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December 15, 2017

Love for numbers inspires PhD graduate to pursue environmental accounting

Ying Deng explores Chinese automobile industry through doctoral degree.

Ying Deng has always had a love for numbers.

Originating from China, Ying moved to Australia ten years ago to pursue her passion for accounting, undertaking an undergraduate accounting degree at the University of Sydney before taking on a teaching role at UOW and moving into postgraduate research.

Ying joined hundreds of other UOW graduates in celebrating the completion of her Doctorate during summer graduation celebrations today (Friday 15 December).

Ying was awarded a Doctorate from the Faculty of Business for her examination into the cost competitiveness and efficiency of the Chinese automobile industry.

Using quantitative and qualitative data, Ying explored new methodology in research and used financial data to present a cost analysis, with interesting results.

Inspired by her love for numbers, Ying delved deep into the data and discovered just how severe environmental accounting can be to a company.

“Doing this research really helped me to think outside the box and start caring about the context,” she said.

“I started to see the accounting context with meaning, it’s about more than just numbers.”

Ying’s research opened her eyes to a number of issues in the Chinese automobile industry, with damages to the environment topping the list for areas she wants to pursue.

“Environmental accounting is a relatively new thing that’s coming up with financial reporting – it really depends on whether or not the company cares about the environment and voluntarily chooses to disclose certain information,” she said.

“Particularly in the Chinese market, the issue is quite severe – but it can take a long time for certain types of reporting to be applied or become mandatory.

“What I want to do is to connect environmental reporting with financial reporting and assess how the actions of stakeholders affect the company’s performance.”

Ying will continue her research in 2018 at UOW.