Dr. CJ McNair-Connolly is an internationally recognized expert in cost management. She has authored nine trade books on various aspects of the relationship and development of cost management and the new technologies that define modern management practice. She has also authored numerous articles in the academic and practitioner press and has given seminars and speeches on modern management practice in multiple settings and countries. Holding a MBA and PhD from Columbia University, Dr. McNair-Connolly has spent her entire career conducting field research studies, using this knowledge to create new theory in management accounting and control systems. These studies have been done as pure academic exercises and as a form of action research. In doing this work, she has accumulated extensive field experience and knowledge that shapes her writing and theory development. Dr. McNair-Connolly currently is an Honorary Principal Fellow at the University of Wollongong. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Dr. Lidija Polutnik is a professor and Chair of the Economics Division at Babson College in Boston, MA. Dr. Polutnik has done research and consulted in the area of pricing, revenue management, and strategic cost management. Her research in this area is based on the analysis of the relationship between the firm’s costs and customers’ value and the influence of this relationship on the firm’s profit. Dr. Polutnik also conducts research in public finance and is focused on the role institutions play in market economies and specifically in countries in transition. Dr. Polutnik’s work has been published in numerous academic journals and books including The European Accounting Review, Advances in Management Accounting, Journal of Cost Management, Journal of Corporate Accounting and Finance, Industrial Relations Journal, and Comparative Economic Studies Journal. Dr. Polutnik has extensive consulting and executive teaching experience in the United States and in multinational companies in the area of tactical and strategic pricing, customer value analysis, and value creation model. She regularly teaches at the Executive MBA of Alma Graduate School at the University of Bologna, Italy. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Dr. Riccardo Silvi is an associate professor of Management Accounting at the School of Economics, Management and Statistics of the University of Bologna (Italy) and member of the Department of Management of the same university. He is Program Director of the Master in Accounting, Finance and Control and of the Executive MBA at the Alma Graduate School of the University of Bologna. In these programs he teaches strategic financial analysis, management accounting, performance management systems, and strategic cost management.
His research interests focus on management accounting (design of management control systems, performance measurement systems, strategic accounting), analytical business performance management, cost accounting, strategic cost management. Riccardo is affiliated researcher at Center for Performance Research & Analytics (CEPRA) at the University of Augsburg, Germany, and was visiting professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the Georg-August, Göttingen University. He was visiting professor at Babson College (Boston), at the University of Sydney and at the McQuarie Graduate School of Management of Sydney. Riccardo’s work has been published in numerous academic journals and books including the The European Accounting Review, Advances in Management Accounting, Journal of Operation Management, Cost Management, Journal of Intellectual Capital, International, and Journal of Productivity and Performance Management. He has assisted many leading Italian companies in strategic cost and value management programs. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Dr. Ted Watts is an assistant professor in the School of Accounting & Finance at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He has held positions of Associate Head of School and Head of Discipline and has served on the University Academic Senate and the University Education Committee. His teaching experience includes The University of New South Wales, The University of Technology, Sydney, and teaching assignments in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the United States of America.
Ted has published widely, including articles in Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Financial Accountability and Management, Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change,Journal of Cost Management, Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance, JASSA: The Finica Journal of Applied Finance, Australasian Journal of Regional Studies, Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal, International Journal of Critical Accounting, Accounting Forum, Advances in Public Interest Accounting and the Journal of Applied Accounting Research.
His research interests include strategic cost management, capacity management, and value creation. These interests together with his research output and several reach awards have secured him research grants with CPA Australia, the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand and the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia. He can be contacted at [email protected].