Teaching

Though taking multiple courses as the teaching role in a department, I am always making efforts to weaken the boundary among different courses, e.g. financial accounting, management accounting and corporate finance. It is interesting nowadays that people are building up very clear boundaries between different areas, especially for the field of financial and management accounting, they are indeed overlapped gradually as quite a few concepts and instruments are adopted universally and are widely accepted in both sides.

My course takes the demand of information as the principle for my courses. In management accounting, I start with an introduction (or review) of accounting information demands as well as qualities, which are commonly discussed in the course of financial accounting. It will then continue with a discussion on specified demands of accounting information for insiders, for pricing decisions and for evaluation purpose, which can hardly be satisfied with a formatted report, and where the demand of management accounting sits on.

My philosophy about universal accounting is also reflected in the course of financial analysis, which aims at providing students a framework of fundamental analysis, where both financial and non-financial information are considered. Besides common issues that are solved in the course, e.g. ratio analysis, accounting choices, the course also cares about the linkage of internal decision-making and its externally measured performance. Such linkage puts the knowledge of management accounting, where a series of measurement that optimizes the firm operation is discussed, that of corporate finance, where financing and investment activities of a firm is referred to, and that of financial accounting, where a benchmark of accounting-based performance is provided.

In addition, the era of technology development with the popularity of big data analytics and of artificial intelligence also calls for a refocus on management accounting in all aspects. Given that simply repeated works, including book-keeping, preparing of financial reports, and even conventional analysis, can be settled by machine, it requires an adjustment on both the focus and the scope of teaching in accounting toward innovative work, where management accounting plays important roles. The understanding was shared when I had been invited as a keynote speaker at the annual congress of the Asia-pacific region for Kreston International Association, a cross-country accounting firm association headquartered in the United Kingdom. And that also explains why I am seeking for an academic member of CIMA and why that I involve quite a few management accounting knowledge into other courses that I am teaching.

Currrent Teaching

  • Present2017

    Introduction to Management Accounting

    The course is designed to introduce fundamental knowledge of management accounting to 2nd year students with 3 (for non-accounting students) and 4 (for accounting students) credits respectively, which starts with an introduction to the vital roles that cost information can play in financial reporting system and in internal performance evaluation and decision-making process. It is then continued with cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis and with cost classification. In the section of short- and long-term decision-making process, the course will refer to pricing decisions (cost-plus strategy for example) and performance evaluation (EVA). In the third part of the course, it will talk about the budgeting system, including master, flexible and capital budgets. All lectures will be based on real case studies and recent academic works.

  • Present2017

    Financial Statement Analysis and Security Valuation

    The course intends to enhance the students’ understanding of decision-usefulness of accounting numbers by telling them how accounting numbers can be used to reflect the true value of a firm. The core principle of the course is to ensure that investors are not paying too much for ‘growth’, which is common nowadays when coming across high-tech industries. In details, the course will take into three sections. In the first section, students will be introduced the fundamentals of valuation techniques as well as the differences among them. These technologies include discounted dividend model (DDM), discounted cash flow model (DCFM), residual income model (RIM) and abnormal earnings growth model (AEGM). Then, in second part of the course, it will tell students how and why financial statements (GAAP-based) should be re-structed in a way that operational and financing activities are separated. In a final part, the techniques in the first section and restructuring skills in section 2 will be linked up to form a right framework of fundamental analysis, a way that investigates the target firm with valuation purposes in all aspects. Students who successfully pass the final exams will be granted 3 credits. All the lectures and assignments are based on real cases internationally.

  • Present2017

    Introduction to Contemporary Accounting Research

    The course plays an introductory role in series of courses that are designed to provide full training in academic research for master’s student in accounting in research branch. The course is lectured based on a series of important papers in accounting research that investigates the market reactions of accounting numbers, earnings management, value relevance, investor protection, etc. By going through all these papers in technical details and by extended discussions in class, students are gradually prepared for their own research with fundamental knowledge. Papers that are presented and discussed in class were picked up by lecture with the purpose of covering most mainstream areas of accounting. Both financial accounting and management accounting are covered in the course.

  • Present2016

    Corporate Finance

    The course is designed to cover both fundamental concepts of corporate finance and a series of advanced topics to respond to the diversified background of students in the program. Fundamental concepts section reviews the concept of time value, the pricing of bond, ordinary shares, preference shares, the definition and application of CAPM, investment portfolio and dividend policy. In the second part, the course sets up a series of topics including corporate governance, IPO packaging, Oversea listing, Venture Capital, etc. Students are required to read through all necessary material and are encouraged to collect their own before class, and in-class discussions are cautiously organized and conducted. Students who successfully passed the course will be granted 3 credits.

Teaching History

  • 20172016

    Taxation in UK (ACCA, F6)

    The course is part of ACCA qualification program and is labeled as F6, which refers to the Taxation issue in United Kingdom. The course is in compliance with the qualification requirement but is not limited to the official exams only. The course, given its fundamental level, generally talks about Income Tax, Corporate Tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Heritage Tax. There is also a reading list that includes articles published in numerous financial media, which works as a supplemental to the main text. Students are entitled to the final exams on campus and are encouraged to take the official ACCA F6 exams at their own discretions. Students who pass the final exams will be granted 4 credits.