Illinois State University’s Distinguished Professor Den Patten will present “Will Accounting Help Save the Planet? Reflections on Corporate Environmental Disclosure” at 5 p.m. April 13, in the Brown Ballroom of the Bone Student Center at Illinois State University.
Dr. Patten promotes sustainable accounting, including environmental disclosure, as a valuable tool for addressing climate change, resource depletion, and other ecological concerns.
The event is free and open to the public.
Patten first came to Illinois State University as an undergraduate student in the fall of 1974. He earned his bachelor’s degree in accounting in 1978 and a master’s degree in 1982. Patten joined the faculty in 1985, and later earned a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Over his career at ISU, Patten garnered numerous teaching and research awards at the department, college, and university level, and in 2015 received designation as a University Professor. In 2019, he was named a Distinguished Professor. Capping a 36-year career, he retired in the summer of 2021.
Patten’s research focuses primarily on better understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. He is a prolific author with more than 70 peer-reviewed publications in academic journals. His work helped to establish legitimacy theory as the dominant explanatory theory for variations in CSR disclosure. His research has also been cited extensively both in accounting and other academic disciplines.
Patten currently ranks 23 out of more than 5,000 accounting researchers worldwide in terms of career citations. He was the ninth most cited accounting researcher for the year 2020.
Those with questions on the lecture can email jadarga@ilstu.edu.
