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Accounting Horizons American Accounting AssociationVol. 24, No. 4 DOI: 10.2308/acch.2010.24.4.6352010pCharacterizingAccounting Research

Derek K. Oler, Mitchell J. Oler, and Christopher J. Skousen

SYNOPSIS: In response to concerns over the viability of the academic discipline ofaccounting, we investigate trends in accounting research by examining papers pub-lished in six top accounting journals from 1960 to 2007. We use citations made byaccounting papers as a proxy for their antecedent ideas and examine trends in cita-tions, topics, and methodologies, in aggregate and by journal. Our results suggest thatthe growing body of accounting research draws increasingly from both finance andeconomics. Financial accounting topics and archival methodologies are becoming moredominant over time relative to other topics and methodologies, although these trendsvary by journal. Though most concerns we discuss are recent, we find that the situationtoday is the result of trends set in motion decades ago with an explicit decision byinfluential researchers to move the discipline from a normative perspective to a positiveperspective. Given its current state, accounting research may be broadly characterizedas research into the effect of economic events on the process of summarizing, analyz-ing, verifying, and reporting standardized financial information, and on the effects ofreported information on economic events.

INTRODUCTIONccounting research has emerged as a literature that draws from and adds to a larger bodyof work dealing primarily with businesses and their interactions with society at large,often through capital markets. Several researchers have identified threats to accounting as

n academic discipline, and some question its future viability. Others have noted the gap that oftenxists between academics and practitioners in accounting. We offer an alternative approach toxamining these threats and concerns, and an approach to characterizing accounting research, by1 examining its antecedent seminal ideas, proxied by the papers cited by research published inix top accounting journals; 2 examining the general topics covered; and 3 examining theeneral methodologies used. We summarize trends in citations, topics, and methodologies from960 to 2007, both in aggregate and by journal. We conclude by proposing a characterization ofccounting research based on our observations.

erek K. Oler is an Associate Professor at Texas Tech University, Mitchell J. Oler is an Assistant Professort Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Christopher J. Skousen is an Assistant Professor attah State University.

he authors thank Tom Dyckman, Michael Gibbins, Bill Kinney, Kenny Reynolds, Stephen Zeff, Anthony Hopwood, Danaermanson, two anonymous reviewers, and participants at the 2007 BYU Accounting Research Symposium and the 2009merican Accounting Association Annual Meeting for helpful comments on prior versions of this paper. All remaining

p. 635670rrors are our own. We also thank Laura Oler for her programming assistance. We are grateful to Kevin Federico, Robertrandt, Kara Brandt, Monte Searle, and Brian Watson for their research assistance.

Submitted: March 2010Accepted: April 2010

Published Online: December 2010Corresponding author: Derek K. Oler

Email: [email protected]

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636 Oler, Oler, and Skousen

AAResearchers have raised significant concerns about the viability of accounting research as ancademic discipline. Fogarty and Markarian 2007 argue that the academic accounting professions in decline because there are shrinking numbers of accounting researchers at the assistant andssociate professor levels. Their results are consistent with Plumlee et al. 2005 and Leslie2008. One implication of these studies is that, ceteris paribus, fewer accounting research papersill be published over time as the number of researchers declines.

Another concern, raised by Hopwood 2007, is that accounting research is becoming morensular and self-referential also see, Biehl et al. 2006. This concern suggests that the proportionf citations from other fields will decrease over time because more recent accounting researchgnores new ideas from other literatures. We examine trends in the relative proportion of ideas inccounting research being drawn from other disciplines to determine the extent to which account-ng seems to be becoming more insular. Rayburn 2005, 2006 expresses concern over the increas-ng dominance of financial accounting research topics in academic journals, and Tuttle and Dillard2007 find a strong trend in publications in The Accounting Review toward more financial ac-ounting papers and fewer papers on other topics. We investigate whether this trend extends tother journals. Specifically, we examine Accounting, Organizations and Society AOS, Contem-orary Accounting Research CAR, Journal of Accounting and Economics JAE, Journal ofccounting Research JAR, Review of Accounting Studies RAST, and The Accounting Review

TAR. These journals are currently and commonly viewed as top-tier publications at research-ntensive U.S. schools. Two of these journals, AOS and CAR, are not based in the United Statesnd publish a greater proportion of papers by non-U.S. academics. To enhance comparisonsetween our journals, we exclude papers without at least one U.S. author.

Accounting research intersects with a number of neighboring disciplines, primarily finance,conomics, psychology, and management. Building on Zeff 1996, we classify citation sourcesnto eight categories: accounting, finance, economics, psychology, management, statistics, othercademic journals, and other citations i.e., books, professional journals, working papers, popularedia, legal cases, etc.. We classify the topics covered by accounting papers into six categories:nancial accounting, managerial accounting, auditing, tax, governance, and other topics.1 Welassify the research methodologies used into seven categories: archival, experimental, field study,eview, survey, theoretical often referred to as analytical, and normative.2 These are broad cat-gories, but we believe they are adequately descriptive while remaining reasonably digestible.3 Inases where a paper addresses multiple topics, or uses multiple methodologies, we select therimary topic and primary methodology for our classifications. We provide an expanded descrip-ion of our categories in the Appendix.

