About

Eileen Z. Taylor, Ph.D., is a Professor of Accounting at NC State University's Poole College of Management, where she also serves as the Director of the Undergraduate Accounting Program. Her teaching and research interests focus on whistleblowing, ethics, and data security. Dr. Taylor has published her research in renowned journals such as The Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Information Systems, Accounting Horizons, and Behavioral Research in Accounting. She serves on several editorial boards and has co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Information Systems on AIS and Ethics. She is a CPA in North Carolina and a Certified Fraud Examiner. Dr. Taylor holds a BS, MAC, and Ph.D., all from the University of South Florida.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Business
• Accounting
• Computer Security
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Public relations
• Law
• Engineering
• Aesthetics
• Philosophy
• Epistemology
• Knowledge management
• Art
• Data science

Selected publications

• Addressing grand challenges: the problem of accountability for the corporate form

  Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal · 2025-02-26 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Purpose To argue current calls to address grand challenges like income inequality are unlikely to succeed until the academy acknowledges how accounting is constitutive of these problems. We demonstrate how accounting is part of the problem because of its adherence to a legal model of the corporation erected on false suppositions. Design/methodology/approach Using multiple disciplines, e.g. history, economics, law and philosophy, pertaining to the nature of the corporate form, we present a logical argument that the official telos of accounting obstructs any fruitful effort to address grand challenges. Findings The global legal concept governing corporations (an aggregate of members) makes corporations a major cause of the grand challenges humans face. Adherence to a legal theory of the corporation leads accounting policy to rationalize income and wealth inequality by subsuming the legal powers of corporations to expropriate wealth into a singular maximand labeled “earnings.” Originality/value Though accounting is essentially “of” law, scholarly efforts to understand accounting’s social role are based on an information metaphor. We provide reasons for skepticism of any efforts addressing grand challenges until accounting acknowledges the legal nature of its social role as a regulator of business conduct. There are no accounting solutions to grand challenges without acknowledging how the accepted legal nature of the corporate form makes the corporation the cause of the grand challenges we face.

  PublisherDOI

• Leveling the Playing Field: How Assurance Mitigates the Negative Effect of Unfamiliarity Among Nonprofessional Investors

  Advances in accounting behavioral research · 2023-02-27

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract Nonfinancial information is becoming more readily available to investors, and thus, relative to annual financial reports, is having an increasing influence on investors' stock pricing decisions. Using Hogarth and Einhorn's (1992) belief-adjustment model, we examine how task familiarity (high, medium, and low) influences nonprofessional investor stock price decisions when these investors are presented with a stream of both positive and negative nonfinancial news. We find that task familiarity negatively correlates with reaction size for both positive and negative information, which creates arbitrage opportunities for those with more task familiarity. However, we find that assurance mitigates this effect, leveling the playing field for less task-familiar investors in most cases. These findings are important as the volume and variety of information types increase, and as more nonfinancial information enters the marketplace in discrete sound bites (e.g., social media, press releases, daily reports). Findings suggest that assurance is one way to lessen the biases exhibited by investors with less task familiarity. These results enhance our understanding of nonprofessional investor behavior through the lens of belief revision.

  PublisherDOI

• A Judaic Approach to Applying Materiality Concepts

  Research on professional responsibility and ethics in accounting · 2021 · 1 citations

  • Epistemology
  • Accounting
  • Aesthetics

  Abstract Materiality is a critical and challenging auditing concept. To help auditors improve their materiality judgments, the authors provide examples from Judaism, primarily due to its longevity and the richness and variety of its stories. The authors show how Judaism interprets and applies materiality in many contexts. For each, the authors provide guidance on how auditors might apply these lessons to improve their materiality judgments. The authors examine five areas where Judaic examples can inform modern auditing including: (1) considering both quantitative and qualitative measures; (2) recognizing that small quantitative changes can lead to material qualitative effects; (3) understanding that ignoring small issues can become a slippery slope; (4) considering the importance of financial statement users’ needs in developing materiality criteria; and (5) prioritizing substance over form. In all examples, context is a critical factor to consider when applying materiality. These results should be of interest to auditors, financial statement users and others.

  PublisherDOI

• Who's the BOSS? Analysis of a Fraud

  Journal of Forensic Accounting Research · 2021 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Computer Science
  • Accounting

  ABSTRACT Based on a real-world, public company, $30 million embezzlement and financial statement fraud, this case helps students to recognize red flags, analyze a situation using the fraud diamond, perform research and reflect on their own work experiences to support a belief, and conduct financial statement analysis. Its variety of activities are suitable for both undergraduate and graduate accounting students, and in-class and out-of-class learning. Because it is based on an actual fraud, it includes an epilogue with links to news stories and court documents, which improves student engagement with the material.

  PublisherDOI

• A View from the CISO: Insights from the Data Classification Process

  Journal of Information Systems · 2021 · 11 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Computer Security

  ABSTRACT Data security is a critical concern for organizations. In a rush to protect data, some IT managers overlook the important first step of data classification and instead focus on implementing the strictest controls on all data to reduce risk. To investigate organizational processes surrounding data classification, we conduct interviews with 27 CISOs in 23 organizations. We develop a model that identifies the common themes of data classification and their interrelationships. The most common driver for data classification is compliance with data privacy regulations and security standards. Collaboration and employee education are essential to the process. Increases in employee awareness of data security risk and improvements in data hygiene are outcomes. Challenges to data classification include the increase in IT landscape complexity, maintenance of an accurate data inventory, immaturity of automated tools, limited resources, and user compliance. Our model provides insights for practitioners and identifies areas of interest for researchers.

