On the afternoon of July 10, 2024, at the invitation of the School of Management, Assistant Professor Huang Tairan from the Faculty of Business and Law at the University of Wollongong, Australia, engaged in academic exchanges with faculty and students at the School of Management. The academic lecture titled "AFAANZ Current Research Hotspots and Award-Winning Paper Sharing" was held in Lecture Hall 210 of the School of Management. This lecture was the 18th session of the 2024 Overseas Expert Lecture Series at the School of Management, chaired by Professor Su Kun, the head of the Accounting Department, with participation from some faculty and graduate students of the Accounting Department.

During the lecture, Huang Tairan began by introducing the background of the AFAANZ (Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand) conference and shared two keynote speeches from the 2024 AFAANZ with the attendees. He called for a focus on accounting standards and their practical application in accounting research.

Following the introduction of the AFAANZ conference background, Huang Tairan shared the current hot topic of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and the theme of the ESG Special Interest Group Annual Meeting (ESG SIG) with the attendees. He presented the award-winning paper from the 2024 AFAANZ titled "Smoggy Air, Sticky Costs." The paper utilized the exogenous shock of China's "War on Pollution" and the staggered introduction of automatic air quality monitoring systems to demonstrate that after the automation of air quality alerts, local companies exhibited stronger asymmetric cost behavior. This indicates that managers of these companies allocate additional resources to cope with potential decreases in employee productivity and increases in labor costs following automation. Furthermore, the study found that the cost-sales sensitivity of the subject companies increased most significantly when sales increased, while during periods of declining sales, the subject and control companies exhibited similar cost behaviors.

At the end of the lecture, Huang Tairan shared his experiences with submitting articles to accounting journals in foreign languages, including the background of journal founding, topics favored by the journals, submission cycles, editor-in-chief backgrounds, and other considerations for submission. The lecture sparked extensive discussions among the attendees, who exchanged views with Huang Tairan on hot research topics at the AFAANZ and the publication of related articles.

[Written by Zhang Miaomiao, Reviewed by Shao Jing and Zhang Shuang]

Introduction to the Speaker:

Huang Tairan (Kevin) is a Ph.D. in Accounting from the University of Wollongong. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at the University of Wollongong, a doctoral supervisor, and the Postgraduate Program Coordinator for the Faculty of Business and Law. He is a recipient of the Australian National Teaching Award (AAUT) and has been awarded the Australian National Ph.D. Scholarship. Huang has published numerous papers in journals such as Kybernetes, Accounting and Finance, Pacific Accounting Review, Behavioral Sciences, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, International Journal of Educational Management, Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal, and Journal of Peer Learning. He also serves as a peer reviewer for journals including Abacus, Accounting Forum, Accounting & Finance, Accounting Education, Accounting Research Journal, and Emerging Market Finance & Trade.