Tarek Rana

Associate Professor of Accounting at RMIT University

I am an Associate Professor of Accounting in the School of Accounting, Information Systems and Supply Chain at the RMIT University. I earned my PhD in Management Accounting at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Australia. Prior to becoming an academic, I was a senior manager and managing partner of professional accounting firms in Australia. I have considerable professional and industry experience in the areas of business services, taxation, auditing, and financial planning as well as consulting services including performance measurement and risk management.

I have formed many industry partnerships and undertaken practice focused research projects to deliver long-term social and organisational impact. Currently, I am working with a few public and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Australia and internationally. I have recently completed a large research project on audit analytics funded by the CPA Australia and earlier on cost accounting practices of Australian NGOs funded by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA, UK).

My current research focuses on the intersection of accounting and data analytics including the implications of data analytics on management control systems, performance measurement, risk management where I draw on textual analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence theories and practices. My research papers appeared in international and interdisciplinary scholarly journals such as The British Accounting Review, Financial Accountability & Management, Business Strategy and the Environment, Public Money & Management, Journal of Accounting & Organisational Change, and Journal of Intellectual Capital. I am currently co-editing (with Alan Lowe, Jan Svanberg, and Peter Ohman) a ‘Handbook of Big data and Analytics in Accounting and Auditing’ for Springer Nature.

I have strong links with professional accounting bodies both in Australia and overseas, including CPA, CAANZ, CIMA, CGMA and AICPA. Currently, I am serving as a member of the executive committee of the CIMA Victoria Branch (July 2019 – Present). Previously, I have served as an executive committee member of the CIMA Australia ACT Branch Committee (July 2012 – June 2016), member of the CPA Australia Albury-Wodonga Branch Council (February 2017 – January 2019), and a regional branch committee member of the CAANZ Albury-Wodonga Group (August 2016 – April 2018).

Selected publications

Grants (last 5 years)

  • Building analytics capability for audit efficiency and effectiveness: A need analysis for digital transformation. Funded by: CPA Australia Global Research Perspectives Program 2018 onwards from (2020 to 2021)

Supervision

  • 2 PhD Completions
  • 2 PhD Current Supervisions