Program Description
Tradition | Workshops | Resources
This document will introduce you to the PhD program in accounting at Michigan State University. It describes our philosophy, program requirements, financial assistance, and requirements. We welcome your interest in our doctoral program, and we invite your further inquiry into what we have to offer.
The Doctoral Program in Accounting at Michigan State University is designed to prepare individuals for a career in accounting research and teaching at the university level. The available course work covers a broad range of topics, including accounting, economics, finance, management, mathematics, psychology, and statistics. Doctoral students are expected to be in residence on a full-time basis during the program. Doctoral students are assigned as teaching and/or research assistants. Upon completion of course work, students are required to pass a comprehensive examination in accounting and then complete a dissertation that demonstrates their ability to conduct an original research project. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree is a confirmation that the recipient has demonstrated a high level of scholarship and is able to teach at the university level and to conduct scholarly research independently.
Interested parties can download the doctoral student manual.
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The Accounting PhD Tradition at MSU
Over the years, the Michigan State University Accounting Doctoral Program has made a significant contribution to accounting research and education. The MSU program ranks third in the total number of accounting doctorates granted in the United States. The present goal of the faculty is to maintain a program with approximately 12 full-time, in-residence students. This size program allows for effective faculty-student interrelationships and competitive funding for all students in residence. To support the education of these students, a variety of faculty, financial, and informational resources are available. The informational resources include: direct access to CRSP, COMPUSTAT, execucomp, I/B/E/S and other domestic and international databases accessed through the Wharton WRDS system. Many other research aids are available, including CD-ROM databases, on-line database services, SEC documents of companies traded on the NYSE, AMSE, and NASDAQ, and a number of accounting and tax services such as CCH and RIA.
External indicators of the quality of the Michigan State doctoral program are consistent in suggesting that our program is highly successful. Our graduates have had considerable success in their careers as evidenced by the universities they are employed by and their research publishing records.
Several studies find our graduates to have very successful research publication records. Depending on how research publications are measured, our graduates are ranked from #5 to #22 among graduates of all doctoral programs in accounting. Our graduates are also distinguished by the frequency with which they are members of the Editorial Boards of leading accounting journals, being ranked from #4 to #13, depending on the journals considered. Michigan State accounting doctoral graduates are recognized for the contribution and quality of their dissertations: for example, in management accounting, two recent graduates won the annual dissertation award from the Management Accounting section of the AAA, a recent graduate won the award for the best dissertation in tax accounting from the American Tax Association, another graduate in auditing recently won the Competitive Manuscript award of the American Accounting Association, and a recent graduate won the AAA Auditing Section's Outstanding Contribution to Auditing Literature Award. Finally, the Financial Times rated the Broad College as having the ninth best doctoral program in business administration in 2003 among the top 100 institutions that offer a full-time MBA program. All of these factors demonstrate the quality of both the MSU Doctoral Program and the students it attracts and graduates.
Our graduates are accounting professors at many nationally recognized universities and have earned national recognition for their contributions to the development of accounting research, teaching, and practice. MSU graduates hold distinguished chairs in accounting, are editors of premier research journals, and are authors of some of the largest selling accounting textbooks in the United States. They also hold positions as chairpersons or directors of major accounting departments, deans of business schools, and have significant national accounting policy-making responsibilities. Others occupy important positions in public accounting.
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Research Workshops
An integral part of the doctoral program is the accounting workshop series during the academic year and the summer research workshops. Visiting scholars from major research universities, current MSU faculty, and doctoral students present papers on a regular basis during the school year. For additional information, go to accounting research workshops.
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