Warrington accounting professor receives second honorary doctorate
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – W. Robert Knechel, Distinguished Professor, Frederick E. Fisher Eminent Scholar and Director of the International Accounting and Auditing Center, is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Nyenrode Business Universiteit in the Netherlands. He will receive the honorary doctorate virtually during a ceremony on November 20, 2021, the 75th anniversary of the Dutch business school.
“Receiving this honor is a humbling compliment,” Knechel said. “I have been visiting universities in the Netherlands for almost 30 years and truly appreciate this recognition. I have always valued my visits to Nyenrode and have had the opportunity to work with some wonderful colleagues there.”
Knechel has been active for decades in the training and supervision of Ph.D. students, many in the Netherlands. In addition to assisting young researchers in doctoral colloquiums and guest lectures at Nyenrode, every auditing Ph.D. student from the past 20 years has taken the school’s Limperg Auditing Courses with Knechel.
Knechel will be honored alongside Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, and Willem Blijdorp, entrepreneur who helped build the B&S Group, one of the largest global trading houses. Knechel joins an impressive group of Nyenrode honorary doctorate recipients. For Nyenrode’s 50th anniversary, the school conferred honorary doctorates on Nelson Mandela and Bill Gates.
This award is Knechel’s second honorary doctorate. In 2018, Knechel was honored with an award from BI Norwegian School of Business in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of accounting. He was one of 12 recipients from elite schools like Harvard, Stanford and Columbia to receive an honorary doctorate from Europe’s second largest business school.
Knechel has been a faculty member at the University of Florida Fisher School of Accounting since 1981. He is also a Visiting Research Professor of Auditing at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Research Professor in Auditing at the University of New South Wales in Australia. In 2020, Knechel was named a UF Research Foundation (UFRF) Professor for the second time, a recognition given to faculty with a distinguished current record of research and a strong research agenda that is likely to lead to continuing distinction in their fields.
His primary areas of research include issues related to assurance, control, performance measurement and auditing. His research has been published in several top accounting and auditing journals including the Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, The International Journal of Auditing and Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. On June 1, 2020, he began a three-year term as Senior Editor of The Accounting Review.
Knechel received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Delaware.