Our results indicate that the nature of accounting research has changed significantly over theast 48 years. The most radical shift has been from the dominance of normative research in the

Prior research in auditing and management accounting may also be considered governance research; however, we definegovernance research here as research relating to the overall corporate management, as opposed to a firms system ofinternal controls. While some governance papers occurred prior to the Gompers et al. 2003 paper, we note that mostgovernance research builds on their work. Our selection of governance is also an example of a newer hot topic thatis essentially borrowed from economics.We note that our terms for methodology are not parallel: archival, experimental, and field study methodologies areexamples of positive research the study of what is, and theoretical work is similar the study of what is, from theperspective of mathematical logic, although one could also consider theoretical work to be normative as well. Norma-tive research deals with what ought to be see Keynes, 1891, 34. Review is not really a methodology, but rather asummation and synthesis of prior work.Our selection of topics and methodologies, while consistent with prior work, is open to criticism. For example, Abbott2004 provides a taxonomy of 36 different methodologies, compared to our seven. However, increasing our categorieshas the adverse effect of increasing the complexity and size of the paper, making it more difficult to group the thousandsof papers we examine into tractable categories.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

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Characterizing Accounting Research 637

A960s to positive research from the mid-1970s onward. This shift seems to continue to guide therajectory of accounting research today. The total number of papers published by the top account-ng journals has increased dramatically from 1960 to 2007, mostly because of new journals beingnaugurated and later commonly accepted as A journals. We also break out paper counts byndividual journal, and find that research production overall has not decreased. Accounting papersurrently draw just under 50 percent of their antecedent ideas from other prior accounting workTable 1, and this ratio has remained consistent since the mid-1990s. Borrowing from finance andconomics has been slowly but steadily increasing. Financial accounting research has remainedhe dominant topic of research, and is becoming increasingly so. Tuttle and Dillard 2007 find thathis trend occurs in TAR; we show that the trend extends to other top journals except for AOS andAR.

Papers in our six accounting journals indicate a different mix of citations, topics, and meth-dologies. For example, RAST papers cite other accounting papers 50 percent of the time onverage from its 1996 inception to 2007, and cite psychology papers only 0.2 percent of the time,ompared with AOS papers, which cite accounting papers 30 percent of the time and psychologyapers only 9.4 percent of the time. Differences in citations reflect significant differences in topicnd methodology: from inception to 2007, 22 percent of CARs papers focus on audit issues,ompared to 3.8 percent of RASTs. Papers dealing with financial accounting make up an increas-ng proportion of the total papers published in almost all journals from their inception throughoday except for AOS and CAR. In terms of methodology, archival research is becoming moreominant in all journals.

Our results have several implications. First, although the number of accounting A journalsnd the number of total accounting publications have increased significantly over time, when ouresults are considered in conjunction with Plumlee et al. 2005 and Leslie 2008, warning signsmerge. The increase in output does not appear to be attributable to a general increase in research-rs, but rather to 1 a slight increase in researchers at doctoral-granting schools, and 2 aignificant increase in the amount of time spent on research Leslie 2008. But faculty cannotndefinitely increase their time devoted to research. The large unmet demand for auditing andaxation Ph.D.s noted by Plumlee et al. 2005 corroborates our finding that the proportion ofuditing and taxation papers has decreased in the 2000s relative to prior decades. This decrease inhe number of publications and researchers in audit and tax is especially disconcerting to auditingrms, who look to academics to supply new generations of CPAs Solomon 2008.

The Final Report of the Treasurys Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession alsoeflects concern about the adequacy of both the near- and long-term supply of doctoral facultyiven the anticipated pace of faculty retirements Levitt and Nicolaisen 2008, especially for auditnd tax. The recent AICPA Accounting Doctoral Scholars Program announced in July 2008hould help to counteract this trend by encouraging and funding CPAs who wish to obtain Ph.D.snd pursue auditing or tax.

Over time, citations from finance and economics have increased, suggesting that accountingesearch is drawing closer to these related disciplines and moving away from audit and tax. Thiss consistent with the shift in accounting research from primarily normative research in the 1960so positive research that uses methods from finance, economics, and other established academicisciplines Granof and Zeff 2008. Citations from psychology, statistics, and management areelatively low in the 2000s when compared to prior years. The increasing dominance of financialccounting research is also consistent with the observations of Tuttle and Dillard 2007 andlumlee et al. 2005. It is important to note that the selection of papers published in any journal

s jointly determined by the authors who determine the topic, methodology, and where to submitccounting Horizons December 2010American Accounting Association

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AATABLE 1Proportion of Citations Made by Papers Published in Top Accounting Journalsa

ear Acctg. Fin. Econ. Psych. Stats. Mgnt.Other Acad.

