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Yoon Ju Kang

Associate Professor | Richard Dieter MS ’66 and Susan C. Dieter Endowed Faculty Fellow

Accounting
Dr. Kang is an associate professor of accounting and the Richard Dieter MS ’66 and Susan C. Dieter Endowed Faculty Fellow in Accounting. Her research focuses on auditor judgment and decision

Dr. Kang is an associate professor of accounting and the Richard Dieter MS ’66 and Susan C. Dieter Endowed Faculty Fellow in Accounting. Her research focuses on auditor judgment and decision-making and has been published in leading accounting journals, including Contemporary Accounting Research, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, and Accounting Horizons. This work has received national recognition, including the 2019 Auditing Section Midyear Meeting Best Conference Paper Award and the 2021 KPMG Academic Research Panel Grant. In 2025, she was also selected as the KPMG Academic Faculty Fellow and currently serves as the Accounting Department Ph.D. Program Coordinator. Dr. Kang currently teaches Advanced Financial Accounting in the undergraduate program and Experimental & Causal Inference Methods seminar in the Ph.D. program. She has received the College Outstanding Teaching Award in recognition of her excellence in teaching. 

Education

PhD in Accountancy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012
MS in Accountancy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006
BS in Mass Communication & Journalism (Double major: Business Administration), Ewha Womans University - Seoul, Korea, 2003

Professional Experience

Auditing Section, American Accounting Association (AAA), 2006-Present
Certified Public Accountant, State of Illinois, 2006-Present

Academic Appointments

Associate Professor, UMass Amherst, 2020-Present
Assistant Professor, UMass Amherst, 2014-2020
Assistant Professor, Lehigh University, 2012-2014

Recent Honors / Awards

Editor, Behavioral Research in Accounting, 2026-present
KPMG Faculty Fellow, KPMG, 2025-2027
Editorial Board Member, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, 2017-2026
ABO Section Service Award, Annual Meeting Co-Coordinator, 2020 & 2023
KPMG Academic Research Program Grant, KPMG, 2021
Faculty Research Grant, UMass Amherst, 2020
College Outstanding Teaching Award, Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, 2020
Access to Audit Personnel Program, Center for Audit Quality, 2020
Best Conference Paper Award, AAA Auditing Section, 2019
Nominee, Lilly Teaching Fellowship, UMass Amherst, March 2019
Nominee for College Outstanding Teaching Award, Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst, 2019
Nominee, Distinguished Teaching Award, UMass Amherst, 2018
Access to Audit Personnel Program, Center for Audit Quality, 2016

Research Interests

Auditing
Judgment & Decision-Making

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate
  • Advanced Financial Accounting
Doctoral
  • Behavioral and Experimental Research Methods
  • Multivariate Methods

Selected Publications

Aghazadeh, S., Andiola, L., Dennis, S., Kang, Y., Kremin., J. Schaefer, T., Sedor, L., Westermann, K., and D. Williams. 2026. Back to Basics: Classroom Exercises to Teach Auditing Fundamentals. Issues in Accounting Education 41 (1): 61-72 (https://doi.org/10.2308/ISSUES-2024-024)

McCallen, J., Carrasco, H., Doxey, M., Houston, R., and Y. Kang. 2025. Disentangling Overall Audit Inspection Risk: The Effects of Inspection Focus and Inspection Likelihood. Accounting Horizons, Forthcoming. (https://doi.org/10.2308/HORIZONS-2024-062)

Whitfield, A., Kang, Y., and K. Trotman. 2024. Auditor Communications on CAMs: Timing, Inspection Likelihood, and the Audit Committee. Contemporary Accounting Research 41 (2): 976-999.  (https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12934)

Aghazadeh, S., Dodgson, M. K., Kang, Y., and M. Peytcheva. 2023. Knowledge Creation and Transfer in the Context of National Office Consultations: Experiences of Audit Firm Partners. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 42 (3): 1-23. (https://doi.org/10.2308/AJPT-2020-141)

Altiero, E., Kang, Y., and M.E. Peecher. 2022. Motivated Perspective Taking: Why Prompting Auditors to Take an Investor’s Perspective Makes Them Treat Identified Audit Differences as Less Material. Contemporary Accounting Research 39 (1): 339-370. (https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12721)

Aghazadeh, S., Dodgson, M. K., Kang, Y., and M. Peytcheva. 2020. Revealing Oz: Institutional Work Shaping Auditors’ National Office Consultations. Contemporary Accounting Research 38 (2): 974-1008. (https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12655)

Kang, Y., M. D. Piercey, and A. J. Trotman. 2020. Does an Auditor Judgment Rule Increase or Decrease Auditors’ Use of Innovative Procedures? Contemporary Accounting Research 37 (1): 297-321. (https://doi.org/10.1111/1911-3846.12509)