Dr. Ling Harris received her Master and Ph.D. in Accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include judgment and decision making of managers and investors, management's strategic behavior, linguistic features in corporate reporting, and financial reporting. Dr. Harris' research has been accepted for publication in Accounting, Organizations and Society, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Journal of Business Ethics, among others. Previously, Dr. Harris taught at the University of Illinois and the University of South Carolina. She was on the list of teachers ranked as excellent by their students university-wide at the University of Illinois and won the Alfred G. Smith teaching award at the Moore School of Business in the University of South Carolina. Dr. Harris teaches financial accounting to MBA students and undergraduate accounting students at the College of Business (CoB) in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was nominated in 2021 for the CoB Distinguished Teaching Award. 

Selected Publications/Articles

• Harris, L. L., and E. Y. Wang. 2024. The Impact of Descriptor Identicalness on Investors' Judgments of Managers' Opportunistic Estimation Choices. Forthcoming at Accounting, Organizations and Society. 
• Harris, L., S. Jackson, J. Owens, and N. Seybert. 2021. Recruiting Dark Personalities for Earnings Management. Journal of Business Ethics: 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04761-z. 
• Austin, C., D. Bobek-Schmitt, and L. Harris. 2021. Does Information about Gender Pay Matter to Investors? An Experimental Investigation. Accounting, Organizations and Society 90.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2020.101193.
• Fanning, K., L. Harris, K. Jackson, and M. Stern. 2019. Investors’ Reactions to Reported Earnings when Management Issues Goal versus Expectation Earnings Guidance: An Experimental Investigation. Journal of Financial Reporting 4 (1): 37–57.
• Harris, L., M. Majerczyk, and A. Newman. 2018. An Examination of how the Effort-inducing Property of Incentive Compensation Influences Performance in Multidimensional Tasks. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 149: 185–196.
• Harris, L., J. Hobson, and K. Jackson. 2016. The Effect of Investor Status on Investors’ Susceptibility to Earnings Fixation. Contemporary Accounting Research 33 (1): 152–171. 

Selected Grants and Research Awards

• Emergency Research Gap Funding, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2021.
• Research Grant, College of Business, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020.
• Research Grant, Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.

Undergraduate Courses

Financial Acccounting: Intermediate II (ACCT 314) - continuation of Intermediate I (ACCT 313) with emphasis on contemporary accounting theory and practice regarding long-term liabilities, corporate equities, and problem areas under study by professional accounting organizations. 

Graduate Courses

Financial Acccounting (GRBA 809) - Understands financial reporting system. Interprets a company's financial information and assesses the company’s financial strength and viability. 

Teaching Interests

• Financial Accounting

Professional Service

• Discussant and/or Ad hoc reviewer, American Accounting Association annual meetings and section meetings (ABO and FAR), 2015-2022.

Institutional Service

• Committee Member, Student Grade Appeal Committee (Department), 2020–present.
• Committee Member, Workshop Committee (Department), 2019–present.
• Board Member, CoB Inclusive Excellence Advisory Board (College), 2020–present.

Awards

• Distinguished Teaching Award, nominee, College of Business, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2021.
• Alfred G. Smith Award for Excellence in Teaching, recipient, Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 2018.

Selected Media Coverage

• The Trusted Professional-The Newspaper of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (Chris Gaetano). April 5, 2021. Study finds some executives may be hired because, not despite, lack of ethics.

• Science Daily.com. March 31, 2021. Firms recruit dark personalities for earnings management.

• Investor’s Business Daily. December 4, 2015. Managers prefer dirty accountants.

• New York Post (John Crudele). August 20, 2015. Stocks beat earnings estimates thanks to declining tax rates.

• CFO (David McCann). August 19, 2015. Companies purposely hire fraudsters: study.

• Accountingweb.com (Terry Sheridan). August 17, 2015. Study: earnings management key to corporate accounting success.

• PYMNTS.com. August 17, 2015. Japanese regs battle problematic corporate culture.

• Reuters (Dena Aubin). August 10, 2015. Corporate earnings management linked to accountant hiring: study.

• American Accounting Association (Ben Haimowitz). August 7, 2015. Willingness to manipulate company earnings key to success in corporate accounting, study suggests.