Accounting and Finance at forty: a retrospective evaluation

Accounting and Finance has evolved from a news bulletin to a full-grown refereed academic journal that has published papers written by authors from Australia, New Zealand, the United States of America, Canada, Europe and Asia. The Journal published its 41^st volume in 2001 and that anniversary issue coincides with the beginning of the new millennium. As part of the celebration of this important milestone, this article reviews the Journal's evolution, the variety of papers published and the Journal's impact on accounting and finance research in the Asia Pacific region. Data for 394 papers published in the Journal by 570 authors are analysed. I find that the distribution of institutions and authors that have published in the Journal is highly skewed, with the top five (11) institutions accounting for 35 per cent (51 per cent) of the published papers in the Journal. Similarly, 8 per cent of the authors have published 26 per cent of the articles in the Journal. Analysis of the citation pattern indicates that Accounting and Finance does not have much impact on research published in the Asia Pacific region, with the Journal accounting for only 1.06 per cent of all citations in the selected Asia Pacific journals. Sub-period analysis indicates that not even the establishment of the editorial board in the latter half of the 1990s has helped improve the impact of the Journal on research published in the Asia Pacific region. However, compared with other Asia-Pacific journals, Accounting and Finance has the strongest impact on publications in the selected journals. The impact is even stronger in the latter half of the 1990s. Also, the impact of Accounting and Finance on the more recent journals in the Asia Pacific region is stronger than that of the other more established journals.     

EXAMINING THE PRACTICAL RELEVANCE OF PUBLIC SECTOR MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING RESEARCH

Concerns exist that practical relevance is becoming devalued as accounting scholars respond to signals about what sort of research ‘counts’. We categorize public sector management accounting papers in six leading journals according to two criteria: the practical orientation of the research objective(s), and whether the conclusions communicate issues of practical relevance. The findings reveal that most of the papers are directed towards understanding or critiquing the use of management accounting techniques, while other practically oriented research objectives are largely absent. Although half of the papers identify practical research implications, few suggest guidelines for practice. Reflections are offered on the role of leading journals in shaping how practical relevance is valued in accounting research.     

Discovering the ‘international’ in accounting and finance

As higher education in accounting and finance moves increasingly in the direction of internationalisation of degree programmes and student populations, this paper reflects on the ways in which contemporary research contributes to the academic community's understanding of the rich potential of evidence available on international convergence and diversity.Reviews of research published in recent years have pointed to strong parochiality in the research questions and data choices of many researchers. This paper looks for a meta-structure of cross-sectional international comparisons across a range of papers at one point in time. Research papers of 2005 are selected from eight journals giving a broad coverage of subject matter.A cultural framework is proposed as a basis for an ethnographic view of the data and findings of empirical research papers. Cultural diversity is found as an explicit discussion in some papers but others are silent or even apologetic for cultural differences.Country-specific studies reveal the potential for comparative studies on a wider geographical basis but the achievement of such an aim will require the academic research community (editors, reviewers and authors) to show flexibility in dealing with smaller data sets and greater uncertainty about the nature of accounting information. Most importantly this review shows the considerable wealth of interest waiting for those who take time to peruse academic journals.     

Still flickering at the margins of existence? Publishing patterns and themes in accounting and finance research over the last two decades

This paper reviews the last 24 years of academic accounting in the UK, using survey data collected every 2 years by the British Accounting Association (BAA). Over this period, the number of academic accountants more than doubled, the number of full professors rose from 42 to 247, the proportion of staff with a Ph.D. rose from 9% to 39%, the proportion with a professional qualification fell from 73% to 50%, the proportion of academics with no publications fell and the proportion publishing in refereed journals rose. The analysis of the BAA data produces several other findings. First, the overall level of publications reached a peak in 2000 and declined thereafter. Since 1982–1983 there has been a distinct downward trend in the number of journal articles published each period per head, although from year to year the changes are more uneven. Second, very few UK academics publish in the journals, which are identified (by published ranking surveys) as being top international journals, with the exception of Accounting, Organizations and Society. Third, very few UK academics publish in the set of journals which they themselves rate the most highly in terms of quality and which are published primarily in the US. Fourth, the contribution made by UK academics to the international literature also increased, in terms of volume, up to the year 2000 and declined thereafter. Fifth, there has been a move away from publishing in mainstream accounting journals and professional journals. The paper considers some of the implications of these trends for the future of research, for teaching, for the individual progress of UK accounting academics, for the development of the discipline and for the international competitiveness of UK accounting research.     

