Rate My Professor Hendrik Vollmer

Hendrik Vollmer is Professor in the Accounting Group at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, where he has been based since 2020. He previously worked at the University of Leicester from 2015, serving for three years as Head of the Accounting Division in the School of Business. Prior to his UK appointments, Vollmer spent sixteen years at Bielefeld University in Germany, achieving the status of Privatdozent Dr. and editing Zeitschrift für Soziologie, a leading German-language peer-reviewed sociology journal, from 2008 to 2015. His academic trajectory reflects a strong foundation in sociology, with studies in sociology and science studies at Bielefeld from 1992 to 1999.

Vollmer's research focuses on accounting as a social practice that permeates organizations, businesses, governments, professions, industries, communities, and global institutions. He explores the dynamics of accounting change under disruptive conditions and accounting's capacity to tackle ecological issues, including environmental impact, degradation, and renewal. His scholarship bridges accounting, social theory, valuation, accountability, and sustainability. Notable publications include the edited volume Handbook of Accounting in Society (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024), which features contributions on encountering accounting across societal domains; Accounting and the shifting spheres: the economic, the public, the planet in Accounting, Organizations and Society (2024); Public value and the planet: accounting in ecological reconstitution in Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (2021); and The sociology of disruption, disaster and social change: Punctuated cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Earlier works such as How to do more with numbers: Elementary stakes, framing, keying, and the three-dimensional character of numerical signs (2007) and Tracking the numbers: Across accounting and finance, organizations and markets (2009, with Mennicken and Preda) have garnered significant citations. Vollmer shapes the field through editorial contributions as Associate Editor of European Accounting Review and board member for Accounting, Organizations and Society, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, and Zeitschrift für Soziologie. He is a member of the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research and holds Senior Fellow status with the Higher Education Academy.