Oral History Interview with Leong Kwong Sin: Conceptualising SMU

This is an abridged version of the original interview. Please contact the Library at [email protected] for access to the full version of the transcript and/or audio recording.</p

Audit Committees and Financial Reporting Quality in Singapore

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Our future together industry perspectives: Future of professional learning and entrepreneurship

Singapore Management University School of Accountancy as our knowledge partner, with special thanks to Associate Professor Gary Pan, Associate Professor Seow Poh Sun, Associate Professor Leong Kwong Sin and Visiting Assistant Professor Clarence Goh, for their invaluable advice and their contribution of the article entitled "Insights from Educator, SMU\342\200\231s Views" in the report.</p

What does it take to become a partner at a big 4 Accounting firm? Insights from Singapore’s experience

Due to the shift in partner’s identity, there have been growing interests in understanding characteristics, skills and behaviours of accounting partners. Given that Big 4 Accounting firms are supposedly international accounting firms that are organized in similar structures, an interesting question of whether the same partner qualities can be applied in the Big 4 accounting firms for a non-western context such as Asia. As far as we know, no such study has been conducted in an Asian context. We argue this could be of great interest to the Big 4 Accounting firms as Asia is one of their fastest growing regions and it is essential they have partners who are equipped with the right attributes to ride the waves of rapid growth. Accordingly, our research aims to identify the essential attributes of a partner in the Big 4 accounting firms in Singapore.Our data collection involved interviewing 24 partners and ‘partners-to-be’ from the Big 4 Accounting firms in Singapore. From the data, we identified a number of attributes of a partner. Essential attributes include technical expertise, strong client relationship, solid leadership skill, team management skill, a strong sense of integrity and ethics, and good business sense. There are a few ‘good to have’ attributes that include overseas exposure, being IT savvy and having ‘X’ factor. Our study also highlighted that nurturing partner attributes may involve a development process. Mechanisms within the partner development process include having senior partners to be mentor, imitate a role model, sense-making through leadership and wide exposure to clients.</jats:p

A Survey of the Oversight of External Auditors through the Lenses of Audit Committee Chairmen

Project commissioned by Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority</p