Experts & Expertise

Jan Bouwens is professor of accounting at Tilburg University, The Netherlands.

Jan Bouwens has advised the Dutch parliament on education, finance and compensation topics. He also advised the Dutch Ministry of Finance and the AFM (Dutch equivalent of the SEC).

He writes editorials for Dutch news papers on a regular basis. He -for instance- wrote an editorial on why and how a close relation between the auditor and the audited firm may affect auditor independence. This idea was picked up by the national accounting organization in The Netherlands.

He holds his doctorate from Tilburg University and has published in several top academic journals, including Accounting, Organizations and Society, The Accounting Review, and Journal of Accounting Research, and recently in the Journal of Accounting & Economics. In his research he applies survey as well as archival methods to examine how accounting choices affect the synergy potential residing between organizational units making up the firm. He has taught both financial and managerial accounting at Melbourne, Nyenrode, and Tilburg University. On behalf of the Dutch Inter-University Limperg Institute he organizes the Limperg Ph.D. courses in accounting. He serves at the board of Behavioral Research In Accounting and Contemporary Accounting Research, and he serves on the editorial board of JMAR.

Jan Bouwens teaches in executive programs as well as in degree programs (Msc, MBA). The courses he runs are designed to develop an informed critical attitude towards the basic practices and theories available. This approach helps managers to decide which accounting system is likely to be the best in terms of goal achievement. In many cases this may lead to the conclusion that the use of EVA or Balanced Scorecard is not called for at all.