Threshold citation analysis of influential articles,journals, institutions and researchers in accounting

We use a threshold citation approach to measure the influence of articles, journals, institutions and researchers in accounting research. The Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and Economics and Accounting Review are the 3 most influential journals in accounting research. The 3 most influential institutions in accounting research are the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan, while the 3 most frequently cited authors in accounting research are Richard G. Sloan, Robert E. Verrecchia and Paul M. Healy.     

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.     

Fifty years of finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin

In this paper, we review the history of scholarly finance research in the Asia Pacific Basin. We do this by analysing the four leading regional finance journals – Accounting and Finance, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific‐Basin Finance Journal – along five dimensions. The five dimensions are the most cited papers, noted authors, impact in terms of practice, research areas and a breakdown in terms of the development of the field according to Kuhnian concepts of normal science, anomalies and extraordinary science. We show that the Asia Pacific journals make a crucial contribution to research and practice both in the region and internationally.     

Ranking Journals Using Social Science Research Network Downloads

I use a new approach to rank journals, namely the number and percent frequency of articles a journal publishes that are heavily downloaded from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). I rank 18 accounting and finance journals, and I identify five journals not considered by the two most recent major published ranking studies of publications by accounting faculty, namely (in rank order): Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Accounting Studies, Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Journal of Corporate Finance, and Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting. I show that financial accounting faculties are more likely to post their working papers to SSRN, and papers posted by financial faculties generate more downloads. I mitigate this bias in favor of the financial area by providing separate rankings based on authors in the financial versus non-financial areas.     

Setting realistic expectations for publishing in leading accounting research journals

At most colleges and universities, an accounting academic's publication record is a primary consideration in promotion and tenure decisions. Many institutions encourage and expect faculty members to publish in leading accounting research journals. No longer limited to institutions with strong research orientations, these expectations often become an informal part of promotion and tenure guidelines at other colleges and universities. This article evaluates the use of such criteria in light of a five-year study (1978–1982) of several attributes of academics who have published in two leading research journals, The Accounting Review and The Journal of Accounting Research. The objective is to initiate dialogue and promote reasonable expectations among and between accounting faculty and administrators.     

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%).     

Sources of influence on award winning research: A note

While great advances have been made because of accounting research, limited understanding exists about the process of producing top-research in accounting and getting it published. This study contributes to a better understanding of the process of producing top quality research in accounting by examining the importance and characteristics of a high value-added literature review. To that end, in this study we examine the literature reviews contained in articles recognized for the Notable Contributions to the Accounting Literature Award of the AAA for the twenty-five year period, 1983 to 2007. Results find that top quality research has a cutting edge timeliness that is characterized by greater reliance on more recently published reference sources and by incorporating a substantial number of working papers. This study also identifies the most influential articles, journals and individuals to Notable Contribution authors, including both accounting and interdisciplinary sources.     

Food for Thought on the ABS Academic Journal Quality Guide

This paper discusses issues relating to the use of the Association of Business Schools' (ABS) Academic Journal Quality Guide within UK business schools. It also looks at several specific issues raised by the Chair of the British Accounting Association/British Accounting and Finance Association regarding the ratings for top international journals, and for accounting education and accounting history journals. The increasing use of this guide by business school deans/heads as a tool for staffing and research resource allocation has significant implications both for individuals and specialist areas of research.     

Management Accounting Research: 20 years on

This Editorial Report charts the progress of Management Accounting Research in its second decade. Starting by noting that in 2009 there were almost a quarter of a million downloads of papers from Management Accounting Research, it describes the range and diversity of the papers published in the Journal, their topics, research settings, and the theories and research methods used. It emphasises that the editors strongly encourage the use of a broad range of theories and research methods, and they want such diversity to continue to be a defining feature of the papers published in Management Accounting Research in the future. Finally, they urge management accounting researchers to undertake innovative research and to be both original and creative, thereby avoiding the homogeneity and narrowness which seem to be an increasing feature of accounting research more generally. In this way Management Accounting Research will continue to be the major source of leading edge research in the field of management accounting.     

Potential model misspecification bias: Formative indicators enhancing theory for accounting researchers

This paper describes why and when formative factors, in combination with reflective measures, can be used in accounting research to better represent complex theoretical constructs. We argue that the exclusive use of reflective factors constrains theory development and may lead to imprecise measurement. We provide a review of 66 published research papers from Accounting, Organization and Society, The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, Accounting, Auditing, & Accountability Journal, Behavioral Research in Accounting, International Journal of Accounting, Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Management Accounting Research, Abacus, and Journal of Management Accounting Research using Structural Equation Models (SEM) from 1992 to 2008 to illustrate improvement of misspecification bias in leading accounting journals. Our findings suggest that most of the studies modeled constructs that did not include formative indicators.     

Accounting information systems research: Is it another QWERTY?

This article examines the research within accounting information systems (AIS) as found in articles published in leading accounting, management information systems, and computer science journals from 1982 to 1998. Trend analysis is performed on AIS articles found in the following journals: The Journal of Information Systems; Advances in Accounting Information Systems; Journal of Accounting Research; The Accounting Review; Journal of Accounting and Economics, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory; Behavioral Research in Accounting; Journal of Management Accounting Research; Management Science; MIS Quarterly; Decision Sciences; Information Systems Research; and Communications of the ACM, among others. The trend analysis is structured across underlying theory, research method, and information systems lifecycle topics of AIS articles in these journals. This article identifies the extant research streams in AIS, where AIS research has been published from 1982 to 1998, and seeks to provide insight into the question: should AIS exist as its own separate research domain? Is AIS research like the QWERTY keyboard (David, 1985), widely adopted due to popular demand, but ineffective and inefficient, with a better AIS research and teaching model available?     

