George Foster was an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Chicago on leave in Australia when he got a phone call from William Beaver, Foster’s former teacher and mentor at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “He was offering to write me a recommendation for a promotion, but he said, ‘What I’d prefer is that you come back here to the GSB and be my colleague,’” Foster recalls. Soon thereafter, Foster, the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Management, did just that and worked alongside Beaver for more than four decades.
It was an example, Foster says, of Beaver’s extraordinary combination of deep respect in the accounting field and an abiding generosity that helped his students succeed. Foster had struggled early in his PhD training and Beaver provided both reassurance and inspiration. “I am very proud to call myself a student of Bill Beaver,” says Foster. “He was a titan.”
An admired researcher, teacher, and mentor to generations of students, Beaver, the Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting, Emeritus, died October 14 at age 84. The cause was Covid.
Beaver joined the Stanford GSB faculty in 1969 after four years at the University of Chicago, where he earned his MBA and PhD. He received his undergraduate degree from Notre Dame, where he also met his future wife, Suzanne Marie Hatton.
Throughout his career, Beaver’s innovations expanded and enriched the literature in the accounting field. He became a leading authority on the role that corporate financial statements play on stock prices, and was among the first scholars to examine how financial ratios could predict business failures. His 1966 paper Financial Ratios as Predictors of Failure has been cited more than 10,000 times. In 1968, he published Information Content of Annual Earnings Announcements, which later earned a Seminal Contribution to Accounting Literature Award. He also wrote the book Financial Reporting: An Accounting Revolution, now in its third edition.
“His impact on research, teaching, and practice of accounting cannot be overstated,” says Maureen McNichols, the Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Accounting and Public and Private Management at Stanford GSB. “I was mentored by one of Bill’s students, Jim Manegold, [PhD ’78] as a PhD student [at UCLA] and can still remember reading Bill’s 1968 paper and recognizing that I found the research direction I wanted to pursue for my career. You can only imagine how special it was to join Stanford’s faculty just a few years later and have him as a colleague, mentor, coauthor, and friend.”
Beaver’s influence was deep and far-reaching, according to Foster. “He had an enormous number of PhD students who ended up at great schools, and he co-authored with those students and Stanford colleagues for 40 years. He had such a profound impact on not just the literature, but on the careers of his PhD students as well as junior faculty members.”
One of those students was Wayne Landsman, MBA ’80, MS ’83, PhD ’84, the KPMG Distinguished Professor of Accounting at the University of North Carolina. He published multiple papers with Beaver between 1981 and 2017. “I owe Bill a debt of gratitude that I try to repay by following Bill’s example in helping my students during their doctoral studies and throughout their careers,” says Landsman.
Beaver was one of a small number of Stanford GSB faculty who earned teaching awards from all three student cohorts. In 1985, he received the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 1999, MSx students gave him the Sloan Teaching Excellence Award. In 2004, Beaver completed the sweep, winning the PhD Student Association Distinguished Service Award.
Esteemed in the Field
A CPA, Beaver’s contributions to his profession included serving as consultant to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, as a member of the SEC Advisory Committee and a trustee of the Financial Accounting Foundation, as well as extensive service on editorial review boards.
He is the only person to have received all five of the American Accounting Association’s highest professional honors. In 1996, he was named to the Accounting Hall of Fame. “Bill Beaver is a superb role model for academicians,” his friend and fellow Stanford GSB accounting professor Charles R. Horngren, said at the time. “He is a trailblazer in research. His amazing productivity and sophistication continue to flourish.”
“His contributions to our understanding of accounting and disclosure would be an incredible legacy but Bill’s contributions were multiplied through his mentorship and collaborations with numerous PhD students and colleagues over five decades,” says McNichols.
Beaver was an enthusiastic supporter of the accounting department’s annual “summer camp” for PhD students. The first day of camp was often followed by a reception at the Beavers’ campus home, where, according to McNichols, “students and faculty guests could see firsthand the importance of family in Bill’s life.” That love of family was also evident in Beaver’s office, where he had an extensive collection of photographs covering most of his desk.
“Bill will be remembered for so many things: his keen intellect, his exceptional research and teaching, his mentorship of doctoral students and colleagues, and his remarkable humility. But for those of us fortunate enough to know him well, we treasure his warm and generous friendship and inspiring example above all,” McNichols says.
In addition to Foster, Beaver’s former students also include Mary Barth, the Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting, Emerita at Stanford GSB. Barth, like Beaver, was recognized by MBA, MSx, and PhD students for her teaching excellence.
Beaver is survived by his wife, Sue, his children Marie, Sarah and David, his two grandsons, Cassiar and Aghileen, and by Marie’s partner, Marvin, and his children, Sedona and Jake.
A memorial service will be held at the Stanford Faculty Club on November 15 at 4 PM. The family has requested that donations be made to Stanford GSB.
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