003.

Drawing on his extensive fund of knowledge acquired from researching the standard-setting process in eight countries, Zeff imbues his classes with a political perspective that can't be gained from textbooks. "I try very hard to give students a sense of the dynamics by which standards are set," he explains. "It makes the subject live. Students realize that it's not just a cold process by which rational accountants come together and say, 'This is the way it's going to be.'"

Zeff's office door is always open to MBA students, and he is generous in providing job connections through his European and American network. At Rice since 1978, he is proud to be affiliated with the Jones School. "Our students are excellent and well motivated. My colleagues are capable and conscientious: good researchers as well as committed teachers. The administration is enlightened; they not only appreciate quality, but reward it," he said. "It's also a very attractive campus. The university stands for excellence in everything it does."

Research Statement:

My research is concerned with the comparative international history of standard setting for company financial reporting.

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