The staff at the Department is involved in research in areas such as: Financial accounting, management accounting, non-business accounting, auditing and law. In addition, the history of business administration is an important research topic at the Department. The applied research done by the Department's staff is often channeled through the Foundation for Research in Economics and Business Administration (SNF).

For many decades, the accounting staff at NHH has been actively involved in the development of sound accounting financial reporting practice in Norway. This activity has taken place through teaching, writing, committee work, expert advice to the government, etc. Since NHH is the only institution in Norway offering a graduate study in auditing, the effect of these activities has direct consequences for the development of Norwegian accounting practice. This effect is further stressed by the Department´s close contact with the accounting and auditing profession.It is an issue of great importance to combine the international development within the field to the culture and business structures in Norway. This piece of balancing work is more than a translation function of international standards from leading countries, and must always be kept in mind. An important task during the most recent years, has been to adjust Norwegian accounting law to EU directives. Here, our staff is extensively engaged.The Department of Accounting, Auditing and Law will continue to do research in the field of standard setting of good accounting practice in Norway, both as a part of documentation and as a part of the development of sound practice.

From the traditional cost accounting with managerial applications primarily in the manufacturing area, management accounting has been extended in both richness and applications.

New areas such as Activity Based Costing (ABC/ABM), Total Quality Management (TQM) and Just in Time (JIT), have added to the dimensions of management accounting. Also, one is to a much greater extent aware of the possible behavioural consequences of management reports and the applications of such reports. The research methods and principles of management accounting are also increasingly beeing applied in the government sector, such as hospitals and the municipal school system, where members of the department have been involved.

At the Department of Accounting and Auditing research in this area started in 1984. Together with politicians and practitioners from the City of Bergen (city treasury), a research group at the Department designed and implemented the first local governmental annual report in Norway. Due to the focus on the City of Bergen, the research project is referred to as the "Bergen Project". The project mainly used the action research methodology. The research group also participated in the preparation of the three succeeding annual reports for the City of Bergen, thereafter the city went on to prepare its own annual reports. Later, an increasing number of Norwegian local governments have followed the City of Bergen and have started to prepare annual reports. A number of research reports were published as a result of the "Bergen Project", including four doctoral theses and a number of international articles.

Members of the staff have published text-books covering auditing regulation, professional conduct and internal control, and have made numerous contributions to professional journals. Individual members of the staff have also been active in various committees preparing new legislation in the auditing area. Recently, several research projects within auditing have been initiated at the Department. Two of these studies focus on aspects related to the auditor's detection of misstatements in the financial statements, including a review study of the research literature in the area and an empirical study of the conduct of audits by Norwegian auditors. The auditor's materiality judgement and going-concern decision have also been set on the research agenda.

Until recently, there has been little interest in Scandinavia in the history of business administration as an academic discipline. This is now changing. In Norway, the late Olav Harald Jensen made an important contribution through his history of NHH up to 1963. This research is currently being continued at NHH by Arne Kinserdal and Carl J. Norstrøm. Norstrøm´s research has so far focused on the development of business administration in Norway during the formative years from the establishment of NHH in 1936 to the end of the Second World War, with emphasis on the German influence.