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Todd Thornock Photo

Todd Thornock

Associate Professor of Accountancy
Accountancy
HLH 445 C
P.O. Box 880488
Lincoln, NE 68588-0488
(402) 472-2337
tthornock2@unl.edu
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Todd Thornock Photo
Education
PhD in Accounting, University of Texas at Austin (2011)
Master of Science in Accounting, University of Texas at Austin (2009)
Master of Accountancy, Brigham Young University (2002)
Bachelor of Science, Brigham Young University (2002)
Associates of Science and Art, Ricks College (1996)
Areas of Expertise
  • Performance Feedback
  • Management Control Systems
  • Incentive Compensation
  • Personality and Individual Differences
  • Decision Making
Research Interests
  • managerial accounting
  • management control systems
  • performance feedback
  • performance evaluation
  • incentives
Vita
Vita---Todd-Thornock---08-31-23.docx
CliftonStrengths ®
  • Learner
  • Connectedness
  • Belief
  • Developer
  • Input

Todd has walked the path of accounting, from undergraduate education to public practice, from academic research to graduate instruction. He loves searching for why decision makers do what they do and how to help them make better decisions. His research has focused on the effects of feedback, incentives, and control systems on performance and how personalities might interact with these. He has also researched how control and evaluations system features affect decision-making. Todd enjoys being with his family more than accounting and playing basketball only very slightly less.

Todd's research is published in Contemporary Accounting Research, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Management Accounting Research, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Accounting Horizons, and Advances in Accounting.

Selected Publications/Articles
  • Chan, E. W., and T. A. Thornock. 2022. Disaggregated versus holistic performance evaluations in a promotion setting.  Journal of Management Accounting Research 34 (3): 77-97.
  • Erickson, D., D. K. Holderness, K. J. Olsen, and T. A. Thornock. 2022. Feedback with feeling? How emotional language in feedback affects individual performance. Accounting, Organizations and Society 99: 101329.
  • Holderness, D. K., K. J. Olsen, T. A. Thornock, and E. C. Tomlinson. 2022. Will someone be checking my work? The effect of psychological entitlement and the expectation of being monitored on task performance and misreporting. Accounting Horizons 36 (4): 47-65.
  • Thomas, T. F., and T. A. Thornock. 2021. How incomplete information of team member contributions affects subsequent contributions: The moderating role of social value orientation. Journal of Management Accounting Research 33(3): 145-161.
  • Holderness, D. K., K. J. Olsen, and T. A Thornock. 2020. Assigned versus chosen relative performance information: The effect of feedback frequency on performance.  Journal of Management Accounting Research 32(1): 137-158.
  • Cannon, J. N., and T. A. Thornock. 2019. How do managers react to a peer’s situation?  The influence of environmental similarity on budgetary reporting.  Management Accounting Research 44: 12–25.
  • Holderness, D. K., K. J. Olsen, and T. A. Thornock. 2017. Who are you to tell me that?! The moderating effect of performance feedback source and psychological entitlement on individual performance.  Journal of Management Accounting Research 29 (2): 33–46.
  • Thornock, T. A. 2016. How the timing of performance feedback impacts individual performance.  Accounting, Organizations and Society 55: 1–11.
  • Kachelmeier, S. J., T. A. Thornock, and M. G. Williamson. 2016. Communicated values as informal controls: Gaining accuracy while undermining productivity?  Contemporary Accounting Research 33 (4): 1411–1434.
  • Krumwiede, K. R., M. R. Swain, T. A. Thornock, and D. L. Eggett. 2013. The effects of task outcome feedback and broad domain evaluation experience on the use of unique scorecard measures.  Advances in Accounting 29: 205–217.

Managerial Accounting (ACCT 308) - Internal accounting as a tool to generate information for managerial planning and control. Conventional and computer problem materials are used to develop understanding of operating and capital budgets, standard costs, incremental concepts, relevant costs, transfer pricing, and responsibility and profit center reports as a means of analysis as well as techniques of measurement.

Seminar in Managerial Accounting (ACCT 858) - Designed to broaden and deepen conceptual and technical understanding of management control systems (MCS). MCS are considered broadly to include everything that managers do to ensure good performance or, more specifically, to ensure that the company's strategies get implemented effectively.

Journal Service

Editorial board member - Behavioral Research in Accounting (2023-present)

Ad hoc reviewer – The Accounting Review (5), Journal of Accounting Research (1), Contemporary Accounting Research (8), Accounting, Organizations and Society (3), Management Science (1), Journal of Management Accounting Research (8), Management Accounting Research (6), Behavioral Research in Accounting (3), Journal of Information Systems (2), Journal of Business Ethics (4), European Accounting Review (1), Journal of Forensic Accounting Research (1), Accounting Perspectives (1), Advances in Accounting Behavioral Research (1), Accounting and the Public Interest (1)

 

Academy Service

Chair – Best MAS Paper at the AAA Annual Meeting Award Selection Committee – 2024

Chair – Distinguished Contributions to Accounting Literature Award Selection Committee – 2023-2024

Co-Lead – Management Accounting Section AAA Annual Meeting Program – 2022-2023

Member – Distinguished Contributions to Accounting Literature Award Selection Committee – 2022-2023

Member – Best Paper at the MAS Midyear Meeting Award Selection Committee

 

Other Service

Member – 2023-2024 Bretton Woods Accounting and Finance Ski Conference (University of New Hampshire)

Reviewer – German Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research (GIF)

Organizer – Management Accounting Experimental Research Brownbag (MAERBB) – Formed January 2015 (37 events to date)

Co-Organizer – Audit Experimental Brownbag (AEBB) – Formed February 2019 (4 events to date)

Awards
  • Institute of Management Accountants Lybrand Award Certificate of Merit