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Citations

Paperswith NoCitations

TotalNumber

of Papers960 29.7% 1.9% 1.3% 0.0% 0.0% 2.3% 4.6% 60.3% 15 57961 31.2% 2.5% 1.1% 0.0% 2.3% 1.7% 1.1% 60.1% 16 60962 24.2% 0.8% 2.1% 0.1% 0.0% 0.8% 0.8% 71.2% 20 70963 27.5% 1.5% 1.6% 0.2% 0.1% 2.5% 10.3% 56.4% 14 88964 27.7% 3.8% 2.6% 0.4% 1.0% 2.7% 10.9% 50.9% 17 93965 29.7% 0.7% 1.6% 0.0% 0.4% 2.6% 5.6% 59.4% 10 72966 28.1% 2.1% 2.5% 0.0% 1.4% 2.6% 8.0% 55.3% 16 87967 33.0% 4.7% 2.7% 0.3% 2.4% 4.9% 5.2% 46.7% 18 80968 42.7% 4.3% 1.5% 0.1% 0.7% 3.9% 3.0% 43.8% 12 90969 41.1% 2.5% 2.7% 2.0% 2.0% 5.3% 4.1% 40.3% 8 95970 40.0% 5.9% 3.3% 0.6% 1.5% 5.3% 2.7% 40.6% 4 83971 25.4% 6.4% 3.5% 1.5% 0.7% 4.5% 4.1% 54.0% 6 87972 30.1% 6.2% 3.8% 3.4% 3.1% 3.5% 2.8% 47.1% 5 86973 36.7% 6.4% 2.6% 2.5% 0.9% 3.7% 1.6% 45.7% 1 73974 34.2% 5.7% 6.5% 3.0% 1.8% 1.6% 2.8% 44.5% 5 68975 37.6% 6.7% 3.1% 3.6% 1.4% 5.2% 0.1% 42.3% 1 62976 31.7% 7.6% 4.8% 6.0% 0.6% 7.9% 0.7% 40.6% 4 87977 34.7% 5.6% 4.4% 6.3% 0.8% 9.8% 1.0% 37.3% 3 96978 35.3% 11.7% 5.0% 2.1% 1.3% 5.5% 0.2% 38.8% 2 79979 31.6% 8.2% 6.8% 3.8% 0.6% 4.9% 0.3% 43.7% 2 89980 35.1% 8.2% 7.7% 6.1% 0.2% 4.7% 0.4% 37.6% 1 90981 25.6% 10.0% 8.1% 6.7% 0.4% 5.8% 0.7% 42.6% 2 97982 37.6% 7.8% 5.2% 6.4% 1.2% 3.4% 0.4% 38.0% 1 113983 34.0% 8.8% 6.1% 6.3% 0.6% 7.4% 0.4% 36.3% 1 86984 36.3% 10.4% 5.6% 5.3% 1.0% 3.5% 0.4% 37.6% 0 107985 35.9% 8.6% 9.8% 3.7% 0.9% 3.2% 0.6% 37.4% 4 121986 44.0% 8.4% 6.2% 2.5% 1.0% 6.1% 1.6% 30.2% 0 99987 39.2% 8.7% 9.4% 2.5% 0.9% 2.1% 0.6% 36.7% 0 101988 44.3% 6.9% 7.9% 3.3% 0.5% 5.5% 0.9% 30.6% 0 108989 43.3% 9.0% 7.8% 3.9% 0.2% 1.7% 0.7% 33.5% 1 116990 39.8% 9.7% 10.4% 2.6% 0.6% 3.2% 0.8% 32.9% 3 152991 39.8% 9.3% 10.8% 2.1% 0.3% 1.9% 1.6% 34.2% 5 115992 42.2% 8.4% 7.7% 3.2% 1.3% 3.1% 1.0% 33.0% 2 120993 37.9% 10.7% 8.9% 2.9% 3.2% 2.1% 1.0% 33.2% 0 122994 42.2% 8.7% 8.2% 1.5% 2.8% 1.2% 1.7% 33.7% 3 121995 38.9% 6.6% 13.3% 2.3% 2.6% 3.6% 1.4% 31.2% 0 119996 45.7% 8.0% 7.7% 1.3% 1.8% 1.1% 1.0% 33.4% 1 131997 47.9% 7.9% 4.7% 2.4% 0.3% 1.6% 0.6% 34.5% 7 127998 44.7% 7.6% 8.3% 1.0% 0.2% 1.2% 2.4% 34.5% 2 119999 49.1% 9.5% 10.0% 1.6% 0.0% 1.9% 1.0% 26.8% 2 152000 45.5% 10.0% 8.4% 2.0% 0.2% 2.1% 0.5% 31.3% 0 118001 48.1% 8.2% 6.0% 2.2% 0.1% 1.8% 0.2% 33.3% 1 125002 48.4% 11.2% 8.0% 1.5% 0.1% 1.8% 0.3% 28.7% 0 171003 49.9% 13.2% 7.6% 1.2% 0.2% 1.1% 0.7% 26.1% 1 173004 48.9% 13.7% 8.3% 1.2% 0.0% 2.3% 0.8% 24.8% 1 157

(continued on next page)ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

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Aheir paper, reviewers, and editors who determine which papers to accept and publish based onhe papers that are submitted. Thus, our research should not be interpreted as a criticism of theditorial choices of particular journals.