Journal entry anomaly detection model

Although numerous scientific papers have been written on deep learning, very few have been written on the exploitation of such technology in the field of accounting or bookkeeping. Our scientific study is oriented exactly toward this specific field. As accountants, we know the problems faced in modern accounting. Although accountants may have a plethora of information regarding technology support, looking for errors or fraud is a demanding and time-consuming task that depends on manual skills and professional knowledge. Our efforts are oriented toward resolving the problem of error-detection automation that is currently possible through new technologies, and we are trying to develop a web application that will alleviate the problems of journal entry anomaly detection. Our developed application accepts data from one specific enterprise resource planning system while also representing a general software framework for other enterprise resource planning developers. Our web application is a prototype that uses two of the most popular deep-learning architectures; namely, a variational autoencoder and long short-term memory. The application was tested on two different journals: data set D, learned on accounting journals from 2007 to 2018 and then tested during the year 2019, and data set H, learned on journals from 2014 to 2016 and then tested during the year 2017. Both accounting journals were generated by micro entrepreneurs.     

THE IMPACT OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH ON FINANCE

This paper assesses the impact of accounting research on finance using citational methods and content analysis. The data are 715 articles published in seven finance journals. In contrast to previous research of the influence of finance research on accounting, the results show relatively little impact of accounting research on finance. The limited impact of accounting on finance is principally provided by four accounting journals and a small group of accounting authors. The impact found is often the result of bridging papers, in which either finance articles have accounting authors, or vice versa. These results suggest a substantial disregard of ostensibly pertinent capital-markets accounting research by finance scholars. The reasons for finance’s disregard of this work, whether for reasons of perceived value, quality, or for other reasons, is unclear. However, it is apparent that accounting capital-markets research is not as influential in finance as might be expected.     

The Impact of Accounting Education Research

Abstract

This paper presents an exploratory study into the nature and patterns of usage of accounting education research. The study adopts the most accessible metric, Google Advanced Scholar citations, to analyse the impact of research published in the six principal English-language accounting education journals. The analysis reveals a global readership for these journals but evidence of relatively low citation levels. However, papers tended to be cited more than expected in cross-disciplinary education journals, discipline-specific education journals, and non-education journals. Guidance is offered to authors seeking to maximise the impact of their research, and issues of concern are identified for editors and publishers. This is the first paper to look beyond content at the usefulness of research in accounting education as indicated by citations. In doing so, it contributes to the current debate on the quality of this research, and of research in accounting and finance in general.     

Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Bibliometrics is a fundamental field of information science that studies bibliographic material quantitatively. It is very useful for organising available knowledge within a specific scientific discipline. This study presents a bibliometric overview of accounting research using the Web of Science database, identifying the most relevant research in the field classified by papers, authors, journals, institutions and countries. The results show that the most influential journals are: The Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review and Accounting, Organizations and Society. It also shows that US institutions are the most influential worldwide. However, it is important to note that some very good research in this area, including a small number of papers and citations, may not show up in this study due to the specific characteristics of different subtopics.     

Writing accounting research for publication and impact

This paper suggests guidelines for writing accounting research papers that may be useful to accounting researchers who want to improve the chances that their work will be accepted by top journals and, if accepted, will have a significant impact on their field. The advice is illustrated mainly in the context of experimental research in audit judgment, but it is also applicable to other types of accounting research. Several guidelines for communicating the results of accounting research are offered, and these are broken down by the typical sections and subsections that are (or should be) included in well-written accounting research papers. While guidelines such as these cannot guarantee success (either in publication or impact), they nevertheless may provide a valuable framework for communicating and evaluating accounting research.     

