American
Accounting Association
AI/ET Section
Business Meeting
Minutes
Chairperson Stewart Leech opened the meeting at 7:15 A.M..
Chairperson Leech reported on the prior year’s activities. He expressed thanks for the work performed on the proposed Section By-Laws changes compiled by Severin Grabski, for the revised and improved the Section Web Site developed by Alexander Kogan, and to Bonnie Morris for the improved content in, and the timely publication of the Section Newsletter. Chairperson Leech reported on discussions with the Information Systems (IS) Section for holding a joint Mid-Year meeting, and that the AI/ET Section was waiting to hear back from the IS Section. He indicated that the AI/ET Workshop held immediately prior to the Annual Meeting provides many of the same benefits as a Mid-Year meeting, and reported that 24 papers were presented at this year’s workshop. Chairperson Leech reported that the Section Journal (Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting) is in business and has manuscripts are going through the review process. Chairperson Leech reported on the Section membership drive. E-mails were sent to all members of the AAA and he expressed hope that this would result in increased membership. He also reported that not much was accomplished in developing and strengthening links with other organizations. Finally, Chairperson Leech reported that the Section has provided support to Ph.D. students. The Section waives the registration fee for doctoral students for the Workshop, and the Section also presents an Outstanding Dissertation Award.
Chairperson Leech then turned the meeting over to incoming Chairperson Amelia Baldwin.
Chairperson Baldwin then called for the Treasurer’s Report. James Hall submitted the Treasurer’s Report that was presented by Stewart Leech. The Section had inflows of approximately $8,000, outflows of about $2,500, and estimated Journal costs of $6,000. The cash balance, as of July 31 is $37,352.65.
The Section elections were conducted. Alexander Kogan was elected Chairperson-Elect, Bonnie Morris was elected Vice-Chairperson, and Severin Grabski was elected Secretary/Treasurer.
Chairperson Baldwin then presented an award to Stewart Leech, recognizing his contributions to the AI/ET section and his leadership as Section Chairperson.
The AI/ET Section 2001-2002 Outstanding Educator Award was presented to L. Murphy Smith by Alan Sangster. Ram. S. Sriram was presented the AI/ET Section 2001-2002 Outstanding Researcher Award by Alan Sangster. Alan thanked all those involved in the Outstanding Educator and Outstanding Researcher award selection process.
Margaret Garnsey was presented with the AI/ET Section 2002 Outstanding Dissertation Award, for her dissertation “Classification of Financial Accounting Concepts Through the Use of Latent Semantic Indexing and Clustering Techniques” by Raj Srivastava. Raj expressed his thanks to the Outstanding Dissertation Award Committee comprised of Peter Gillette and Marilyn Greenstein.
Stewart Leech presented a special Distinguished Service Award to Marilyn Greenstein for her outstanding contributions to the establishment for the Section Journal.
Carol Brown reported on the 2002 AI/ET Section Workshop. The workshop was very successful. Approximately 60 participants attended the workshop, and the collected abstracts of 24 papers totaled 174 pages.
Miklos Vasarhelyi provided the Editor’s Report for the Section Journal, Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting. He expects the inaugural issue to go to print at the end of the year. He also reminded everyone that they should submit their manuscripts to him.
Severin Grabski presented the proposed By-Law changes. After discussion, the proposed By-Laws were adopted after the inclusion of a variety of minor, primarily editorial changes.
Chairperson Amelia Baldwin presented her plans for the coming year. These include liaisoning with other organizations, a continued focus on the Section journal, and the continuous auditing meeting. The meeting was then opened to the floor for discussion and any new business. Jim Hunton, Chairperson of the IS Section suggested the possibility for the IS and AI/ET Sections to have some type of joint mid-year meeting in 2004. Marilyn Greenstein suggested a Notable Contribution to the AI/ET Literature Award. Roger Debreceny brought up two different items. The first dealt with journal issues, he expressed the desire that the journal articles would be made available to the various electronic databases. The second related to XBRL. There are academic streams in the XBRL meetings (to be held this year in Tokyo and Dublin). There is also a student XBRL competition and discounted academic membership in the XBRL group.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:19 A.M.
Respectfully Submitted,
Severin Grabski
Secretary/Treasurer