Another important caveat is that we do not consider all accounting journals. Researcherspecializing in tax or audit will likely place some of their work in topical journals such as theournal of the American Tax Association or Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. However,hese are not generally accepted as A publications in top U.S. schools. Researching academics,specially those currently untenured, recognize that a publication in one of our selected journals isery helpful, and often essential, to attaining tenure. Our choice of six top accounting journalsmplicitly assumes that the choices made by submitting authors, reviewers, and editors of theseournals reflect a representative sample of accounting research.4

Based on our observations, we construct a possible characterization of accounting research:Accounting research is research into the effect of economic events on the process of summarizing,analyzing, verifying, and reporting standardized financial information, and on the effects of re-ported information on economic events.

his characterization is necessarily broad, reflecting the diversity of papers published over the past0 years. We also emphasize that this characterization is a reflection of what has been published asccounting research, and not necessarily what accounting research should be.

Our results are useful to researchers in deciding where to submit their work. Students, ad-inistrators of Ph.D. programs in accounting, and accounting professionals may wish to use our

esults in making decisions on resource allocations, especially toward encouraging and expandingudit and tax research. Accounting Ph.D. students may benefit from our long-term overview ofccounting research and how it has changed over time. Finally, our results are also useful for

We also note that our selection of journals is backfilledthat is, we include all prior issues of newer journals, evenbefore they came to be commonly accepted as A journals. Because the inclusion of a journal on an A list isdetermined by individual schools at different times, we cannot provide a definitive date as to when AOS, CAR, JAE,JAR, and RAST became A journals we assume that TAR has always been considered an A journal.

TABLE 1 (continued)

ear Acctg. Fin. Econ. Psych. Stats. Mgnt.Other Acad.

Jrnls.Other

Citations

Paperswith NoCitations

TotalNumber

of Papers005 46.9% 14.3% 7.2% 2.5% 0.1% 1.8% 0.6% 26.5% 0 144006 48.3% 13.5% 8.5% 1.4% 0.1% 1.2% 1.3% 25.7% 1 165007 47.2% 14.5% 8.5% 2.5% 0.3% 2.8% 1.0% 23.0% 0 143otal Papers 218 5,114td. Avg. 40.2% 8.5% 6.8% 2.5% 0.8% 3.1% 1.6% 36.4%

This table shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations andSociety, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research,Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review from 1960 to 2007 for papers with at least one U.S. author.Proportions are calculated based on the total citations listed per paper. Other Academic Journals represents anaggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, and miscellaneous disciplines. OtherCitations represents an aggregate of remaining citations including working papers, books, popular media, and profes-sional journals. The weighted average is calculated based on the number of papers published in a given year.ccounting Horizons December 2010American Accounting Association

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AAccounting practitioners in understanding the pressure on the education of the next generation ofuditors and tax professionals, especially since it seems more difficult for audit/tax professors toublish their research in the top accounting journals.

Levitt and Nicolaisen 2008 note that there is an underdeveloped bond between the account-ng profession and accounting academia. Personal interactions between the authors and accountingrm employees including their former supervisors and co-workers in accounting firms confirm

hat the typical CPA firm employee has a limited understanding of exactly what accountingcademics do. Our overview of academic publications, and our proposed definition of accountingesearch, should help to alleviate this problem and to encourage additional discourse betweenccounting professionals and academics.

In the next section we expand on our motivation and review the prior literature. In the thirdection we review our data and methodology. In the fourth section we present our results andropose a current characterization of accounting research, and in the fifth section we conclude.

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATIONSome papers are intuitively accounting e.g., Required Disclosures in Financial Reports,

Schipper 2007, but others less clearly so e.g., Tax Benefits as a Source of Merger Premiumsn Acquisitions of Private Corporations, Erickson and Wang 2007; Industry Product Marketompetition and Managerial Incentives, Karuna 2007; Measuring Customer Relationshipalue: The Role of Switching Cost, Dikolli et al. 2007. One heuristic used by many researchers

n deciding if their paper is accounting, and therefore where to submit their work, is to countitations: if the majority of citations are from accounting journals, then it is an accounting paper.his heuristic clearly works for the Schipper paper above 42 out of 44 citations from academic

ournals are from other accounting journals, but less so for Erickson and Wang only 9 out of 21itations are from accounting journals. Beavers 1968 seminal work in 1968 cites only 3 ac-ounting papers out of 17 total citations: according to the citations-count heuristic, The Informa-ion Content of Earnings Announcements is a finance paper. This ad hoc analysis suggests thathe citations-count heuristic alone cannot adequately define accounting research.

