Academic Research Paper Presentation:
This event was interesting to see the types of research topics professors from various universities were working on. I particularly enjoyed the topic of Accounting by Management Intent; The Freddie and Fannie Experience by Dr. Rashad Abdel-Khalik. His point regarding fair value presentation of assets on the balance sheet was really relevant in representing firms.
I also thought that the paper on Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in the Listed Companies of Sri Lanka: A Survey Study by Dr. Susith Fernando was also a very stimulating. I would definitely like to see more research on corporate responsibility particularly with listed companies in developing countries like China or Mexico.
Overall the presentation on professor’s research help stimulate some ideas for our capstone research projects and I also think was a good experience to see what kind of experience students may encounter for that required course. However, the last few presentations seemed to be constantly interrupted by questions and it appeared as though people were not adhering to saving their questions until the end of each researcher’s presentation. So it seemed, as the presentation of each paper was not flowing as smoothly as the earlier presentations.
Additionally hearing the various opinions of professors was very enlightening. They had such insightful observations on the research papers as well as topics such as IFRS convergence. I do feel that the research was very detailed and it was difficult to follow a lot of the models and regression statistics/equations. I think if we had been familiar with such tools in research it would have helped students understand the presentations a lot more.

CCRG:
The Corporate Reporting and Governance presentations were much easier to comprehend than the research paper presentations, mainly because most of the topics were overviews. They were not nearly as in depth perspectives of the topics like the previous night. Additionally, the fact that there was an absence of regression models and equations made it easier for students to comprehend a higher volume of the presentations than the previous evening. I found the Emerging Tax Issues presentation surprisingly thought provoking. One of the presenters mentioned the establishment of VAT, value added tax consumption tax that he felt would alleviate some of the fiscal financial problems of the nation. However, both major political parties currently seem to oppose of such implementation, especially since citizens already consider a sales tax rather excessive already adding a VAT would really stir up a lot of disagreement with the nation. The Hot Topics presentation was also very attention grabbing, particularly the leases section. I was aware of the change of lease terms (operating to capital), but was unaware of issues like transitioning of all current leases as well as how it would actually impact ratios and debt. Overall it was a really well organized event filled with a lot of information regarding accounting issues.