Accounting and Finance
The Department is responsible for accounting and finance teaching at all academic levels, providing teaching on certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
Not surprisingly, given the professional community from which its members are drawn, it is the most homogeneous of all the departments in terms of the functional areas in which the members specialise - both in teaching and research. The Department conducts pioneering qualitative and quantitative research in a range of areas including equality, diversity, inclusion and social justice in different contexts, sustainability and ethics in accounting and finance, accounting, business and financial history, corporate governance, corporate financing and regulatory issues.
Research focus
Staff members are interested in various areas of accounting and finance undertaking research with an interdisciplinary perspective and employing a range of different methodological approaches. These areas include equality, diversity and inclusion within professions, sustainability within the chocolate industry, the circular economy, modern slavery and child labour, fraud, governance and accountability, the public interest in accounting, UN sustainable development goals, gender and financial history, professionalisation of accounting in different environments, asset pricing, corporate finance, institutional investors, and financial markets.
The Department has strengths in both qualitative and quantitative research methods including interview based research, historical research and quantitative research using a range of econometric/statistical techniques.
Centre for Public Understanding of Finance, Institutions and Networks (PUFIN)
Launched in 2013, this unique centre of research excellence focuses on financial education and its impact, consumer behaviours relating to savings, debt and spending and investment choices and decisions. The Centre of Public Understanding of Finance, Institutions and Networks (PUFIN) seeks to lead and engage in events that will enable the public to interact with both academics and practitioners in order to increase their awareness of some of the major contemporary challenges and how these may impact their financial decisions. It seeks to develop a multi-disciplinary research agenda that will enable members of the centre develop research ideas pertaining to decision-making by individuals within a highly connected world. The Centre also seeks to engage with organisations (e.g. charities) and policymakers, where possible, in order to understand and influence mechanisms and/or systems that support people’s financial decisions.
History and Political Economy of Business and Finance (HYPE)
Established in 2020, the History and Political Economy (HYPE) of Business and Finance is a research cluster bringing together scholars who aim at developing a critical approach to business and financial theory. HYPE puts forward an interdisciplinary research agenda using insights from the perspective of political economy (i.e. an interdisciplinary approach to the relations among individuals, governments, and public policy) and history. The cluster aims at providing a critical understanding of the main contemporary issues and challenges facing business and society, such as rising inequalities, and the financial and environmental fragilities. HYPE also works to establishing communication links, dialogue, and knowledge exchange between academics, businesses, and policy makers.
Academic Publications
Our most recent publications are shown below. Full details of our research publications can be found on Open Research Online and via our staff pages.
Contact the Department for Accounting and Finance
For all department-related enquiries, please email us.
Teaching
Teaching responsibilities include contributions to:
OpenLearn and Legal & General make retirement planning easy
Created in partnership with Legal & General and written by Martin Upton, Senior Lecturer in Finance at the Business School, a new course sets out the series of stepping-stones to a financially secure retirement.
OU’s OpenLearn joins forces with Money Saving Expert to launch its Academy of Money
The Open University has partnered with the UK’s biggest consumer website, MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE) to launch a free, six-part course, which will give the nation the skills and knowledge to master their finances.
Understanding mortgages with OUBS and MoneySavingExpert on OpenLearn
A new free course, Understanding mortgages, has been produced by The Open University Business School in collaboration with the hugely popular MoneySavingExpert (MSE). The course, the first of six due to be made available over the coming months, recently launched on the OpenLearn digital platform.
Money talks – Inside the Bank of England
It has been a tumultuous year Inside the Bank of England as a new OU/BBC collaboration is sure to demonstrate.
One in five parents suffer from arithmophobia
Research reveals that despite 84% of parents admitting that maths is the most important school subject to help in everyday life, almost a third couldn’t help their children with maths homework beyond the age of nine.
Webinar recording: Fraud Prevention & Detection: The Impact of Corporate Governance, Internal Controls and Culture
The webinar takes you beyond the headlines, looks past the standard internal controls, and grapples with why fraud is still able to be so prolific in a modern society with all the latest tools and technology to prevent such occurrences.
What role could financial services play in increasing social mobility?
Liz Moody, Jerome Monne and Professor Janette Rutterford co-author a white paper which highlights how many financial services products, policies and practices currently work against social mobility for disadvantaged and vulnerable people in the UK and beyond.
Stock market crashes linked to higher rates of suicide – new research
Tomasz Piotr Wisniewski, Professor of Finance, The Open University Business School, co-authors an article about research into the correlation between stock market crashes and rates of suicide.
FutureLearn course launch will continue helping young adults with their personal finance
True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance (True Potential PUFin), a centre of excellence for personal finance in The Open University Business School (OUBS) is launching its Managing My Money for Young Adults free online course on FutureLearn on Monday 24 September.
True Potential PUFin assists Commons report on household finances
The True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance (True Potential PUFin) supplied written evidence for a hard-hitting report from the House of Commons Treasury Committee on the vulnerable state of UK household finances.
News
The impact of Covid-19 on staff in UK higher education
A research project, funded internally by The Open University, explored how the pandemic impacted academic and professional staff in higher education throughout the UK.
- The impact of Covid-19 on staff in UK higher education
- Cost-of-living crisis – greatest challenge for 40 years says academic
- The Impact of Covid-19 on Staff in UK Higher Education
- New OU / BBC co-production The Bottom Line is back
- Take control of your finances, your career and your health with a Midlife MOT
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