Accounting & Business Law | Baylor University

Assistant Professor of Accounting Melanie Millar was named the 2019-2020 KPMG Summer Accounting Faculty Fellow. Since 2004, one faculty member has been selected for the fellowship each year, thanks to the generous support of our alumni and friends at KPMG. The faculty fellow uses the summer to focus on research activities.

“Thank you to KPMG for the support provided by the KMPG summer Accounting Faculty Fellowship,” Millar said. “The funding from the fellowship has been instrumental to the progression of my research and its presentation at national and international conferences and submission to top accounting journals.”

Millar’s research objective is to improve judgment, decision-making and behavior in the domains of auditing and investing. She uses psychology theory to investigate how individuals weigh and incorporate information into their decisions to make those decisions better.

Recently, one of Millar’s projects was published in the top management journal Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes. The project, “Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Regulatory Enforcement: Close Experience with Potential Sanctions and Fraud Deterrence,” uses real-world fare data from New York City taxi drivers to explore how drives who commit fraud and overcharge their passengers behave after being charged and either being found guilty or not guilty by the administrative taxi court. In addition, Millar has three audit projects under consideration for publication at top accounting journals.

“Funding from the KPMG Summer Fellowship has supported all of these projects and will continue to do so as they move through the publication process,” Millar said. “I am grateful to KPMG for their commitment to high-quality research that contributes to the continual improvement and understanding of the accounting profession and I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of that process.”