Dennis Caplan
PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 1994
Faculty Expertise and Achievement
Professor Caplan uses analytical, empirical, and case study methodologies to study corporate financial fraud, the regulation and self-regulation of the auditing profession, and other accounting topics. Caplan has published research in the Journal of Accounting Research; Contemporary Accounting Research; Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory; Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance, and other academic and practitioner journals. Caplan has published six case studies on aggressive/fraudulent financial reporting, including articles on Lehman, Olympus, and Toshiba. He has published two articles on lattice allocations coauthored with the patent-holder. Lattice allocations is a new matrix-based technique for applying the reciprocal method of service department cost allocations. He has also published two teaching cases on management accounting topics, including one on Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the Barbary Pirates. Caplan is tied for third in BYU’s ranking of accounting faculty research productivity with respect to educational cases. He was Senior Editor of Advances in Accounting from 2019 through 2021, served as an associate editor for Issues in Accounting Education (2015–2019), and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Accounting Education and the IMA Educational Case Journal. Caplan has self-published an on-line introductory management accounting textbook, Management Accounting Concepts and Techniques, which he makes available to instructors and students under a Creative Commons Public License.
Research Interests
My primary research focus is on the commission and detection of financial reporting fraud. My current interests also include the relation between corporate governance and firm performance in the context of mergers and acquisitions, and a new technique for applying the reciprocal method to service department cost allocations.
Research Websites
Teaching Interests and Areas
- BACC 222 – Cost Accounting Systems for Managerial Decisions
- BACC 461 – Auditing
- BACC 531 – Introduction to Cost Analysis
- BACC 552 – Financial Statement Fraud and Corporate Governance
- BACC 615 – Financial Statement Analysis
- BACC 611 – Contemporary Developments in Accounting Thought
- TBUS 160 – A Non-Mathematical Introduction to the Theory of Games (Honors College seminar)
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