In this concentration, students can specialize in one of the following subfields:

- Empirical financial accounting

- International financial reporting

- Auditing

- Financial statement analysis

- Organizational and social aspects of accounting

The ESSEC PhD program in accounting and auditing is devoted to training doctoral candidates to conduct research at the highest level on questions dealing with the role of accounting information in an ever changing economic environment. The PhD program in accounting and auditing is broadly based and offers interdisciplinary training in order to apply basic knowledge from the various fields of business studies to address a variety of accounting and auditing issues.

Research in accounting and auditing attempts to address a large spectrum of questions including the impact of accounting information on financial market participants and other users, the problems of information asymmetries among managers and users and the effects of managerial discretion, the structure of incentive and monitoring systems, the difficulties in reporting on increasingly complex financial transactions and instruments and their valuation effects, the convergence of national financial reporting systems towards an international standard of reference and its impact on capital markets, the role of auditing and the economic effects of regulation of accounting information, among other issues.

General Requirements: 200 hours

Student Research and Professional Development Seminars: 120 hours

Advanced courses and seminars: 220 hours

Advanced courses and seminars in accounting and auditing: 140 hours

Quantitative research methods in management 1: 30 hours

Quantitative research methods in management 2: 30 hours

Qualitative research method in management 1: 30 hours

Econometrics: 30 hours

Corporate finance: 30 hours

Game theory (DMS): 15 hours

Decision theory (DMS): 15 hours

+ 1 elective selected from the management control subfield: 20 hours

+ 1 elective among other Essec Ph.D. courses: 20 hours

Accounting Theory: 30 hours

Empirical research in financial accounting 1: 30 hours

Empirical research in financial accounting 2: 30 hours

Research in auditing and regulations: 30 hours

Readings on contemporary accounting and auditing research: 20 hours