Michael Turner

Dr Michael Turner PhD, CA Senior Lecturer in Accounting Program Convenor, Bachelor of Advanced Business (Honours) Dr Michael Turner PhD, CA is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Program Convenor for the Bachelor of Advanced Business (Honours) at The University of Queensland Business School. A Chartered Accountant, he researches how accounting information, disclosure, and management controls shape strategic, ethical, and climate-related decisions across organisations. His work spans strategic management accounting, corporate and climate-related disclosure, ethical decision-making and governance, and accounting education with analytics and programming. Michael has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, including publications in FT50 journals and leading ABDC A*/A outlets. His research has attracted support from Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, the German Research Foundation, and the Office of the Australian Accounting Standards Board, including current work on corporate behaviour and climate-related financial disclosure. His applied insights have also appeared in practitioner outlets including Strategic Finance, HospitalityNet, and the Council on Business & Society. A unifying question connects these streams of work: how can accounting systems create and communicate information that supports better, more responsible business decisions? Michael’s teaching and program leadership reflect that same focus. He coordinates management accounting courses with strong student feedback and has developed internationally recognised teaching cases using Python and R. As Program Convenor, he led the first comprehensive review of the Bachelor of Advanced Business (Honours) since its 2018 launch and is now leading implementation of the next phase of reform through 2028, including cohort-specific advanced courses, first-year redesign, stronger work-integrated learning, and new industry-embedded experiences. He also represents the program widely through outreach to future students, including UQ Open Day and activities for high-achieving school students. Industry engagement is central to Michael’s work. He collaborates closely with employers, alumni, and professional bodies to connect curriculum with practice through initiatives such as Careers Connect, employer panels and roundtable networking events co-hosted with CPA Australia, firm-based engagement opportunities, and early-year roadshows that expose students to internships, graduate roles, and professional pathways across accounting, finance, consulting, and analytics. In 2025 he received the UQ Business School Executive Committee Award for Excellence in External Engagement. Recent activities have included a Careers Connect event that brought together more than 150 Advanced Business students, 18 firms, and around 25 academics, a CPA-hosted employer panel in Brisbane, and a first-year roadshow and mixer featuring student, alumni, and employer perspectives. Strategic management accounting and decision analytics; Corporate and climate-related disclosure; Ethical decision-making, governance, and whistleblowing; Accounting education, data analytics, and programming with Python and R; Capital Budgeting: Human behaviour, such as escalation of commitment and biasing of capital budgeting cash flow forecasts. Including both the preparer of the capital budgeting proposal, and the reviewer of those proposals.; Professional Skepticism: Experimental research around the role of both state and trait professional skepticism on the decision-making of professional accountants.; CSR Disclosure: Examining the value both firms and shareholders attach to financial, social and environmental disclosures. Also, the impact of regulation on such value.; Management accounting applications for the hospitality industry: Particularly interested in hotels mediated by a management contact. For example, a hotel owner and a hotel operator.

[2025] Other Outputs: Corporate Behaviour & Climate-related Financial Disclosures – Phase 1. Herbohn, Kathleen, Wade, Belinda, Jain, Ankit, Rekker, Saphira and Turner, Michael (2025). Brisbane, QLD Australia: The University of Queensland. [2025] Book Chapter: Capital budgeting: Planning for long-term asset expenditure. Hesford, James W. and Turner, Michael J. (2025). Hospitality Finance and Accounting: Second EditionThe Edinburgh Companion to Irish Literature and Periodical Culture. (pp. 103-121) London: Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.4324/9781003545903-5 [2025] Journal Article: Using Python in management accounting: Monte Carlo simulation for cost-volume-profit analysis. Hesford, James W., Pizzini, Mina, Turner, Michael J. and Vargus, Mark (2025). Issues in Accounting Education, 40 (3), 1-17