Abstract:
Sandy Burton was a seasoned academic who played a major role in shaping American accounting regulation in the latter part of the twentieth century. A vocal reformer, he became a vigorous SEC Chief Accountant and thereafter New York City Deputy Mayor. He was a critic of accounting practice as well as academe, preaching the gospel of reform in writings and speeches. Contending that accounting was too narrowly focused, he called upon the accounting community to reinvent itself. He was profoundly dissatisfied with the nature of academic accounting research because it had been irrelevant to practice. Burton earned considerable respect for attempting to bridge the gap between accounting practice and academe.