New executive dean appointed to Faculty of Business, Economics and Law
Students of business, economics and law maximise their chances of success if they are prepared to adapt to changes in their professions, according to the new executive dean of the University of Queensland's Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, Professor Ian Zimmer.
"These professions are changing and converging, and students have to be willing to change and adapt," Professor Zimmer said.
"For instance, accountants are becoming less bean-counters and more business advisers. Professional advice is becoming a one-stop shop, with large firms that used to handle just tax and accounting now doing everything - law, actuarial, marketing.
"Graduates have to fit in with that and not see themselves in narrow terms."
Professor Zimmer will take up duiies as executive dean on November 16.
He succeeds Professor John Longworth, who will continue as Professor of Agricultural Economics, a personal chair in the School of Natural and Rural Systems Management which he has held since 1987.
Professor Zimmer will head five departments - law, commerce, economics, management and hospitality, tourism and property management - and plans to reposition these as two entities.
"Essentially we'll have two schools, the business school and the law school, which will be closely allied by research centres," he said.
"Four departments (commerce, economics, management and hospitality, tourism and property management) would hopefully become a Queensland business school."
Other plans include developing a greater presence for hospitality and tourism in the central business district as a joint venture with COTAH (College of Tourism and Hospitality) and developing a presence overseas with HELP (Higher Education and Learning Program) in Malaysia.
Professor Zimmer also favours a move towards fee-based operation and decreased reliance on government funding.
"I'd like to see the whole new faculty become more privatised, more tuition- and other fee-based," he said.
"The only chance you've got of running an excellent program is by decreasing your reliance on government funding and increasing your level of private sector funding, because recent history has shown that governments are no longer interested in funding business or law studies at any reasonable level."
Professor Zimmer said University of Queensland courses had adapted to reflect changes in the economics, law and business fields.
"The big word is convergence. The fields are converging and they've really got to change," he said.
"Accounting and law have moved away from doing so-called compliance work to helping businesses adapt and realise opportunities. Helping a firm with its budget and helping it move into new projects - that's where the work is today.
"The people who are going to do well are better at that second aspect rather than the compliance work.
"The courses reflect this. With accounting, for instance, there's less emphasis on the technicalities of debit and credit and greater emphasis on how that fits into the business' decision-making. And our new programs in electronic commerce (which no one else in the country has) and business communication are big pluses for the new faculty."
Professor Zimmer was appointed Head of the TC Beirne School of Law in 1997. Prior to this, he was head of the Department of Commerce and Professor of Accounting.
He graduated Bachelor of Business in Accounting, Swinburne University of Technology, in 1974, Master of Commerce in Accounting and Finance at the University of Liverpool, U.K., in 1976 and completed his PhD at the University of New South Wales in 1983. He was made Doctor of Science at UNSW in 1997 on the basis of published work.
Professor Zimmer began his career as a clerk with the Commonwealth Banking Corporation in 1966 and worked in various positions with the Australian Taxation Office before becoming a teacher of accounting at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1974.
He was appointed lecturer in accounting at the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education (now Deakin University) in 1977 and lecturer then senior lecturer in accounting at the University of New South Wales. He was appointed Associate Professor of Commerce at the University of Queensland in 1985 and Professor of Accounting in 1986.
His research interests are in the application of financial economics and behavioural decision theory to financial reporting problems.
