The International Workshop on Accounting for Cooperatives took place from 29-30 September, 2011. The workshop was organized by the Center for Research in Business Management (CEGEA) with the purpose of promoting research on accounting for cooperatives, as well as serving as a meeting point between academics and accounting professionals.
The program included three types of events, conferences, a round table and the presentation of papers.
The opening conference, entitled “Theoretical foundations of accounting standards, conceptual framework and accounting research. Concerns for cooperative entities” was given by Geoffrey Whittington, Emeritus Professor of Financial Accounting at University of Cambridge (UK), Member of the Accounting Standards Board (UK) and former member of IASB.
At the round table “Academic and professional associations in cooperative accounting. Roles and perspectives” representatives of the main associations on accounting for cooperatives met for the first time. The participants were Tim Harwood Member of the Co-operative Performance Committee (UK), Daphne Rixon, Executive Director of the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Cooperatives, CEARC (Canada), Fernando Polo, Coordinator of the Co-operative Accounting Committee of the Spanish Association on Accounting and Business Administration, AECA (Spain), Russell D. Wasson, President of the National Society of Accountants for Cooperatives, NSAC (USA) and Michele Andreaus, Head of the Research Group on Social Accounting in Cooperatives (University of Trento, Italy) and member of the steering committee and of the scientific board of the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises (EURICSE). Therefore, this allowed a better mutual understanding of their features.
Regarding the presentation of papers, delegates from Germany, Canada, Spain, Ethiopia, Finland, Italy, Turkey and United Kingdom presented as many as 22 papers.
Finally, Yuri Biondi, research fellow of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and Chair of the Financial Accounting Standards Committee of the American Accounting Association; gave the closing conference “Accounting and the Theory of the Firm as an Entity Implications for Cooperative Entities”.
See more information at http://www.cegea.upv.es/workshop-coop/
