“Accountancy is about more than figures” Professor Bart Dierynck and lecturer Sofie Vandenbogaerde both work at the Department of Accountancy. They are a couple and have two children. Together they are helping rid accountancy of its unjust “dry” image. Text: Joris Janssen
BART DIERYNCK
managers with experience in such a task indeed realize that it can also be intrinsically motivating. This allows them to switch more quickly to a fixed sum.”
Making lectures fun and educational Getting acquainted “As a professor of management accounting, I teach and do research. I am also research coordinator and I coordinate the PhD program within the department.”
The term “accountancy” sounds dry, but... “It’s very interesting to investigate how people in companies make decisions. For example, I researched whether having certain experience influences how managers motivate their employees. The question was: do managers motivate their employees in a different way if they themselves have experience with the task the employees have to perform? Managers often tend to reward on the basis of performance. But if a task can also be intrinsically motivating, you are less likely to switch to such bonuses. We discovered that
“Before a lecture, I have students write tweets about the papers they have to read. They send in the 140 characters in advance and then, throughout the lecture, a discussion about the tweets unfolds. In this way, I try to stay close to the personal experience of students. They write messages like that every day, so to speak. They like doing it very much. In addition, the tweets lead to making connections with other things and you can immediately see what the students do and don’t understand.”
Message to would-be accountants “Until I started my PhD, I was a top-level athlete: duathlon. Running, cycling, and running again. I combined that with studying during my student days. This taught me, for example, how to plan well, how to distinguish between main and side issues, and how to deal with stress. My tip for
20 | New Scientist | Tilburg School of Economics and Management
“I have students write tweets about the papers they have to read” prospective students is to use your time mainly to learn new things, to get to know yourself, and to explore the world. Later on, when you are working, you’ll find out how much time you had for that sort of
