Adam Leaver

Adam Leaver is Professor in Accounting & Society and Director of the Centre for Research on Accounting and Finance in Context (CRAFIC). Prior to that he was Professor in Financialization and Management at the University of Manchester.

Adam’s primary research interest is in the financialization of the firm. His recent work examines the dimensions of time and space in accounting and finance across a number of projects:

A first examines the role of the accounting regime in facilitating higher shareholder distributions by allowing managers to pull income forward in time.

A second explores the tension between an accounting regime which discounts the future, and an impending ecological disaster whose costs are exponential; and whether it is possible to reimagine the temporality of financial reporting to bring forward green investments.

A third analyses and visualises the changing social networks within financial services across space and time.

A fourth tries to understand the different calculative frames and speeds of accumulation in city-region development.

Adam is interested in novel methodological combinations which allow social-constructivist such as forensic follow-the-money accounting and social network analysis to explore His work appears in leading international peer-reviewed journals including Work, Employment & Society, British Journal of Management, Organization, Economy & Society, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Review of International Political Economy, New Political Economy and The Journal of Cultural Economy.

Adam currently holds an ESRC open call grant to investigate Manchester as a ‘centripetal city’ and a Luminate grant to examine audit failure and audit reform. He was also ISRF Political Economy Research Fellow 2017-18.

*Research interests *

Adam's current research interests include:

• using social network analysis methods to map the social relationships that underlie certain complex securities markets
• developing a relational theory of the firm to understand the impact of financialization in the corporate sphere
• exploring the inter-temporal transfers and tensions that arise as a consequence of financialization
• theorising the relations between accounting and the built environment.

*PhD supervision *

Adam is available to supervise PhD students in the following areas:

• Critical accounting using 'follow-the-money' methods
• Financialization
• Heterodox economic/accounting approaches to financial crisis
• Economic sociology of finance

*Teaching interests *

Adam's teaching is research-led and uses 'follow-the-money' methods to explore contemporary economic issues.

His teaching uses case studies drawn from his research to illustrate broader economic themes and issues, with a strong social responsibility theme.

In the past this has included accounting analysis of outsourcers, pharmaceutical firms, banks, supermarkets, water companies, car manufacturers, new economy retailers and football clubs.

This approach allows students to enhance their practical accounting skills with topical and relevant cases, whilst as well as developing the transferable skills of critical reflection and independent thought.