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Professor Suki Sian

Suki

Professor of Accounting

Email: s.sian@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 5614
Room Number: Room 4.13d, Francis Bancroft Building, Mile End Campus

Profile

Roles:

Biography:

Suki joined the School of Business and Management at QMUL having trained as an auditor and qualified as a Chartered Accountant. She completed her MSc at the London School of Economics and has a PhD in Accountancy from the University of Aberdeen. She is currently the Director of the Accounting & Accountability Research Group (AARG). She serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals including: Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal; Accounting History and Critical Perspectives on Accounting. 

Teaching

Postgraduate:

  • BUSM143: Research Methods for Accounting

 

She is a Senior Fellow of the HEA.

Research

Research Interests:

Professor Sian’s work is themed around exclusion from and marginalisation within the accounting profession. She has undertaken historical studies on race and class-based exclusion from the accounting profession and contemporary studies on gender-based marginalisation within the profession and discontinuous careers in accountancy. She is the joint-editor of Accountancy and Empire: The Legacy of British Professional Organisation (Routledge). More recently, Professor Sian has been studying changes in the audit model arising from enforced homeworking with a particular focus on how this impacts on gender equality.  She has also lead two international focus studies on financial reporting by SMEs commissioned by IFAC and UNCTAD. Her work utilises qualitative methods to gather data, including archival and documentary analysis, interviews, oral history, ethnography and focus groups.

Centre and Group Membership:

 

Publications

  • Sian, S. (2022) Client-facing work and homeworking:  The case of auditors In Research Handbook on Inequality and Work (Editors: C. Forson; G. Healy; M. Özturk; A. Tatli). Part Three – Change and Inequalities. Elgar Publishing
  • Sian, S. (2022) Remote Audit: The challenges of re-creating the audit room during the Covid 19 pandemic. Accounting Forum - https://doi.org/10.1080/01559982.2022.2151963
  • Sian, S. (2021) Off-ramps and On-ramps: Career continuity and discontinuity in professional accountancy. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, p.102410 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102410
  • Sian, S. and Smyth, S. (2021) Supreme emergencies and public accountability: The case of procurement in the UK during the Covid19 pandemic. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 35 (1): 146-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-08-2020-4860
  • Sian, S. and Verma, S. (2020). Bridging the divide: The rise of the Indian accountant from 1900 to 1932.The British Accounting Review, 53(2), p.100875.
  • Sian, S.; Wright, T.; Agrizzi, D. and Alsalloom, A. (2020). Negotiating gender constraints in international audit firms in Saudi Arabia: Exploring the interaction of gender and religion. Accounting, Organisations and Society (forthcoming)
  • Sian, S. and Verma, S. (2019). Bridging the divide: The rise of the Indian accountant from 1900 to 1932. British Accounting Review (forthcoming)
  • Sian, S. and Magli, F. (2019). Enacting accountability: The case of the Asili di Carità, 1913 – 1926. Accounting History, 25 (2): 237-260
  • Sian S. with Agrizzi D. (2014). Sian, S. with Agrissi D. (2015). Artificial corporatism: A portal to power for accountants in Brazil. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 27: 56–72
  • Sian, S. with Kotb, A. and Roberts, C (2012). E-business audit: Market opportunity or occupational invasion? Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 23 (6): 468-482.
  • Sian, S. (2011). Operationalising closure in a colonial context: The Association of Accountants in East Africa, 1949-1963. Accounting, Organisations and Society, 36 (6): 363-381.
  • Sian, S. with Poullaos, C. (2010). Accountancy and Empire: The British Legacy of Professional Organization, Routledge (New Works in Accounting History v. 10), Oxon, UK. ISBN 978-0-415-45771-2.
  • Sian, S. and Poullaos, C. (2010). Accountancy and Empire: Setting the Stage (Chapter 1) in Poullaos and S.Sian (eds), Accountancy and Empire: The British legacy of professional organisation. Routledge New Works in Accounting History.
  • Sian, S. (2010). Between the lines: The professionalisation of accountancy in Kenya in C.Poullaos and S.Sian (eds), Accountancy and Empire: The British legacy of professional organisation. Routledge New Works in Accounting History
  • Poullaos, C. and Sian, S. (2010). Accountancy and Empire: Connexions, Patterns and Suggesions (Chapter 11) in C.Poullaos and S.Sian (eds), Accountancy and Empire: The British legacy of professional organisation. Routledge New Works in Accounting History.
  • Sian, S. and Roberts, C. (2009). UK small owner-managed businesses: Accounting and financial reporting needs. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 16(2): 289-305.
  • Sian, S. and Roberts, C. (2008). Micro-Entity Financial Reporting: Some Empirical Evidence on the Perspectives of Preparers and Users. IFAC Consultation Paper, January 2008, ISBN 978-1-934779-02-6.
  • Sian, S. (2008). Review: The Accounting Profession in British West Africa by Chibuike Uche. Accounting Business and Financial History, 18 (3): 380-383.
  • Sian, S. (2007). Patterns of prejudice: Social exclusion and racial demarcation in professional accountancy in Kenya. Accounting Historians Journal, (34 : 2) pp. 1-42
  • Sian, S. (2007). Reversing exclusion: The Africanisation of accountancy in Kenya, 1963-1970. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, (19), p.831-872.
  • Sian, S. and Roberts, C. (2006). Micro-entity financial reporting: Perspectives of preparers and users. IFAC Consultation Paper, December 2006, ISBN 1-931949-63-8.
  • Sian, S. (2006). Inclusion, exclusion and control: The case of the Kenyan accounting professionalisation project. Accounting, Organisations and Society (31), p.295-322.

Supervision

Areas of Supervision Expertise:

Supervision topics: 

  • Professionalisation 
  • Accounting History 
  • Gender Equality in Accountancy 
  • Financial reporting for SMEs
  • International accounting 

Current Doctoral Students:

1st Supervisor

  • Adesola Akomolafe, 'Maternal body taboo and the culture of silence in accounting firms.'
  • Anne Gichuru-Ogweno, 'Gender, race and ethnicity inequalities in accountancy: The experiences of women accountants in Kenya.'
  • Renu Gupta, 'Professional women and career breaks.' 
  • Aigerin Umbetbayeva: 'Financial reporting framework in a developing world: opportunities and challenges of IFRS adoption in Kazakhstan.'

 

 

Public Engagement

 

 

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