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November 16, 2005, at 4:45 p.m.
University Events Room
Glickman Family Library, 7th floor
Portland USM Campus (map)

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Dwindling government resources and demands for increased accountability have challenged nonprofit organizations to meet their primary missions while creating efficient and effective back-office accounting and information systems.  We sought to learn whether managers of small and medium size nonprofits believe that these systems are critical to fulfilling the primary mission of the organization, and whether these organizations have implemented efficient accounting and information systems. Surveys of a sample of small- to mid-size nonprofit organizations in Maine, where the nonprofit sector is over sixty percent larger than the national average, revealed that managers determined accounting and information support systems to be mission-critical, but that the systems are weakly staffed and tend to be less efficient than they should be.  Results also showed that the exercise of leadership was the underlying issue, demonstrating a need for nonprofits to address adaptive challenges, along with technical problems, to guide their organizations through turbulent times.
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Professor Pryor received a Ph.D. in accounting from Pennsylvania State University in 1996. She joined USM in 1999, teaches managerial accounting, accounting information systems, and government and non-for-profit accounting. Her research appears in Journal of Accounting and Finance Research and Advances in Quantitative Analysis of Finance and Accounting. She has presented papers at meetings of the American Academy of Accounting and Finance, at the regional meetings of the American Accounting Association, and at the AIS Accounting Educators' conference. Professor Pryor consults on accounting information systems for small non-profits. Professor Pryor is a member of the American Accounting Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the Institute of Management Accountants. She has served as the director of the Master of Science in Accounting degree for the University of Southern Maine.

The colloquium is sponsored by the L.L. Bean/Lee Surace Endowed Chair in Accounting.

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USM Professor Jeffrey Gramlich was appointed the first L.L. Bean/Lee Surace Chair in Accounting in the USM School of Business in 2003. His appointment was made possible by a $1 million gift from L.L. Bean, Inc., its board chair, Leon Gorman, his wife Lisa, Jim and Maureen Gorman, and Tom Gorman, who established the chair in memory of L.L. Bean CFO Lee Surace '73, '81, who died in March of 2001. Surace was chair of the USM School of Business' Advisory Council and was a frequent guest lecturer.

The USM School of Business is accredited by the prestigious AACSB International. For students seeking the finest education and companies seeking the highest caliber talent, partnership, and educational opportunities, AACSB International accreditation is one of the most important affirmations of sustained quality in the word. For more information about School of Business programs, call 780-4020.