Of stars and galaxies – Co-authorship network and research

We examine the association between network centrality and research using the accounting research community setting. We establish co-authorship network using papers published in the five top accounting journals from 1980 to 2016. We find that the co-authorship network in accounting is a “small world” with some most connected authors playing a key role in connecting others. We use machine learning to label published papers with multiple topics and find patterns in topics over time. More importantly, we find that co-authorship network centrality is positively associated with future research productivity and topic innovation and that the impact of centrality on productivity is higher with more senior authors. Further, centrality of an author’s co-authors also has an incrementally positive impact. We conclude that network centrality positively influences research output.     

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: Research quality in accounting education

Accounting education research is often considered not to be of comparable quality to other accounting research, thereby providing secondary careers for those researching within the niche sub-discipline. We present several factors that have influenced this perception, with the most notable being the various journal quality guides where specialist accounting education journals typically do not rank well. We also explore possible explanations for why specialist accounting education journals do not rank highly. We discuss the ill-defined and contested concept of research quality and research impact, concluding that the determination of research quality differs according to which stakeholder group is conducting the assessment; academe, the accounting profession, governments or students. We also discuss the findings from the three papers in this special issue and offer suggestions for future research in this area.     

An examination of the peer review process in accounting journals

An anonymous survey of university accounting faculty was conducted to assess current perceptions of the peer review process in accounting journals. The responses revealed that (a) most respondents are fairly positive about the peer review process, especially the process being fair/unbiased and improving the quality of research; (b) the most serious perceived threats to review process integrity involve reviewer misconduct (e.g., delaying reviews for self-interest or rejecting papers for revenge); (c) editors allowing excessive delays in the process and institutional favoritism by editors are seen as the most prevalent issues; (d) editors/associate editors of high-level or top-tier journals are most positive about the review process, while assistant professors, those at doctoral-granting institutions, and those submitting to top-tier journals are least positive; and (e) respondents’ suggestions for improving the review process emphasize improving timeliness, reducing favoritism, and reconsidering the notion of blind reviews (some consider blind reviews to be impossible, but others want to ensure that reviews are blind). Based on the results and other sources, we offer a proposed starting point for a peer review code of conduct for accounting journals.     

A review of Australian management accounting research: 1980–2009

This paper reviews 231 papers published by 10 leading management accounting journals between the years 1980 and 2009. The review is structured according to research topics, research settings, research theories, research method and primary data analysis technique. Based on the results of this review, the paper provides reflections on the evolution of Australian management accounting research over the last 30 years and discusses opportunities for future research.     

进入21世纪以来中国会计研究的特征与启示——基于会计类核心期刊2001-2008年的数据

对会计研究的系统分析与总结是推进会计研究科学发展的重要途径之一。本文基于《中文核心期刊要目总览》中会计类核心期刊2001-2008年的数据,反映了进入21世纪以来中国会计研究的演进特征与变化,揭示了中国会计研究存在的问题,提出了中国未来会计研究的一些建议。     

Productivity in “Top‐Ten” Academic Accounting Journals by Researchers at Canadian Universities*

We examine the research productivity of academic accountants at Canadian universities for the 11‐year period 1990‐2000. Our analysis is based on the “top‐ten” ranked refereed journals in accounting, auditing, and taxation, as documented by Brown and Huefner (1994). We first provide an overview of the importance of publishing in highly ranked accounting journals for individual academics, departments, and business faculties. We then provide details of the proportion of articles published in each of these journals by academics from Canadian universities; the type of research published in each journal (auditing, financial accounting, managerial accounting, and taxation); and details of editorial board service. Our results indicate that even at the most productive Canadian university (in terms of “top‐ten” publications), faculty members publish (on average) approximately one article every seven years. Six Canadian universities have faculty members with, on average, more than one article in “top‐ten” journals every 10 years. We also provide results of analyses that rank each Canadian university, after controlling for the relative quality of each journal, using impact factors published by the Social Science Citation Index. In addition, statistics are provided with regard to the 15 most productive researchers, in terms of “top‐ten” publications, in the 11‐year period. Finally, in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association, we examine the productivity of academic accountants at Canadian universities over the past 25 years by combining our results with those reported by Richardson and Williams (1990).     

