For Professor Tomo Suzuki’s Profile, click HERE.
Project Research
１）Area of expertise, research area, or current themes in his/her research
Applications from overseas are very welcome. I imagine, you need a little encouragement to try to read for your PhD in Japan. You do NOT need to be able to speak Japanese, and we are willing to help.
After 20 years at Oxford, where I served as Professor and Head of Accounting and Sustainability Management, I am now based in Tokyo (where the “only and only one medical operation” was available in the world. This country offers high level services in many aspects of life which you may wish to explore while pursuing your PhD. You do not need to be able to speak Japanese – people are kind to help you in this country.).
I have challenged a variety of themes (Find papers and Profile via the links below), and I am known to be highly interdisciplinary, combining Accounting, Economics (Behavioral / Institutional Mechanism Design / Experimental), Sociology, History and Philosophy of Social Sciences, among others. I have a policy as an academic to target something important for humanity and offer original ideas and hopefully solutions. I am concerned about the situation where young talents have been slaved to the hypothetico-statistical-testing methods which would limit what researchers can do rather than expand and help. Methods should be developed and applied depending on the topic that researchers want to / should do. I am therefore very open to a variety of methods, too. Unlike the other major countries, Japan is open-minded in this sense too, because unique and interesting themes and methods are still widely accepted.
Suggested Themes:
Accounting and Political Economy, Experimental Accounting, Behavioral Economics and Accounting, Institutional Mechanism Design; Accounting for Agriculture, Arts Organizations, Government, Nuclear Power Plants, Women, etc…; Accounting for CSR, Development, Environment, Japan’s Matured Economy, Sustainability, etc…; Accounting for Brazil, China, India, Russia, etc.; History of Chinese Accounting, History of Japanese Accounting, After 5 years of the “Oxford Report” (which is considered to have prevented IFRS to be mandated in Japan); India’s One Additional Line (CSR Revolution), Applying OAL to South-East Asian Countries; Institutional Mechanism Design; Development of New Macroeconomic Accounting; Happiness Accounting; Keynes, Kuznets and Stone Archives; Accounting as Nudge of Institutional Mechanism Design; etc…
A large project which has been currently running is what is now known to be the “One Additional Line” Revolution in India which came to be realized in the form of Companies Act 2013. The one line “disclosure” of Corporate Social Responsibility expense in the main P/L aligns incentives of the media, management, investors and others and collectively creates a new market in which billions of dollars came to be spent for SCR activities (currently approx.. $ 2 billion). This is helping the country’s social infrastructure at a remarkable speed. The OAL was a product of the combination between Institutional Mechanism Design and Social Constructivist Accounting, and we run it in the form of Action Research. Currently, I am self-critically investigating the short history of this project and try to publish papers / a book.
In my mind, however, my main focus has already shifted to a new theme: Sustainability Accounting & Economic Statistics for Post-Growth Economies. Countries like Japan suffer from the decreasing sense of happiness and loss of hope for future. I consider that this is much to do with the concepts of “Demand,” “Sales” and “Profits” that used to entail the sense of happiness, but no longer. In other words, “Demand,” “Sales” and “Profits” lost their function as the proxy of utilities, welfare or happiness in our economy and economics. This means, further, that government lost control over people’s welfare via the means of its economy in which statistics and financial statements used to have an important role as the proxy, indicator or the “mediator of the incentive mechanism”. This is new – no one has formally identified and framed the problem in this way. And my intention is to try to develop new accounting for the new era. In 25 years’ time, when China, India and other emerging economies will have matured, I believe this is a serious problem at the global level which everyone needs to address. Please join me to challenge this new topic.
２）Supervision Policy
I was given the best professor awards for many years. Very open-minded and friendly, but rigid in thinking, collecting data and writing. As already clarified, widely open to a wide range of topics and methodologies. We can certainly aim at international publications. I will certainly do my best to find funding to sustain your study and research, and find a job in Japan or elsewhere upon completion of your PhD (which should not be difficult).
３）Advice to prospective students
As the number of applications from overseas has been limited in the past, we have only limited amount of information in English on our website. So, do not hesitate to make appropriate inquiries through my email (t.suzuki@waseda.jp). Although the official requirements, examinations and arrangements may appear to be different from what you are familiar with, the substance is the same – we are all here to encourage you to apply. We will do our best to welcome you at Waseda.