In desperate need of an accountancy thesis topic!

8008s

Hi everybody

Ive spent the last few months pulling my hair out trying to think of an accountancy thesis topic. Every idea that I think of seems to be impossible to achieve,requiring access to the big 4 etc etc..i'm just looking for a manageable topic that i can do my thesis on but its proving impossible....would really like to do something in the area of tax if possible but open to any suggestions!!

Would really appreciate ANY help!!

Cheers!

Kingkong

correlation between companies changing auditors and financial statements

Or

A literature review of the Irish Banking Sector

8008s

cheers for that king kong....will certainly look in 2 it...keeps the suggestions coming every1!!

Cookie_Monster

How none of the big 4 managed to catch any of the dodgy dealing by multiple Irish companies they were supposed to have been auditing over the last 10 years.

SoulTrader

How about the global trend towards IFRS? Lots of material there I would imagine and it would really help your learning.

Or, if tax is your thing, how about looking at the various methods of raising tax revenues. Not sure if there would be enough material there for a thesis though.

8008s

Really appreciate all the replies I'm getting..definitely pointing me in the right direction...don't know how manageable they will be though...some of the above seem pretty complicated to conduct without some serious contacts....thanks again for the suggestions...really helping me get my mind going...more suggestions would be great!!

smallerthanyou

With all the companies going under/administration/receivership you could do something like getting their latest filed accounts and running some tests/ratios to see were there indicators that this would happen. I'd say you would be able to get literature on it too. Dunno how big you would need of a sample but say 20 was ok then you get the accounts from the CRO at about 3e a go. I would be really interested in reading something like that!

Good luck with it but pick something that interests you cos the summer I spent doing mine on something I had no interest in was loooonnngggg. You can pick nearly anything you like and relate it back. Dunno what your interests are but if it was football maybe it is possible to get the accounts of football clubs and you could run tests to see if there is a correlation between stuff on the accounts to the performance of the team. Or if it's charity work something on charity accounts. I don't know if they have accounts but there might be something. Take time to sit down and think about what interests you cos take it from me no point doing something for the sake of it! It breaks your spirit!!

hivizman

I assume that you are doing a Master's degree so you need to write a dissertation of around 15,000 words based on your own research. You need to clarify what sorts of dissertation are likely to gain the highest marks - do your teachers expect you to obtain mainly quantitative data and analyse it using statistical techniques, are they open to a dissertation based mainly on qualitative data, or will they accept a critical analysis (largely literature-based) of some issue in accounting? It's not a good idea to do a mainly literature-based case study of a recent accounting scandal, for example, if your teachers really prefer large sample studies of accounting and share price data.

A useful starting point is to find out what your accounting faculty themselves research, as this will give you an idea of preferred research methods and areas. Students are often assigned dissertation advisers or supervisors based on their chosen research topics or research methods, so it's worth researching which teachers have the reputation of being "good" supervisors (willing to give critical advice and assistance rather than leaving most of the work up to you) and seeing if any of their specific research interests are likely to overlap with things you'd like to study.

You will have your own strengths, and it's always a good idea to choose a dissertation topic that builds on these strengths. As others have correctly noted, a topic that deals with something that you are already interested in from an accounting angle will almost certainly lead to a better dissertation than something you are not really interested in.

Tax is quite an under-researched area, but it's tricky in that a lot of tax research is done under the heading "revenue law" and another lot under the heading "public finance" (by economists). There's an organisation called the Tax Research Network (follow the link!), which holds an annual conference - the lists of papers presented at previous conferences are available on its website and these may prompt some ideas.

Another possible source of ideas is to look at recent issues of academic accounting journals, as finding a recent academic paper that interests you could inspire a similar study on different data. Many master's dissertations are basically "replication" studies where the student takes a published research study and repeats it - often with some changes - in a different country or in a different period. The advantage of this is that you can be confident, from the fact that the paper has been published, that the research approach is sound, and you can also draw on the literature review of the previous author(s), but the disadvantage is that some teachers don't particularly rate obvious replication studies - so you may need to provide some "added value" beyond merely using a different data set, for example a new variable, or a critical discussion of why replicating the research on say Irish data might be expected to give similar, or perhaps different, results from the original research.

To sum up, choose an area that you enjoy, make sure that your research approach is not going to be marked down by your teachers, and check that you can get any data or other material quickly and easily. Good luck!

MrMatisse

Something around provisions would be very topical. Such as rate of increase in provisions in big 4 audited firms and firms in the same industry audited by top 10 firms. Could raise some interesting points

8008s

Thanks everybody for the continued advice...some really interesting ideas being suggested....

Irish Slaves for Europe

hivizman wrote: »

There's an organisation called the Tax Research Network (follow the link!), which holds an annual conference - the lists of papers presented at previous conferences are available on its website and these may prompt some ideas.

I went to the website and clicked publications but nothing showed up, do you have to be a member to view research papers?

hivizman

Irish Slaves for Europe wrote: »

I went to the website and clicked publications but nothing showed up, do you have to be a member to view research papers?

Click Conferences and Events on the home page. Then click Past Conferences. This gives a list of the last four conferences. In two cases, you can get the conference programmes, and in the other two cases you can get the abstracts of papers as well. The full text of papers is not available, but (a) the titles may prompt ideas, and (b) some of the papers may be available online through the authors' personal websites and/or their institutions' websites.

skmck

I completed my masters in accountancy two years back & had to do a thesis. So hard to think of a topic but i ended up doing it on 'The reliance of external auditors on the internal audit function'.
There is so much literature out there on this subject & it was actually quite interesting. I conducted a couple of interviews with members of internal audit functions of listed companies to see what their thoughts were on the reliance placed on them & then I did an online questionnaire throgh surkeymonkey & emailed it to external audit partners of large audit firms to see what their perception of internal audit work was. It was good to get the viewpoint of both sides - I was told that looking at the subject from both perspectives got me my distinction!
If your looking for an interesting topic, Id go with something along these lines!
Hope that helps - your thesis really will take over your life for the next few months!!

jgrif

Hi...I was just browsing for ideas on accountancy topics and I have submitted my research proposal b4 xmas. To conduct the dissertation I now have to contact companies with Internal Audit Departments. It takes a different slant as it focus on the effects of the downturn on internal audit. I was wondering if you would mind passing on details of companies you conducted the interviews with. I find it virtually impossible to begin to identify companies with such departments.

i hope you dont mind me asking.....
thanks