A simple approach to describing and conceptualizing accounting research is to look at papersublished in top accounting journals. We look at six top journals AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST,nd TAR for U.S. schools because a publication in one of these journals represents a highly soughtfter achievement that is required for tenure at top institutions and can often guarantee tenure atower-tier institutions.5

Accounting journals do not explicitly define the term accounting research. TARs editorialolicy is to publish articles reporting results of accounting research from any accounting-elated subject. JARs first issue states that the journal will be devoted to reporting the results ofesearch activities in all areas of accounting Shultz and Caine 1963. The inaugural issue ofAST describes its mission as to provide an outlet for significant academic research in account-

ng where research must contribute to the discipline of accounting. Similarly, the inauguralssue of AOS discusses the need for research into understanding the way in which all forms ofccounting information are actually used Hopwood 1976, 2, suggesting that accounting re-earch could consider individuals response to accounting information. The lack of an explicitefinition of accounting research does not suggest sloppy thinking or laziness; rather, it suggestshat accounting research is hard to define. Hopwood 2007 argues that accounting research has

An elite university will often require six top-tier publications for someone to have a likely chance at tenure, and manyother research-intensive schools will require two to four top-tier publications. Lower-tier schools have reduced tenurerequirements, but typically pay less Carcello 2007.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

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Ahanged over time; for example, pre-JAR 1963 and pre-Ball and Brown 1968, accountingesearch was largely normative i.e., focusing on how economic events should be accounted for,ut afterward positive research became more dominant and accounting research came to embracehe consequences of accounting in wider institutional settings focusing more on the effect ofccounting information on economic events.6 Thus, looking at the effect of net income on stockrices seems to have become accounting research, where previously it was not. With Ball andrown, the contemporaneous shift toward positive research discussed by Reiter and Williams

2002, and the explosion of archival research see Kothari 2001 accounting researchers seem toave partially annexed a literature that was previously in the realm of finance.7

Our paper seeks to provide a context within which to evaluate threats to and concerns overhe profession, as well as an overview of accounting research, by examining prior work. Wessume that papers published in top accounting journals are a faithful representation of the ac-ounting literature, and that the prior work they cite is an effective proxy for their antecedents.8hat is, the papers cited by accounting research in top journals can give us insight into whereeminal ideas in accounting are coming from and can help us characterize what accounting re-earch is. Insights from investigating citations and trends in citations from published accountingesearch will also help us to evaluate threats to the profession identified by various researchers.

hreats to the Academic Accounting ProfessionFogarty and Markarian 2007 recount changes in accounting faculty numbers from 1982 to

002 and conclude that a decline in the number of assistant and associate accounting professorsver that period indicates that the future of the academic discipline is in doubt. Leslie 2008 findssimilar decline. Buchheit et al. 2002, Swanson 2004, and Swanson et al. 2007 report that

ccounting has the lowest proportion of faculty who publish in a top journal.9 These results seemonsistent with Plumlee et al. 2005, Fogarty and Markarian 2007, and Leslie 2008, because ift is more difficult for accounting researchers to obtain publications needed for tenure, then fewerotential accounting Ph.D. students may consider the field as a viable career. Plumlee et al. 2005eport expected shortages of accounting researchers for 20052008, especially in audit and taxand report no indication that this trend will reverse in the near futuresee also Levitt andicolaisen 2008. If the number of active researchers decreases and acceptance rates at journals

emain the same, then we should expect to see a corresponding drop in accounting papers pub-ished especially in audit and tax. This expectation is corroborated by Carcello 2007, who noteshat many accounting Ph.D. programs today welcome students with strong backgrounds in eco-omics and finance as opposed to students with a professional background as a CPA. Suchtudents are more likely to pursue a Ph.D. in financial accounting as it is closer to their educa-ional foundations and less likely pursue a Ph.D. in auditing or tax. Additionally, accountingh.D.s granted to individuals with no practical experience in accounting can only widen the gulfetween academics and professional accountants.

Another concern, perhaps best articulated by Hopwood 2007, is that accounting research hasrown more insular and less innovative over time. Williams 1985 raises similar concerns. Iforrect, this concern should manifest itself in a reduction of citations from other literatures overime in accounting research.

