Royal Society of Canada honours outstanding academics from Concordia

RSC Fellow Michel Magnan — Professor and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair in Corporate Governance at the John Molson School of Business.

“My work crosses borders,” notes Michel Magnan, who became a Fellow Chartered Professional Accountant (FCPA) in 1998 and is the only professor on Canada’s Accounting Standards Board. “It’s accounting based, but it reaches audiences beyond academic researchers. Sometimes there’s this notion of professors being in the Ivory Tower, but there’s more to me than academics.”

Twenty years ago, Magnan was among the first to do research on executive compensation in Canada, using domestic data on domestic companies.

“If you use Canadian data and analyze what’s going on in terms of governance and executive compensation, you gain a better understanding of the practices of Canadian companies,” he says. “This helps investors, analysts and regulators.” His current work also looks at environmental and social disclosure by corporations, while yet another aspect of his practice analyzes financial statements.

“Becoming a fellow in the RSC is very satisfying because sometimes accounting is mistakenly thought of as too practical to be worthy of academic research,” says Magnan, who has well over one hundred articles published, written in both French and English. “This honour is recognition that accounting-related work within business school is of substance.”

Magnan strives to dispel the myth that only American executives are getting overpaid: “It’s important to continue to look at Canadian companies and not get too distracted by what’s happening with American C.E.O.s.”