Scholarly accomplishments in promotion and tenure decisions of accounting faculty

Deans and accounting department heads are surveyed to measure the relative importance assigned to various scholarly accomplishments in promotion and tenure decisions of accounting faculty at AACSB-accredited institutions. We also investigate whether these importance ratings vary across colleges of business and their departments of accounting in accordance with their educational missions, as determined by an institution's classification under the Carnegie Foundation system. The results demonstrate that accomplishments involving publication, external recognition, and funding count most in tenure and promotion decisions. Academic publications and awards are rated the highest at all institutional types. And, of the 39 scholarly accomplishments examined, fewer than half were assigned an average importance of four or higher on a 7-point scale. Further, the importance assigned to certain scholarly accomplishments by deans and accounting heads varies with the educational missions of their institutions. At doctoral-granting, high research support institutions, deans and heads employ a different definition of scholarship than do their colleagues at Comprehensive institutions. Academic publication activities and external recognition tend to dominate tenure and promotion decisions at doctoral-granting, high research support institutions. Comprehensive deans and heads place significantly more importance on scholarly accomplishments associated with practitioner publications, pedagogical publications, national and regional academic meetings, and instruction.