This book is an invitation to study managerial uses of accounting information and how accounting information is used in the management of an organization. Three themes run throughout the book. First, the accounting system is thought of as a library of financial statistics. Answers to a variety of questions are unlikely to be found in prefabricated format; but valuable information awaits those equipped to interrogate the library. Second, the information in the accounting library is not likely to be the only information at the manager's disposal. So knowing how to combine accounting and nonaccounting bits of information is an important, indeed indispensable managerial skill. Finally, the role of a professional manager is emphasized. The book also makes demands on the reader. It assumes the reader has had prior exposure to financial accounting, to economics, to statistics, and to the economics of uncertainty. A modest acquaintance with strategic, or equilibrium, modeling and linear programming and the ability to take a simple derivative is also presumed.
Professor Demski has focused on disclosure incentives and optimal contracting. Professor Demski has served on the faculty of Columbia University (1967 - 68), Stanford University (1968 - 1985), and Yale University (1985 - 1994). He has been recognized a number of times for Outstanding Research and Education and received an AAA Seminal Contribution Award in 1994. Professor Demski is noted as one of the most widely published authors in the field with over eighty articles published.
Honors and Grants: Honorary Doctorate, Odense University, 1994; AAA Seminal Contribution Award, 1994; Elm-lvy Award, 1989; AAA Outstanding Educator Award, 1986;AICPA Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Accounting Literature, 1967 and 1970; Notable Contribution to Management Accounting Literature Award, 1996; University of Florida Foundation Research Professorship (2000, 2002); Accounting Hall of Fame, 2000; President, American Accounting Association, 2001-2001.