Edward J. Blocher is Professor of Accounting at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina. He received his bachelor's degree in economics from Rice University, his MBA degree from Tulane University, and his PhD in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin. He has been a faculty member at the University of North Carolina since 1976. He has also been on the faculty of Northwestern University. Professor Blocher presents regularly on strategic cost management at the national meetings of both the American Accounting Association and the Institute of Management Accountants. He is also active in the American Institute of CPAs, where he has recently served on two task forces on auditing standards.

While he is involved in a number of accounting organizations, Professor Blocher has been most continuously active in the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). He is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA), has taught review courses for the CMA exam, and has served on the Institute's national education committee. He also presents regularly at the annual national conference of the IMA. Professor Blocher is the author or coauthor of several articles appearing in various journals.

Putting research and teaching into practice is important to Professor Blocher, who has worked closely with other firms and organizations in developing products, publications, and teaching materials. He was the principal designer of an accounting analysis system developed by Financial Audit Systems, Inc. Also, he has worked with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the American Institute of CPAs, KPMG Peat Marwick, Grant Thornton, and the Chancellor's Office at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, among others.

David E. Stout is the John S. and Doris M. Andrews Professor of Accounting, Williamson College of Business Administration, Youngstown State University. Previously, he held the position of the John M. Cooney Professor of Accounting, College of Commerce & Finance, Villanova University. David earned his Ph.D. degree (1982) from the University of Pittsburgh and teaches primarily in the cost/managerial accounting area. He served previously as editor of Issues in Accounting Education and serves currently as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Accounting Education and as a member of the editorial board of: Issues in Accounting Education; the Journal of International Accounting, Auditing & Taxation; China Finance and Accounting Review, and Management Accounting Quarterly/Strategic Finance. In addition, he serves as a member of the editorial advisory board of Accounting Education: An International Journal. Professor Stout has published over sixty papers in numerous professional and academic journals including Advances in Accounting Education, Issues in Accounting Education, the Journal of Accounting Education, The Accounting Educators’ Journal, Advances in Accounting Education, Behavioral Research in Accounting, Educational and Psychological Measurement, Management Accounting, Management Accounting Quarterly, Financial Practice and Education, Strategic Finance, and Advances in Accounting. David is past president of the Teaching and Curriculum (T&C) Section of the AAA.

Gary Cokins is a strategist in performance management solutions with SAS, the world’s largest privately owned software vendor. He is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in advanced cost management and performance improvement systems. Gary received a BS degree with honors in Industrial Engineering/Operations Research from Cornell University in 1971. He received his MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in 1974.

Gary serves on activity-based information committees including CAM-I, APICS, the Supply Chain Council, the Council for Logistics Management (CLM), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), the American Society for Quality (ASQ), the Purchasing Management Association of Canada (PMAC), the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), Association for Management Information in Financial Services (AMI/fs), and the American Institute of CPA’s (AICPA).

Kung H. Chen is the Steinhardt Foundation Professor of Accounting and the Director of Graduate Programs in the School of Accountancy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A graduate of National Taiwan University, he has his MBA degree from West Virginia University and a PhD from the University of Texas-Austin.

Professor Chen has published his research in various journals, including The Accounting Review, Encyclopedia of Accounting, Internal Auditor, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, Behavioral Research in Accounting, Journal of Accounting Literature, Advances in Accounting, Financial Management, and International Journal of Accounting, and has presented research papers to audiences in several countries including the United States, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and China.