Skip to main content

James F. Smith

Professor Emeritus

Accounting

Education

PhD, University of Washington, 1981
MBA, Harvard Business School, 1976
BS, Duquesne University, 1968

Professional Experience

Senior Auditor and Tax Associate, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Pennsylvania, 1970-1974
First Lieutenant, United States Army (Finance Corps), 1968-1970

Academic Appointments

Chair, Department of Accounting, Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, 1993-2012
Director, Master of Science in Accounting Program, Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, 2002-2014
Director Semester in the Profession Program, Department of Accounting, Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, 2000-2005

Research Interests

Behavioral Decision Theory in Accounting & Auditing Contexts
Memory & Encoding Issues and the Functionality of Heuristics & Biases in Decision Making

Teaching Interests

General
  • Management Accounting
  • Cost Accounting
  • Financial Reporting

Selected Publications

"Investment Decision Making: Do Experienced Decision Makers Fall Prey to the Paradox of Choice?" with Thomas Kida and Kimberly Moreno, Journal of Behavioral Finance, forthcoming 2008

With K. Moreno and T. Kida "The Impact of Affective Reactions on Risky Decision Making in Accounting Contexts," Journal of Accounting Research, December 2002.

With T. Kida and K. Moreno "The Influence of Affect on Managers' Capital Budgeting Decisions," Contemporary Accounting Research, Fall 2001.

With T. Kida and Mario Maletta. "The Effects of Encoding Memory Traces for Numerical Data on Accounting Decision Making," Accounting, Organizations and Society (July 1998).