Interestingly, Ball and Brown 1968 was rejected by TAR as a non-accounting paper Dyckman and Zeff 1984.This is a two-way street in that papers potentially considered accounting have also appeared in finance journals.Of course, citations do not have a one-to-one correspondence with ideas.Swanson et al.s 2007 set of accounting journals consists of CAR, JAE, JAR, and TAR. Buchheit et al. 2002 considerJAE, JAR, and TAR from accounting as well as top-tier journals from other business disciplines.ccounting Horizons December 2010American Accounting Association

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AADiversity within accounting research is also a concern e.g., Rayburn 2005, 2006; Tuttle andillard 2007; Granof and Zeff 2008. If one topic or methodology becomes overly dominant to theetriment of other topics or methodologies, then the entire profession may suffer, as researchersocus on a shrinking set of acceptable papers. Granof and Zeff 2008 note that developments inhe 1960s, including a desire by accounting researchers to obtain more academic respectabilityrom peers in other fields, have led to the unintended consequence of interesting accountinguestions now being ignored because they cannot be addressed through currently accepted quan-itative and theoretical analysis. Their work is consistent with Tuttle and Dillard 2007, who findhat the field of academic accounting research is becoming more homogenized as it matures.pecifically, they find that the proportion of nonfinancial accounting papers published in TAR hasecreased significantly from 1976 to 2006, and they find corroborating trends in papers winninghe American Accounting Association Competitive Manuscript Award, downloads of workingapers from the Social Sciences Research Network SSRN website, and accounting dissertationswarded. We investigate whether their findings extend to five other top accounting journals.

elated Prior ResearchSimilar to our paper, McRae 1974 uses citations as a proxy for information transfers be-

ween disciplines. He examines the proportion of citations in both academic and professionalccounting journals from 1968 and 1969, and finds that accounting journals draw mostly fromther business fields and also from economics and law.10 Hofstedt 1976 uses citations to comparend contrast behavioral accounting research with capital markets research. Dyckman and Zeff1984 examine citations as part of their review on the impact of JAR on academic accountingesearch. They also note that the pace of interdisciplinary borrowing by accounting researchncreased in the 1960s and 1970s. Brown and Gardner 1985 use citations to assess the impact ofAR, JAR, JAE, and AOS on CAR from 1976 to 1982.

Carnaghan et al. 1994 profile CAR over its first 10 years. Similar to our approach, theyrovide a breakdown of papers by topic and methodology.11 We extend their work by time framend also by journal. Similarly, Stone 2002 provides a breakdown of accounting publications byethod and topic from 1989 to 1998 for AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, and TAR, and finds that the

ominant topic and methodology over that period was financial accounting and archival,espectively.12 We extend Stone in both years and journals covered. Buchheit et al. 2002 com-are the proportionate publication rates for accounting, finance, management, and marketing, andnd that the proportionate number of accounting faculty publishing in top accounting journals isignificantly lower than the corresponding rates for other disciplines.13 More recently, Wakefield2008 uses citations to estimate the relative influence of 22 accounting research journals from000 to 2006. She finds the most influential journals are JAR, TAR, JAE, AOS, and CAR, respec-ively, with RAST as the 9th most influential journal see also Lowe and Locke 2005; Bonner et al.006.

We extend a number of prior studies by examining a much longer time series of data and byxpanding the set of accounting journals investigated. However, we do much more than merelyxtend prior work: We provide insight into long-term trends in top accounting journals, andltimately help to inform the debate on the trajectory of accounting research and the status of therofession.

0 Within the general heading of business his largest grouping is other, which unfortunately is not broken down further.His next largest business subcategory is finance.

1 Their specific classifications for topic and methodology are also similar to our own.2 As with Carnaghan et al. 1994, Stones categories of topic and methodology are similar to ours.3 Their results are corroborated by Swanson 2004 and Swanson et al. 2007.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

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ADATA AND METHODOLOGYWe review and collect data on all articles published in six top accounting journals: AOS, CAR,

AR, JAE, RAST, and TAR.14 We exclude letters, committee reports, book reviews, notes, and otherrticles not related to research.15 We collect data as far back as 1960 for TAR i.e., back to volume5, and to the journal inauguration date for the other five JAR, 1963; AOS, 1976; JAE, 1979;AR, 1984; RAST, 1996.16 Although we include non-U.S. journals AOS and CAR, our primary

ocus is on the state of accounting research in the United States. Therefore, we restrict our analysiso papers with at least one U.S. author except for our analysis on total papers published over time,here we plot total papers versus papers with at least one U.S. author.

We classify citations into eight major categories: accounting, finance, economics, psychology,anagement, statistics, other academic journals, and other citations i.e., books, professional jour-

als, working papers, popular media, legal cases, etc..17 An alternative approach would be toxclude nonacademic journal citations, but this would preclude our comparison of citations goingack to 1960, since many early articles did not cite other academic journals few academicournals existed at the time. We include a large number of items in other citations, becauseooks and working papers are more difficult to classify e.g., should a book on business valuatione classified as accounting or finance?, and because of the diversity of other items cited e.g.,rofessional journals, court cases, websites, etc.. A few papers, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s,ake no citations at all, and we exclude these papers from our citations analysis but not from our

nalysis of topic and methodology.18We classify papers by topic using six categories: financial accounting, managerial accounting,

uditing, tax, governance, and other topics which captures a variety of topics, including educa-ion, research methodology issues, and history. Finally, we also classify papers by methodology:rchival, experimental, field study, review, survey, theoretical, and normative i.e., research argu-ng over what should beand often advocating a particular accounting treatmentas opposed toositive research. See the Appendix for further description.

