Areas of Expertise (14)
Investor and Security Analyst Judgment
Graduate Business Education
Mba and Executive Mba
Security Analysis
Financial Statement Analysis
Judgement and Decision Making
Financial Accounting
Auditing
Earnings Forecasts
Fasb Rules
Financial Disclosure
Financial Reporting
Investor and Auditor Judgment
Decision Theory
Biography
D. Eric Hirst is the Senior Associate Dean, a professor, and researcher in the areas of financial accounting, financial statement analysis, investor and security analyst judgment and decision making. He has studied management earnings forecasts, disclosure requirements, investor judgment relative to forecasts, and the various aspects of auditing.
Hirst is the King Ranch Chair for Business Leadership and the John Arch White Professor in Business in the department of accounting, and is the associate dean of graduate programs at the McCombs School, The University of Texas at Austin. He has been a visiting professor at schools around the world, including France and Finland.
He leads the strategy and operations of six Texas MBA programs serving over 1,200 MBA students, and is the school's primary representative on the contracting, design, and construction of the new $173 million graduate school of business building, Rowling Hall.
Hirst is on the board of directors of the MBA Roundtable, is the treasurer for Partners in International Management (PIM), and is an associate editor and on the editorial review boards at numerous top accounting journals.
He is the co-author of Cases in Financial Reporting: An Integrated Approach with an Emphasis on Earnings Quality and Persistence, now in its eighth edition. His research has been acknowledged for excellence, including the American Accounting Association (AAA) Distinguished Contribution to the Accounting Literature Award in 2011. He was an AAA doctoral consortium fellow in 1989.
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Education (3)
University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management: Ph.D., Accounting 1992
University of Waterloo: MAcc, Public Accountancy 1985
University of Waterloo: BA, Honors Economics (Chartered Accountancy Option) 1985
Media Appearances (6)
New UT Academic Building to House McCombs MBA Program
Time Warner Cable News online
2017-01-27
"Well if you think about what you’re trying to accomplish as an MBA student, you’re looking to make connections with other business students, with faculty, with students from other colleges, you’re trying to innovate, you need a space where you can share ideas, where you can throw ideas around, test ideas," said Eric Hirst with the McCombs School Business.
The Best MBA Programs in Accounting
Poets & Quants online
2015-04-27
“We stand on the shoulders of giants,” Hirst notes. “They instituted a set of values and culture that really permeates. It’s a focus on high quality teaching grounded in research and its relevance to practice.”
Texas Executive MBA Program Ranked Ninth in the World
The Daily Texan print
2012-01-25
“We have a very high level of collegiality,” Hirst said. “Most MBA programs are cutthroat. This is not the case for us. We have a culture of collaboration. People learn from each other. Students are paying a lot of money to be here and are not easily impressed.”
Top Skills MBA Grads Need for Success
Huffington Post College online
2011-12-05
"The world is looking to business leaders to take the high road, not to feed at the trough, but to hold politicians and each other to higher standards," comments Eric Hirst, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at the University of Texas.
On the Lesson Plan: Feelings
Wall Street Journal print
2011-06-07
"At the end of the day, it's relatively easy to teach people how to run financial models," said Eric Hirst, associate dean for graduate programs at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. "What's challenging is to lead change, to manage."
Making the Human Connection in Business
UTNews online
2011-04-25
Professor Hirst relates an experience from travels in South Africa that showed him the importance of viewing business through the lens of the humanities.
Articles (8)
Management Earnings Forecasts: A Review and Framework
Accounting Horizons
2008-01-01
In this paper, we provide a framework in which to view management earnings forecasts.
How Disaggregation Enhances the Credibility of Management Earnings Forecasts
Journal of Accounting Research
2007-06-30
In this paper, we experimentally test whether a characteristic of a management earnings forecast—namely, whether it is disaggregated—can affect its credibility. We also test whether disaggregation moderates the relation between managerial incentives and forecast credibility.
Fair Values, Income Measurement, and Bank Analysts' Risk and Valuation Judgments
The Accounting Review
2004-04-01
We examine how fair-value-income measurement affects commercial bank equity analysts' risk and value judgments.
Improving Financial Reports by Revealing the Accuracy of Prior Estimates
Contemporary Accounting Research
2010-01-15
We conduct two experiments within the context of an important intangible asset requiring estimation - software development costs. Our results show that the proposed reporting mechanism is effective in communicating information about the accuracy of financial estimates.
The Joint Effect of Management's Prior Forecast Accuracy and the Form of its Financial Forecasts on Investor Judgment
Journal of Accounting Research
1999-01-01
In this paper we examine how investor reaction to management earn-ings forecasts is a joint function of the form of the forecast (point or range forecasts) and management's prior forecast accuracy (high or low).
Comprehensive Income Reporting and Analysts' Valuation Judgments
Journal of Accounting Research
1998-01-01
This paper investigates whether clear reporting of comprehensive income (CI) and its components facilitates detection of earnings management by buy-side financial analysts and predictably affects their common stock price judgments.
Investor Reactions to Financial Analysts' Research Reports
Journal of Accounting Research
1995-01-01
The purpose of this paper is to show that investors' reactions to information in financial analysts' research reports depend on characteristics of both the analyst and the report.
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