Accounting lecturer graduates
27 September 2018
Dr Lina Li, a lecturer in Accounting at the Business School, graduated with a PhD this week. Family from Auckland, Tauranga and China joined her to celebrate and watch her accept her degree.
Her thesis examined how an increase in the number of big audit firms in a market affects audit fees and audit quality. She focused on China, where recent mergers created two large local audit firms that rivaled the international ‘big four’ – EY, Deloitte & Touche, KPMG and PwC – in terms of audit revenues.
“The topic fascinates me because it is not something that has been done before,” says Dr Li. “I found that large non-big four audit firms are able to develop brand name reputations and market power through mergers, which lead to more competitive audit pricing and better audit quality provided. These findings provide important implications to regulators who are interested in promoting greater competition in the highly concentrated audit markets around the globe.”
Li, 24, currently lives in the Auckland CBD, but has lived in “almost every part of Auckland to experience the most of the city”.
She says her deep interest in this topic sustained her through the thesis. “The immense amount of encouragement and unwavering support from my friends, family and my academic supervisor Professor Steven Cahan made me never look back on this path my fascination placed me on.”
The PhD stretched her in unexpected ways. “Good academic research in accounting often demands a high level of proficiency in statistics — often much beyond graduate level. To write a quality paper, I had to be motivated and independent to find answers myself on the internet or among my peers — this turned out to be a test not only of my research skill, but also of networking skills.”
She looks forward now to a career in academia. “The most pleasant surprise from doing my thesis was realising the scope and depth of academic research, the unlimited possibilities. It gives me a feeling of freedom, and the comfortable thought that my life as an academic will not be dull — there will always be something new for me to discover.”
For her students, she has these words of encouragement: “The world is always in need of good practitioners and academic researchers in accounting. Learn about the different career options in accounting, if they answer the callings from your heart or get you up every day, there will not be a shred of doubt in your mind that you have made the right choice.”