Dr Shewell is an emerging expert in the changing role of the finance and accounting professional in business as well as in performance measurement of the finance function. This is evident in her Master’s degree titled “Finance function – Leveraging a source of competitive advantage for selected South African companies in KwaZulu- Natal”, and PHD (Leadership) titled “Towards value adding performance: A finance function performance metric for the South African Freight Forwarding industry”. These two are relevant as they form a backdrop to her areas of scholarship to date. She has presented work at three local conferences related to the changing role and focus of the finance function in business. In addition, having identified Data Envelopment Analysis as a method of evaluating performance of other business support units, the potential value of DEA as a tool for evaluating relative performance of finance functions was recognised in her PHD. Dr Shewell has published two papers related to this research, the first critically examining the DEA literature, and specifically its application to business support units (cited by 6 international scholars). The second presents the findings of an application of DEA to the finance function, which work was also presented at a local and at an International conference.
