Social research in accounting: Professor Zvi Singer honoured

Professor Zvi Singer won the Thomas Schneider Community Impact Research Award at the annual conference of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA).  

This award was established in 2025 to honour the memory of Professor Thomas Schneider—who passed away suddenly in 2023—and whose research focused on how accounting can positively impact our world. “The award aims to draw attention to important current challenges regarding the environmental and social well-being of our communities”, states Zvi Singer. “Having known Thomas and his passion for such issues, I consider it a privilege to receive this award.”

Ethnic diversity among partners in audit firms

Zvi Singer was awarded for his paper “Audit partner ethnicity and salient audit phenomena”, co-authored with professors Gopal V. Krishnan (Bentley University) and Jing Zhang (CU Denver Business School). Their research reveals that professionals from ethnic minorities remain underrepresented as partners in audit firms, despite often outperforming their colleagues. These findings highlight systemic barriers to career advancement and advocate greater diversity in leadership for improved audit quality, while promoting talent retention within the profession.

The study’s impact extended far beyond academia. Following its publication, the management of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)—a globally recognized professional accounting body with over 252,500 members across 180 countries, 95% of whom in Canada are immigrants—took steps to adopt concrete support measures for its members. The research findings also informed ACCA’s decisions and fostered new opportunities for dialogue with several federal and provincial departments, with the aim of changing policies that discriminate against foreign-trained professionals.

About Zvi Singer

Professor Zvi Singer holds a PhD in Accounting from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Washington University He joined HEC Montréal in 2016, after having taught at McGill University for nine years. His research interests include financial reporting and audit quality, accounting choices and regulations, as well as social issues such as gender and ethnic origin. In addition to co-authoring around fifteen publications, he has delivered numerous lectures both in Canada and abroad.