BRYAN, Texas — RELLIS Business Professors Dr. Katherine Taken Smith and Dr. Murphy Smith along, with Dr. Don Ariail of Kennesaw State, teamed up to win the Research Award for the Best Public Interest Paper from the American Accounting Association Southeast Region. Their paper titled, “Do United States Accountants’ Personal Values Match the Profession’s Values,” received the award at the Southeast Region’s annual meeting held in April 2019 in Savannah, Georgia. The Smiths are two of several business faculty from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, who teach at the RELLIS Campus in Bryan, Texas. At RELLIS, TAMU-CC offers bachelor’s degree programs in Accounting, Finance, Management, and Marketing.
Katherine states, “Our study examines the person-organization fit, also referred to as P-O fit, of accounting leaders, that is, the congruence of their personal values to the organizational values of the accounting profession. Research shows that P-O fit contributes to job performance, job satisfaction, and ethical behavior.”
Murphy notes, “Our findings indicate that the highest ranked personal values are honesty, responsibility, capable, courageous, loving, and independent. For each highly prioritized personal value, we found that there is one or more parallel with the profession’s values, as represented by the American Institute of CPAs ethics code.”
The authors single out the personal value of courageous as key to activation of the other five values. They cite well-known novelist and Christian writer C. S. Lewis. In his famous book, The Screwtape Papers, Lewis described the salient role that the value of courage plays: “. . . Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.”
The authors conclude, “The accounting profession has a lengthy history of contributing to the effectiveness of business activities, the financial markets, and to the economy overall. In those critical roles, high ethical values are of paramount importance. Our study shows that people with the right personal values continue to fill the ranks of the accounting profession.”
Dr. Katherine Smith is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi College of Business. She teaches on the RELLIS Campus. Dr. Smith is a highly published professor with numerous honors and recognitions. Dr. Smith ranks in the top one percent of authors on Social Sciences Research Network based on article-downloads. Google Scholar shows that her work has been cited over 1,600 times. Her research interests include corporate social responsibility, green marketing, and impact of social media on life satisfaction. In the spring 2018 she received an Outstanding Author Award and presented her work in the Bell Library Speaker Series.
Dr. Lawrence Murphy Smith is a Professor of Accounting in the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi College of Business. He teaches on the RELLIS Campus. His academic record includes numerous research articles, books and monographs, academic conference presentations, research grants, and awards for teaching and research. He ranks in the top one percent of authors on Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN.com) with over 64,000 article-downloads. Dr. Smith’s research examines ethics, international accounting, and the impact of religiosity on business and society. His work has been reported in various news media, including National Public Radio, Fortune, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.
Shown in the picture: At the Schwartz Building on the RELLIS Campus, Dr. Katherine Taken Smith and Dr. Murphy Smith are congratulated by Dr. James K. Nelson, A&M Assistant Vice Chancellor and Director of Special Academic Initiatives.
About the RELLIS Campus
Founded in 2016 by The Texas A&M University System, the RELLIS campus in Bryan, Texas, fosters cutting-edge research, technology development, workforce training and two- and four-year college degrees by tapping the System’s state agencies and multiple universities, along with academic, corporate and government partners outside the System.
Contact: Laylan Copelin
Vice Chancellor of Marketing and Communications
(979) 458-6425
(512) 289-2782 cell
lcopelin@tamus.edu