University of St.Gallen awards Gerhard Speckbacher ACA Prize in Financial Governance

20 August 2021. The ACA Prize in Financial Governance will be awarded for the fourth time in 2020 to recognise outstanding academic achievement in the areas of accounting, controlling, corporate finance and auditing. With this award, the Institute of Accounting, Control and Auditing at the University of St.Gallen (ACA-HSG) contributes towards highlighting important research results and their implementation in practice in the area of financial management. The ACA Prize is one of the most highly remunerated prizes to be awarded in the German-speaking world and it underscores the commitment of the ACA-HSG in relation to providing and recognising excellence in financial management.

Gerhard Speckbacher is receiving the award for his internationally visible, fundamental and application-oriented contributions to strategic management systems and controlling.

The award winner received his doctorate in 1992 from the University of Ulm, where he qualified as a professor of business administration and economics in 1997 with the topic "Stakeholder-oriented Corporate Management". In 1996, shortly before his post-doctoral qualification, he accepted a professorship for business administration, with a focus on accounting, at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald. In 1999, he was then appointed as professor for business administration and management accounting at the Catholic University of Eichstätt–Ingolstadt. In 2000, he took over the professorship for and also management of the Institute for Strategy and Managerial Accounting at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Since 2003, he has also been head of the Department of Strategy and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Prof. Dr. Speckbacher is one of the leading international researchers on the role of controlling in relation to managing creativity and innovation processes in companies. He has published articles on this core topic as well as on performance management and strategy implementation issues, in leading international journals such as The Accounting Review, Strategic Management Journal, and Accounting, Organizations and Society. His work on the use of the balanced scorecard as a management tool in listed companies in Austria, Switzerland and Germany is one of the most internationally cited academic papers in the field of management accounting, with almost 1000 Google Scholar citations.

Since 2011, Prof. Dr. Speckbacher has been organising the annual ERMAC conference at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, which aims at promoting young controlling researchers and helping them to network with leading international academics in the field of controlling. As part of the ERMAC conference, the annual “Thought Bridge” takes place, in which top managers from German-speaking countries discuss current practical issues in corporate management with leading international academics and young scientists in the field of controlling.

Prof. Dr. Speckbacher has received numerous awards for his teaching. Among others, he was nominated for the Austrian State Prize for University Teaching in 2014 as the best teacher in the category Economics/Law, and after being nominated again in 2016, he finally received the Austrian State Prize for University Teaching.

Due to the corona situation, the award ceremony for Prof. Dr. Gerhard Speckbacher took place in a special way, which was recorded in this video.

The awarding of the ACA Prize in Financial Governance 2021 will once again be part of the ACA Symposium – Finanzielle Führung neu denken (Rethinking Financial Management) – on 14/15 September 2021 in Zurich.

The ACA Symposium has established itself as the flagship event of the Institute of Accounting, Control and Auditing at the University of St.Gallen (ACA-HSG). It brings together decision makers, startups and scientists to create new insights into the issues, trends and successful solutions of financial management and to consciously challenge established patterns. Further information on the ACA Symposium can be found online: www.aca-symposium.ch.