  PublisherDOI

• A Judaic Approach to Applying Materiality Concepts

  Research on professional responsibility and ethics in accounting · 2021-08-16 · 1 citations

  book-chapter

  Materiality is a critical and challenging auditing concept. To help auditors improve their materiality judgments, the authors provide examples from Judaism, primarily due to its longevity and the richness and variety of its stories. The authors show how Judaism interprets and applies materiality in many contexts. For each, the authors provide guidance on how auditors might apply these lessons to improve their materiality judgments. The authors examine five areas where Judaic examples can inform modern auditing including: (1) considering both quantitative and qualitative measures; (2) recognizing that small quantitative changes can lead to material qualitative effects; (3) understanding that ignoring small issues can become a slippery slope; (4) considering the importance of financial statement users’ needs in developing materiality criteria; and (5) prioritizing substance over form. In all examples, context is a critical factor to consider when applying materiality. These results should be of interest to auditors, financial statement users and others.

  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2020-12-07

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a general history of the development of accounting ethics. It explains the ethical theory of the famous philosopher and sociologist Jurgen Habermas. The book examines efforts to measure and report on an organization’s efforts toward sustainability, and an area that continues to challenge conventional accounting standard setters. It also provides a review of the individual tax literature and focuses on three areas: tax return reporting compliance, tax amnesty declarations, and tax whistleblowing. The book explores a critical analysis of certain taken-for-granted premises in accounting. It also presents an innovative method, based on Location Maps, to assist practitioners in resolving moral dilemmas. The book describes how the profession was instrumental in motivating universities to add ethics education to the accounting curriculum. It shows how truly problematic is the notion of a boundary that separates a business from the rest of society.

  PublisherDOI

• Using Accounting Department Advisory Councils and Higher Quality Continuing Education Requirements to Improve the Accounting Profession’s Ethical Reasoning Skills

  2019-09-17 · 8 citations

  book-chapter

  Abstract Despite formal ethics education and ethics-related continuing professional education (CPE) requirements, professional accountants continue to play a central role in enabling corporations to make unethical business decisions and take unethical business actions. Several jurisdictions in the United States require ethics education for licensure, but often the focus is on memorizing rules and regulations, rather than on providing tools to improve the moral practice of professionals and to help them resolve ethical dilemmas. The authors analyzed recent state Certified Public Accountant (CPA) society course offerings and found much more emphasis on memorization than on ethical reasoning to satisfy State CPA CPE requirements. To improve accountants’ ethical awareness and behavior, CPE providers should stress ethical reasoning rather than merely memorizing rules. Such changes will make future and present accountants and auditors more ethically aware, and thus more likely to improve their ethical decision-making. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that effective ethics education and training should start in the classroom with help from departmental advisory councils. Ethics courses offered in accounting programs as well as those offered by CPE providers can leverage the experience of members of advisory councils to create programs that resonate with professionals and foster lifelong ethical awareness and ethical reasoning skills.

  PublisherDOI

• The Inconsistent Effects of Plain English Disclosures on Nonprofessional Investors’ Risk Judgments

  International Journal of Financial Studies · 2018-03-02 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In this paper, we examine whether the readability of different types of corporate risk disclosures influences the risk judgments of nonprofessional investors. Our study contributes evidence to the Security and Exchange Commission’s ongoing initiative to improve corporate financial statement disclosures. Using 359 responses from an experimental survey of nonprofessional investors (NPIs), we find that readability, in conjunction with risk factor type, significantly influences investors’ judgments of probability and size of economic loss, cause for worry, and overall risk. NPIs judged the risk from an industry-related risk factor (competition) to be higher when written in plain English, but judged the risk of a company-specific risk factor (internal control weakness over financial reporting) to be higher when written in a less readable format (i.e., legalese). We found no significant differences in judgments between plain English and less readable language on a combined industry/company risk factor, information security. Results suggest that a move to plain English for all types of risk factors may have consequences that are not fully understood or expected. This area needs further research before regulators enact (or enforce) mandates for risk factors to be presented in plain English.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Speculations About the Implications of the Pathways Vision for How We Understand Accounting

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2017-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Hiroshi Funakubo

  64 shared

• Maximilian Krause

  Technical University of Munich

  64 shared

• Kensuke Akiyama

  64 shared

• Armin Siebel

  Technical University of Munich

  64 shared

• Brian Skinn

  Faraday Technology (United States)

  64 shared

• Martin Gruebele

  64 shared

• Michael J. Gerhardt

  University of North Carolina Health Care

  64 shared

• Hiroshi Irie

  Purdue University System

  64 shared

Labs

• Accounting DepartmentPI

Education

• PhD

  University of South Florida

  2006

Awards & honors

• 2018 Poole Advisory Board Scholar