Assistant Professor Lydia Kilcullen

Assistant Professor

Lydia Kilcullen is an Assistant Professor in Accounting and Associate Director of Accreditation at the UWA Business School.

Lydia teaches Demonstrating Social Impact within the UWA Graduate Certificate in Social Impact. She also teaches Accounting for Managers and Corporate Social Responsibility within the UWA MBA Program. She is passionate about exploring the relationship between financial and non-financial information (such as social impact) and how both can be used to improve the performance of organisations seeking to change the lives of others.

Lydia joined UWA following a number of years with the Chartered Accounting firm of Price Waterhouse (now PwC). During this time, Lydia worked in Perth, New York and London and focused on providing financial and management consulting services in support of dispute resolution, litigation and corporate recovery matters.

Lydia's other professional work experience includes two years as the Chief Financial Accountant at Edith Cowan University, responsible for financial reporting, asset management and financial policies and procedures.

In addition to her appointment at UWA, Lydia has consulted to the Australian Accounting Standards Board in the area of service performance reporting by private sector Not for Profit entities.

In 2011, Lydia completed a PhD from UWA. The focus of this research was external financial reporting by Not for Profit entities. In 2000, Lydia completed an MBA (Advanced) also from UWA and in 1989 a Bachelor of Business from Curtin University. She is a Chartered Accountant and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Lydia's research is focused on two themes:

• The first is external financial reporting by private sector Not for Profit entities. Within this theme questions about the use of information for accountability and decision making are explored. Who uses these reports? What information do these users find useful? Are there alternative forms of information that would improve the ability of users to make decisions? What sorts of decisions are being made using the information currently provided?

• The second theme is social impact. There is growing pressure on entities to measure and disclose the social impact of their activities and high levels of uncertainty about how entities can meet these demands. Research questions include: "When should entities attempt to measure impact? How is the process of understanding and measuring impact different for different types of entities? Does measuring impact improve performance?

lydia.kilcullen@uwa.edu.au
08 6488 2800