Christina Boedker

Christina was born in Denmark and has previously lived and worked in Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. She first came to Australia on a ship in the 1990s when she worked as Operations Manager in the American cruise industry.

Christina is currently a Professor of Accounting at the Newcastle Business School, a Board Director at the Hunter Defence Support Network and an accredited member of the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and CPA Australia. She has held positions as Deputy Head of School and Head of Discipline, Accounting & Finance at the Newcastle Business School. Prior to that she worked at the University of New South Wales for 18 years.

In 2024, Christina was invited to act as an Advisor on payroll tax to the Chief Commissioner of Revenue NSW in their response to the NSW Minister of Finance. The project examined the feasibility of utilising data furnished to the Australian Taxation Office for the prefilling of payroll tax by State Revenue Offices.

In 2022, Christina founded the University of Newcastle Tax Clinic via a $299,343 grant from the Australian Federal Government. The Tax Clinic offers free tax advice to disadvantaged clients with reduced capacity to manage their tax affairs. It is part of the National Tax Clinic Program.

In 2022, Christina led the Financial Wellbeing and General Life Satisfaction project on behalf of Greater Bank.

In 2021, the Australian Workplace Index project was established as a strategic partnership between the University of Newcastle and the Australian National University. Visit https://www.australianworkplaceindex.com.au/

Christina has a passion for studying the impact of calculation and calculative devices (financial forecasts, accounting numbers, performance measures, revenue targets etc.) on people's working lives, their affect and wellbeing and business decision making more broadly. She is also interested in leadership personality traits, ranging from leaders who empower their staff to lead to dark triad leaders whose interpersonal skills take on very different dimensions.

Christina holds a PhD in Accounting from UNSW, an MBA in Financial Management, a Master of Commerce in Accounting and a 1st class (Honours) in Economics. Christina is an accredited member of the Chartered Accountant Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ) and CPA Australia.

Christina’s research combines academic rigor and theory with industry collaboration and applied policy work. Christina has published in high quality accounting publications in A* and A journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society, the Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Critical Perspectives on Accounting and Accounting & Finance. A career highlight is her article on emotions and accounting published in the Financial Times Top 45 journal, Accounting, Organizations and Society.

She has authored several government reports and books, culminating in the High Performing Workplaces Index report, launched at the Prime Minister’s Future Job Forum in 2011 and used by firms to measure their workplace productivity and leadership and management skills. Christina’s work has featured in over 50 media articles in the Australian Financial Review, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald and SKY News. Christina is currently leading the Australian Workplace Index project, a strategic partnership between University of Newcastle and Australian National University.

Christina has won several research grants, totaling $2,205,604 in cash funding. She has worked with organisations such as Microsoft, the Department of Finance and Deregulation, the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Westpac Banking Corporation, the Victorian Government, the Business Council of Australia, the South Australian Government and others to influence policy and practice. She was the acting CEO of the Society for Knowledge Economics for 2 years.

She has received a number of awards for her work, including the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence; the Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award in the Interdisciplinary Accounting Research category, the UK Advertising Standards Authority Award; the Mindshift Consulting Group Prize; Saunders Harris’ Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement; the Carlson Companies’ Award; MGSM’s Award for Competitive Intelligence; and MGSM’s Award for Human Resources Management. She received an Honourable Mention at the 2008 Business and Higher Education Roundtable Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Research and Development.