Contact:
Email: swa@rice.edu
Office

Teaching Areas:
Cost Management, Managerial Accounting, Implementation of Strategy, Management Control Systems, Performance Measurement

Scholarly Areas:
Management Accounting, Operations Management, Performance Measurement, Management Control Issues, Operations Management, Strategic Cost and Performance Management

Bio Statement:
Professor Anderson joined the Jones School of Management in 2001. Prior to that, she taught for nine years at the University of Michigan Business School. Her research has been published in a number of leading journals in accounting and operations management, including: The Accounting Review, Accounting Organizations and Societies, Management Science, Production and Operations Management, and the Journal of Management Accounting Research. She is also co-author of the book Implementing Management Innovations, which won the American Accounting Association's Notable Contribution to the Accounting Literature Award in 2006 and the Notable Contribution to the Management Accounting Literature Award in 2003. Professor Anderson also won the Notable Contribution Award to the Management Accounting Literature in 2006 for another piece of research.

Before returning to school to pursue her doctorate, Prof. Anderson worked as an engineer for General Motors Corporation. As a part of her research program, Professor Anderson has worked with firms in a wide variety of industries, including: airlines, automotive, pharmaceuticals, machine tools and industrial equipment, defense contractors, commercial construction, textiles, and industrial glass.

Professor Anderson is a member of the American Accounting Association and INFORMS and currently serves as an Associate Editor of Management Science, as a Senior Editor of Production and Operations Management, and on the Editorial Boards of the Accounting Review, Management Accounting Research, the Journal of Management Accounting Research, and Accounting Organizations and Society.

Research Statement:
Professor Anderson's research examines how management accounting and control practices facilitate (or impede) the execution of operations strategy to profitably transform resources into valued goods and services --- the “performance management” role of management accounting. She studies traditional (e.g., cost systems, performance measurement systems, budgeting systems) and nontraditional (e.g., supplier management systems, quality management systems) performance management practices that are used to enhance firm performance and to enhance performance of the firm’s extended value chain. Professor Anderson studies performance management from alternative perspectives and different units of analysis. Specifically, she uses archival accounting records, survey data, and interview data to test theory at the level of the firm, the business unit, the individual manager and specific management decisions. In short, Professor Anderson's research provides a complex picture of how managers use accounting and control practices to manage performance in the modern firm.

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