Thirty years of Accounting & Finance Review: past, present, dreams for the future

Abstract

The MSc in Accounting of the School of Economics, Business Administration, and Accounting (Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade – FEA USP), a pioneer in Brazil, was created and began to operate in 1970, after a major reform in the structure of the University of São Paulo (Universidade de São Paulo –USP). José da Costa Boucinhas was the head of our department. Some years later, the course was renamed as MSc in Accounting and Controllership, at the initiative of the then coordinator Stephen Charles Kanitz, who planned to change it, a few years later, to MSc in Controllership and Accounting. Was it a matter of status? In that case, it has worked! The Ph.D. in Accounting began in 1978 – then, there was not another MSc program in the area in the country, yet. New MSc programs only emerged in other Brazilian institutions in the 1980s, also encouraged and supported by the Department of Accounting and Actuarial Science (Departamento de Contabilidade e Atuária – EAC) of the FEA USP and the Foundation Institute for Accounting, Actuarial Science, and Financial Research (Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Contábeis, Atuariais e Financeiras – FIPECAFI) – such as that of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo – PUC-SP) and that of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (Fundação Getulio Vargas – FGV) in Rio de Janeiro (later transferred to the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro – Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UERJ). At the time, the authors of this Editorial were head of department (Sérgio de Iudicibus) and coordinator of the program (Eliseu Martins), with Antonio Peres Rodrigues Filho presiding the FIPECAFI (which had been created at his initiative, in 1974). No one asks how a Ph.D. program was created already having Ph.D. holders? Doctors coming from where, if this 1978 Ph.D. program was the first in Brazil? To understand this, we need to know that before 1970 the Ph.D. studies were directly offered by the university unit’s congregation (the FEA, in this case) and the subjects were addressed individually and directly along with the professors; there was no ‘course’ or classrooms, but a rather lonely ‘Ph.D. thesis process;’ sometimes, only advisors looked at it. Thus, before the Ph.D. course was created, the authors of this Editorial and many other colleagues were already Ph.D. holders, educated under the old regime. Our MSc and Ph.D. program participated, despite its area is Accounting, in the creation of the National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Administration (Associação Nacional de PósGraduação e Pesquisa em Administração – ANPAD). First, because it was the only course in Accounting in the country; and, second, because our coordinator was Stephen Kanitz, always innovative. With this, we managed not to feel so lonely and gained much experience. In 2006 the National Association of Graduate Programs in Accounting (ANPCONT) was founded with 13 Accounting Graduated Programs.