Wai Fong Chua

Biography

Professor Wai Fong Chua AM re-joined Sydney University in 2016. Prior to this she held several senior administrative positions in Australian higher education while continuing to pursue an active research career. Professor Chua holds a first class honours degree and a PhD from Sheffield University. Professor Chua is internationally known for her research on management accounting as a social and organizational practice and the use of qualitative fieldwork as an investigative method. She has received substantial competitive research grants and published widely in prestigious, international accounting journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society, The Accounting Review and Contemporary Accounting Research. In addition to serving as a reviewer on the boards of numerous well-known accounting journals, Professor Chua is an Editor of Accounting, Organizations and Society. She has also been involved with research training through professional accounting associations such as CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) and the EIASM (European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management). Further, through Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, Professor Chua has published several research monographs on social and environmental reporting. She has also been involved with executive education and consulted with both private and public sector organisations. In 2012, Professor Chua was recognised for her contributions to research, university administration and mentoring while she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia. In 2009, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland and received the Outstanding Contribution to the Accounting and Finance Literature Award from the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand. Professor Chua was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2008.

Research Interest

Professor Chua’s current research interests focus on the following: The impact of big data and business analytics on organizational control and management accounting practice; The use of immersive technologies by non-government-organisations (NGOs) and charities as an accountability mechanism; The connection between ‘passionate interests’ and accounting in organizations and societies a. Technology penetrates organizational as well as daily life.  At present, there is much talk about how business analytics based on innovative combinations of large, real-time datasets can be used to manage assurance and business risks more effectively. However, there has been little systematic analysis within the accounting domain of the challenges of making these claims a reality.  Together with colleagues from the Business School and at the University of Bristol, Professor Chua’s current research seeks to investigate the impact of local eco-systems of ‘people and machines’ that enable new deployment of assurance and customer analytics.  Emphasis is placed on understanding how particular socio-material arrangements enact the production and use of analytics and to trace their effects. b. Traditionally, NGOs have relied on financial disclosures as a way of discharging their accountability.  As their donor base increasingly changes to a mix of small as well as large government donors and technology enables different ways to give an account, financial statements may no longer be the only or indeed the most effective way to give an account to stakeholders.  In conjunction with other colleagues at the Business School and at Royal Holloway University of London, Professor Chua is researching how accountability mechanisms are changing in contemporary NGOs, particularly those involved in international development. c. Professor Chua was one of the first researchers to research how emotional attachments/interests influence the use and flow of accounting information in organizations.  Currently, she is investigating how public performance rankings such as league tables are influenced by and in turn influence the emotionally charged interests of diverse stakeholders.  She is currently conducting research on professionalised sport organizations.