Associate Professor James Fredrick Rooney

Jim Rooney is an Associate Professor in Accounting and Governance, in the School of Business, at UNSW Canberra.

Associate Professor Rooney joined UNSW Canberra in February 2018. Prior to that, he had been at the University of Sydney Business School for just over nine years 

Jim has lectured on undergraduate and postgraduate business units in topics ranging from management accounting through to corporate governance. Responsibilities have included coordination of corporate governance units at undergraduate and masters levels as well as coordination of masters level units in performance and rewards (human resource management) and business start-ups (entrepreneurial studies). 

Jim has also completed appointments as a Research Fellow at the Weatherhead Centre for International Relations at Harvard University as well as the Sustainability Transparency Accountability Research (STAR) Lab at Sydney University, working on research with senior academics at Harvard, Stanford and Sydney Universities focussed on the evaluation of sustainable supply chain programmes.

In terms of university and community service, Jim currently serves on NSW judging panel for the Telstra Business Awards and the Education Committee of the Institute of Internal Auditors. He also serves on the Editorial Working Party of the Labour History journal and the archive committee of the Bundanoon History Group. Over the past five years, Jim has served in official capacities on the Technical Committee of the Sydney University Economic Model, the Executive Committee of the Sydney branch of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History and the organising committee for the University of Sydney Genesis student entrepreneurial competition.

Prior to his full time appointment at the University of Sydney, Jim has had 25 years business experience in general management, service operations, consulting and information technology roles, largely in the Financial Services industry. He has worked for and with a number of leading Australian and global financial institutions and consulting organisations including Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, KPMG, IBM, GE Money, Citibank, Abbey National (UK), Westpac and NAB.

Jim's research concentrates on management and expert decision-making associated with organisational risk, management control and social responsibility. This includes organisational governance influences and implications. The empirical focus of this research is supply chain sustainability. Accounting history of significant social movements such as labour migration is also a strong research interest. He is interested in interactions between accounting information and decision-making with particular focus on the role of management controls, such as performance measures, play in the changing dynamics between organisations, governments and society.

Much of Jim’s research is interdisciplinary, and he has collaborated with colleagues from accounting, sociology, psychology and government/international relation to organisational research practice.