Because we examine a 48year time trend of changes in citations, topics, and methodologies,e add information on significant historical events affecting accounting. Our timeline is admit-

edly ad hoc, necessarily brief, and considers the creation of new academic journals, the introduc-ion of accounting and financial databases, changes in major accounting institutions, and publica-ions of seminal research.19

RESULTSTable 1 presents our results for proportionate citations by literature from 1960 to 2007. The

eriod from 1960 to 1966 is characterized by relatively low proportionate citations from account-ng or other academic fields and very high proportionate citations from books, legal cases, court

4 We include RAST in our set of journals because its rapid rise of influence makes it representative of newer trends inaccounting research. Our informal polling among academics suggests that some schools view CAR as superior to RAST,and others consider RAST to be superior to CAR.

5 For example, TAR featured articles sectioned under Teachers Clinic and Education Research headings until 1985,and we exclude these articles.

6 We also include discussion papers, and classify them in the same topic and methodology as the paper they discuss unlessclearly warranted otherwise for example, a discussion paper on theoretical work that uses archival data to test theworks implications.

7 For simplicity, we refer to these areas as categories; however, we recognize that this is a coarse categorization.Economics, psychology, and mathematics may be more accurately described as disciplines; accounting, finance, statis-tics, and management may be more accurately described as applied fields.

8 The listing of journal classifications is available from the authors.9 For selecting seminal accounting papers, we use the top four accounting papers as of 1992 listed by Brown 1996, plus

Feltham and Ohlson 1995 and Sloan 1996.ccounting Horizons December 2010American Accounting Association

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AAases, and other sources, reflecting the practitioner-oriented early years of the discipline. However,tarting with 1967, the proportionate citations in accounting papers from accounting journalsegins to increase significantly.20 At the same time, citations from finance, economics, and man-gement also begin to increase. For the most part these trends continue, but one exception is thatitations from the management literature reached a high point of 9.8 percent in 1977 and haveeverted back to early 1960s levels in subsequent years.

Figure 1 plots the same results in graphical form alongside our historical timeline.21 To avoidlutter, we show only the top three categories accounting, finance, and economics. The increasen accounting citations appears to have been precipitated by the launch of JAR in 1963 and therigination of CRSP and Compustat in 1964. Accounting citations accounted for between 30 and0 percent of citations between 1972 and 1985 other than one exception in 1981, increased from986 to 2003, and have tapered off slightly since then. Citations from finance and economics havencreased steadily from 1960 to 2007, with a few spikes e.g., 1978 for finance, contemporaneousith the publication of Watts and Zimmerman 1978, and a spike in economics citations in 1995

ontemporaneous with the publication of Feltham and Ohlson 1995.22 Citations from financeesearch reach their highest point in 2007, at 14.5 percent.

Overall, these results suggest that 1 current accounting research has a considerable founda-ion from which to draw, and if accounting has been growing more insular over time, the level ofnsularity appears to have peaked in 2003; 2 accounting research in general appears to berawing closer to finance and economics, but even by 2007, combined citations from finance andconomics represent just under 25 percent of total citations. These trends are consistent with theise of positive research, which has its roots in economics and finance.

Figure 2 plots the aggregate number of papers published by year in our accounting journals,ith the same timeline as in Figure 1. These results indicate that the number of accounting papersublished has increased significantly since 1982 even though Fogarty and Markarian 2007 andeslie 2008 report a drop in accounting researchers. The increase is not monotonic for example,

here was a decrease from 1968 to 1975, but the upward trend from 1975 to 2007 is clear andppears to be associated with the introduction of new major journals. This apparent disconnectetween our results on publications and prior work on the number of researchers can be explainedy two factors: First, Leslie 2008 reports a slight increase in accounting researchers at doctoral-ranting schools although they also report a significant drop in researchers at four-year non-octoral schools. As faculty at doctoral-granting schools are more likely to be research activebecause of higher research budgets and because of reduced teaching loads, the decrease in theumber of researchers may not translate directly into a decrease in the number of publications.econd, Leslie 2008 also finds that the number of hours spent on research reported by accountingaculty has increased by 52 percent from 1993 to 2004, suggesting that an increase in output-per-aculty is compensating for a decrease in the number of faculty. A breakout not provided byndividual journal reveals inconsistent trends in the number of papers published by year across theournals, with TAR, JAR, and AOS declining over time while CAR and RAST are increasing.

