Prof. Dorota Dobija
Dorota Dobija is professor at the Department of Accounting at Kozminski University, Poland. She serves as a PhD program director and head of the Department of Accounting. Her area of expertise covers Accounting Theory, Corporate Governance and Intellectual Capital Valuation and Reporting. She received her master (1992) and PhD (1998) degrees from Cracow University of Economics and habilitation (2005) from Kozminski University.
Dorota is involved in the MaastrichtMBA programme as instructor at the Online MBA course on Management Accounting.
WHAT IS YOUR CONNECTION WITH MAASTRICHT?
I have been involved in the former EuroMBA consortium, which Maastricht University was one of the partners for last 15 years. I really like Maastricht. It seems a great place to live in.
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU TO BECOME A PROFESSOR?
Freedom. And it is not about academic freedom but about freedom to study and discover interesting things and share these discoveries with students and other audiences.
WHAT IS YOUR ROLE WITHIN THE ONLINE TRACK?
I am the instructor in Management Accounting course in January and February.
YOU WILL BE THE INSTRUCTOR FOR THE NEXT ONLINE MBA COURSE ON MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING. CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT YOUR LESSONS DURING THIS COURSE?
Management Accounting supports managers in their decision making. Therefore, this course supports and supplements courses on management. We will start with using financial information and financial ratios to read financial statements. Hopefully, the students will discover that by reading financial statements. We can learn a great deal about the business model of an organisation.
Moreover, we will move to various aspects of performance evaluations starting with discussion on the quality of cost information, the use of budgets as a tool of control and how to measure performance in decentralised organisations. Next to that, we will discuss more innovating approaches like the concept of beyond budgeting and the use of non-financial information to support managerial decision making.
SINCE THE CORONA OUTBREAK HAS LOCKED DOWN THE WORLD, ORGANISATIONS CHANGED RAPIDLY. HOW DO YOU THINK THIS NEW WORLD WILL BE FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS ON THE TOPIC OF FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING?
There is a lot of discussion about the future of accounting and finance functions. COVID-19 has speeded up digitalisation processes. I think this trend will also affect accountants. Electronic documents transfer became already a reality even in small accounting firms. One of the bigger trend will be also the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
However, and this is what I want to stress firmly, accountants are not going to be replaced by AI. The reason for this is accounting has a great deal of discretion. Machine learning can suggest solutions, but there is still a need for an accountant to make a final decision. Nevertheless, a future accountant is not going to be a bookkeeper but rather a highly skilled and educated specialist and professional able to cooperate with AI and take advantage of machine learning to record transactions in such a way that it even better reflect in economic terms of reality.
WHAT ARE YOUR LESSONS LEARNED DURING THIS PANDEMIC CRISIS AND WHICH CHANCES DO YOU SEE THE NEAR FUTURE FOR COMPANIES ON THEIR ORGANISATION OF MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTANCY?
I think that the pandemic started a process of rethinking of organisations. We will have to re-invent the coordination and cooperation processes to adjust to the already happening digital revolution. It is already a challenge of many organisations and undoubtedly management accountants will have to contribute to this process a great deal.
WHAT ARE YOU PARTICULARLY PROUD OF PROFESSIONALLY?
For many years I have been involved in the development of the one of the best business schools in Central and Eastern Europe. At some point, I resigned as I decided that I enjoy research more. Since then, I managed to develop a number of interesting projects and find a number of people around the world to work with on these projects. They are becoming my new friends. Academic titles and prizes are worth less than the friendship and intellectual stimulation I receive from the people I work with.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SHARE SOMETHING PERSONAL WITH THE READERS?
I live in Warsaw, have a daughter and a cat. I love spending free time on the Baltic Coast. As I was born in the south of Poland I also have passion for skiing.