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.     

Influential Articles, Journals, and Institutions in Risk Management and Insurance

We use a threshold citation approach to measure the influence of articles, journals, and institutions in risk management and insurance research. The three frequently cited articles in risk management and insurance research are "Increasing Risk: I. A Definition" by Rothschild and Stiglitz (1970), "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large" by Kimball (1990), and "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information" by Rothschild and Stiglitz (1990). Journal of Risk and Insurance, Econometrica, and Journal of Political Economy are the three influential journals in risk management and insurance research. Furthermore, the five influential institutions in risk management and insurance research are the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.     

A review of research on regulation changes in the Asia‐Pacific region

In this study, we review the financial research on regulation in the Asia‐Pacific region. We do this by analysing six leading regional accounting and finance journals – Abacus, Accounting & Finance, Australian Accounting Review, Australian Journal of Management, International Review of Finance and the Pacific‐Basin Finance Journal. We identify five main themes of regulation research relating to: (i) banking and financial institutions, (ii) markets and trading, (iii) corporate governance, (iv) disclosure and (v) accounting standard setting. Our paper synthesises the regional literature in these areas and provide some suggestions for future directions.     

Using the 2019 JBE conference and 2017 JIS themed issue as natural experiments to examine the role of editors as gatekeepers of the research literature in AIS and ethics

In April 2019, the Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) held a conference devoted to the “The Impact of Technology on Ethics, Professionalism and Judgement in Accounting”. This follows the summer 2017 Journal of Information Systems (JIS) themed issue on “Accounting Information Systems and Ethics” I treat this conference and the themed issue as two natural experiments into the evolution of the research literature on Accounting Information Systems (AIS) and ethics. I label this literature as “AIS-ethics”, which I describe as the intersection of the fields of accounting, ethics and information systems. The choice of papers for these two initiatives is amongst the best available metrics of both the latest research on AIS-ethics, and of the kind of research considered desirable by editors/gatekeepers. In particular, I analyze whether these editors/gatekeepers desire papers that fit unambiguously into AIS-ethics, or whether they are willing to accept papers with a more tenuous connection in order to encourage broader participation by researchers. I find that of nine papers selected for special issues or conferences in AIS-ethics over the last three years, only three clearly fall into this domain, suggesting that achieving a critical mass of papers is prioritized over specialization at this stage in the development of a research literature into AIS and ethics.     

The most influential journals in academic accounting

In this article we summarize the findings of articles that have ranked academic accounting journals, as well as articles that provide other bases for considering journal quality. Results indicate that five journals—Accounting, Organizations and Society, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, and The Accounting Review—rank consistently as the top journals in the field. However, these five journals differ substantially as to the numbers of articles they publish overall as well as the proportions of articles that are related to the various specialty areas of accounting. Further, the relative proportions of articles by area do not correspond to the numbers of individuals working in the specialty areas. Financial accounting articles appear in disproportionately high numbers for all journals except Accounting, Organizations and Society, whereas management accounting articles appear in disproportionately low numbers for all journals except Accounting, Organizations and Society. In all journals, systems and tax articles also appear to be disproportionately low vis-à-vis the numbers of individuals working in these areas. Auditing receives fairly even exposure across journals and vis-à-vis individuals in the area, except in the Journal of Accounting and Economics.     

On the relationship between citations and appearances on “top 25” download lists in the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems

Citations from existing sources like the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) have long been used to evaluate impact and importance of research. However, in addition to SSCI becoming digital, additional citation sources have been developed, such as SCOPUS and Google Scholar. Further, information now is available regarding papers that are among the most frequently downloaded, providing a new potential measure of impact and importance. This paper analyzes the use of digital and web citations, and newly available digital download information in the form of “top 25” most downloaded paper lists for the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems.This paper finds that any of the number of three types of “downloads” (abstract, paper and denied accesses) are highly correlated with each other. Further, in an analysis of the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems papers in “top 25” downloads, this paper finds that the number of citations and the number of times that a paper is in a “top 25” of downloaded papers are statistically significantly correlated. Finally, this paper finds that the set of “top 25” downloaded papers has a disproportionate number of citations.     

Twenty years of the International Journal of Accounting Information Systems: A bibliometric analysis

The International Journal of Accounting Information Systems (IJAIS) celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019. This study conducts a retrospective analysis of IJAIS articles using a bibliometric analysis to commemorate the event. Findings show a consistent increase in both journal publications and citations. Authors affiliated to United States institutions are the predominant contributors. However, Australian institutions also show up among the most prolific institutions for the journal. The most dominant themes the journal has followed over the years are related to issues of information technology and emerging technologies in accounting, and the application of technologies to assurance and corporate disclosures. Researchers who are studying or willing to explore such topics should consider IJAIS as a premium outlet for their work. Besides these well-studied research topics, the entity linking analysis results also revealed valuable research topics that need more attention, such as the application of technologies to Tax and non-profit accounting. This finding may inspire AIS researchers with new research ideas.     

Identifying Tiers of Influence in Expert Systems Research: II

In the first part of this study we described an objective, multifaceted, citation-based methodology for assessing journal influence. We applied it to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to gauge the most influential journals for AI research. In this paper we apply the same methodology to a broadened citation base drawn from journals devoted to expert systems (ES), as well as those with a broader AI editorial scope. The result is a pair of journal tiers that reflect the special emphasis that expert system research has among AI researchers in business schools. Taken together, the AI/ES findings reported here coupled with the general AI tiers identified in Part I provide a fairly complete and insightful picture of the most influential journals impacting AI in general, and AI/ES in particular.     

Aims and Scope

The focus of the China Journal of Accounting Research is to publish theoretical and empirical research papers that use contemporary research methodologies to in...