Dr Rebecca Warren

Biography

I completed my PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London in April 2018. I focused on examining the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) from a political and critical perspective, specifically looking at the development of their International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-Sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs). My research draws on Post-Structuralist Discourse Theory to examine accounting and politics to challenge traditional conceptions of accounting, and explore alternatives through social accounting. Traditionally accounting is presented as apolitical and objective. My research challenges this by exploring the political and subjective nature of accounting and its impact upon society, through the deconstruction of the politics of numbers. As my research is transdisciplinary, I have explored connections of accounting to various other disciplines including public policy, regulation, geography, politics, philosophy and discourse theory through strong empirical, theoretical and methodological research. This has led me to explore the development of alternatives forms of accounting with communities, charities and the arts and cultural sector. The work that I have undertaken in communities has led to a broader exploration of accounting, accountability and regulatory challenges for community leaders, community and cooperative based organisations, alternative economies, arts and cultural organisations and social enterprises. This impactful research sheds light on the work of communities in their many forms and constructs bespoke evaluation for those communities through the development of social accounting and accountability, whilst exploring the impact of the latter in practice. I am the Employability Development Director for Essex Business School. Since joining the University, I have been working to diversify the employability offering of EBS to different sectors in order to broaden the horizon of student’s employability and citizenship development. I work with a variety of types of organizations to do this across the for-profit sector, the third sector, the arts and cultural sector and community groups. For example, I have co-developed a work-based module with Citizens UK that enables students to take social action in and with their local community.

Qualifications

• PhD in Management Royal Holloway, (2018)

Appointments

University of Essex

• Senior Lecturer, University of Essex (3/10/2022 - present)

Other academic

• Employability Development Director, University of Essex (26/9/2022 - present)