UK Accountants' Perceptions of Research Journal Quality

The process of research quality assessment is now firmly established in UK universities. The quality of the journals in which academic papers are published is an important input to the assessment process. The relative quality of these journals is clearly difficult to establish in an objective manner. This paper contributes to the debate about relative quality by conducting a peer review. Eighty-eight UK accounting academics reported their degree of familiarity with, and perceptions of quality of, a total of 44 journals in the accounting and finance discipline. Accounting and Business Research and theBritish Accounting Review were the two most familiar academic journals. The most highly ranked journals were generally from the US.     

Applications of high-frequency data in finance: A bibliometric literature review

This study aims to provide a bibliometric literature review (BLR) on the applications of high-frequency data in finance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first BLR on this topic. It aims to map the evolution of the literature, identifying the leading sources of knowledge in terms of the most influential journals, articles, and authors. It also provides a chronological development of the conceptual and intellectual structures of the networks in this topical research area. Using the Scopus database, the study identifies 2920 articles on the application of high-frequency intraday data in finance. These had been published in 393 journals during the period from 1977 to 2019. A thorough content analysis of the 100 most influential papers (ranked based on average citations per year) is also provided concerning research attributes in terms of datasets, asset classes, country of analysis and the major themes and sub-themes of these papers. The Journal of Banking and Finance is the leading journal in terms of the number of publications, whereas the Journal of Finance is the leading journal in terms of citations received on this topic. Tim Bollerslev is the leading author in this area in terms of the total number of publications (36), total citations (7241) and h-index (30). The most cited article in terms of total citations and average citations per year is Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold, and Labys (2003) titled “Modeling and forecasting realized volatility”, which has appeared in Econometrica. The majority of the top 100 surveyed papers are empirical (66%). Volatility modeling as a major theme is the front runner with 29% of the surveyed papers. The theme “Volatility modeling” has most often been studied with Realized Volatility. The Trade and Quote (TAQ) database and 5-minute interval data appear to be the most favored choices in terms of data usage in high-frequency finance research. 56% of the surveyed papers have used the data on stocks, with NYSE stocks being the most popular, while US financial markets are the most commonly studied markets (65%).     

Patterns of Research Output in the Accounting Literature: A Study of the Bibliometric Distributions

This study examines whether any regularity exists in the publication pattern among accounting researchers. The empirical results reveal that a strong bibliometric regularity exists in the accounting literature: the number of authors publishing in papers is approximately 1/ n ^c of those publishing one paper. It is shown that the accounting literature conforms very well to the model with c=1.872 if data are taken from a large collection of journals. When applied to individual journals, the result shows that values of c range from 2.220 to 4.368. The graduates of seven graduate programs are found to account for more than one-third of the most prolific authors, indicating strong institutional dominance in the production of accounting literature.     

中国会计理论研究的国际化:基于国际会计与财务学术期刊的初步分析

本文较为系统地整理和分析了20余年来国际会计与财务学术期刊发表的有关中国会计问题的200余篇研究成果。分析显示:(1)中国会计问题已经积累了相当数量和质量的国际学术研究成果,且近年来的增长趋势明显;(2)作者群主要为华人学者,地区分布广泛;(3)研究方法经历了从规范研究向实证研究为主的转变;(4)研究主题与中国的政治、经济改革以及文化特征密切相关,突出反映了中国特殊的制度背景与研究机会;(5)中国大陆学者在中国会计理论研究的国际化进程中总体贡献比较有限,但近年来发挥的作用明显增强。