Table 2, Panel A, examines citations sorted by research topic. The vast majority of papers fallnto financial accounting 2,577, over three times the number published in managerial accounting,he next closest topic. Different topics draw from somewhat different categories. Auditing and

0 We also note that, with the inauguration of JAR, proportionate citations to Other Citations mainly books and courtcases begin to decrease in 1963.

1 We use several acronyms to conserve space. EMH stands for the efficient market hypothesis, WRDS stands forWharton Research Data Services offered by the University of Pennsylvania, and SOX stands for the Sarbanes-OxleyAct of 2002.

2 However, given the ad hoc nature of our timeline, we do not provide evidence on causality.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

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Anancial accounting draw proportionately more from prior accounting research than from otherategories, at 44 percent for auditing and 43 percent for financial accounting; however, auditingraws the most from psychology at 5.1 percent.

The newest topic, corporate governance and control, draws the least from accounting and theost from economics consistent with the seminal paper in that field, Gompers et al. 2003,

ublished in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, as well as substantially from finance. Mana-erial accounting draws significantly from economics, but relatively little from finance.

When broken out by topic and decade, Panels B to G, the results suggest a strong trend towardore accounting citations as accounting researchers take ownership of research streams and build

n prior accounting papers in the area. Financial accounting, auditing, tax, governance, and otheropics all show increased borrowing from finance, while managerial accounting has decreased itsorrowing from finance. Borrowing from economics also increased from decade to decade across

FIGURE 1Proportion of Citations Made by TopAccounting Journals

50.0%

60.0%

40.0%

fCita

tions

A ti

20.0%

30.0%

Prop

ortio

nof Accounting

FinanceEconomics

10.0%

0.0%1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 20051963 JARLaunched

1968 Ball& Brown

19 0

1973 FASBreplaces APB

1978 Watts &

1979 JAELaunched 1995 Feltham& Ohlson

1998 WRDSLaunched

1985Healy

19871964 CompustatLaunched

1970 EMHArticulated byEugene Fama

1978 Watts &Zimmerman 1984 CAR

Launched

1996 Sloan;RASTLaunched

2002 SOXPassed1976 AOS

Launched

1987Hopwood1960 CRSP

Launched

his figure shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR,AST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007 for papers with at least one U.S. author. Proportions are calculated based on

he total citations listed in the paper. For brevity, only citations from accounting, finance, and economics arehown. CRSP refers to the Chicago Center for Research into Stock Price, EMH refers to the Efficient Marketypothesis, FASB refers to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, APB refers to the Accounting Principlesoard, WRDS refers to Wharton Research Data Services, and SOX refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.ccounting Horizons December 2010American Accounting Association

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AAost topics from the 1960s through to the 1990s, but tapered off for many topics from 2000 to007. Borrowing from statistics is small across all fields, and management research also plays aimited role for most topics except for management accounting where it is declining.23

Table 2, Panel B, shows that the number of financial accounting papers has increased signifi-antly from the 1960s to the 2000s. Panels C to G show that managerial accounting, auditing, andax have all decreased from the 1990s to the 2000s; governance has increased significantly in the

3 Our finding on statistics is indicative of accounting research using primarily tried and true statistical methods. In manycases papers that show improved methodologies are published in finance journals e.g., Petersen 2009, published in theReview of Financial Studies.

FIGURE 2Number of Papers byYear

160

180

140

100

120

60

80

401960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 20051963 JARLaunched

1968 Ball& Brown

19 0


1978 Watts &


1998 WRDSLaunched

1985Healy




Launched



Launched


Launched

his figure shows the aggregate number of papers with at least one U. S. author published in six top accountingournals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007. CRSP refers to the Chicago Center foresearch into Stock Price, EMH refers to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, FASB refers to the Financial Ac-ounting Standards Board, APB refers to the Accounting Principles Board, WRDS refers to Wharton, Researchata Services, and SOX refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

arch Topica

P

T ement

OtherAcademicJournals

OtherCitations

F % 1.2% 33.8%M % 1.9% 34.4%A % 1.1% 41.5%T % 1.3% 41.7%C % 1.3% 34.6%O % 4.0% 42.0%

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1 3.9% 53.3%1 1.4% 43.8%1 0.5% 32.9%1 0.8% 27.5%2 0.6% 25.1%

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1 5.7% 39.7%1 1.0% 38.0%1 1.0% 31.9%1 1.6% 35.1%2 1.2% 28.4%

(continued on next page)

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ssociationTABLE 2Proportion of Citations Made by Papers Published in Top Accounting Journals by Rese

anel A: Citations by Topic

opicNumber of

Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Managinancial Accounting 2577 43.1% 12.2% 6.5% 1.2% 0.8% 1.3anagerial Accounting 741 34.5% 4.1% 10.6% 4.3% 1.0% 9.2uditing 684 44.0% 1.8% 3.7% 5.1% 1.0% 1.8ax 237 36.3% 9.1% 8.6% 1.5% 0.6% 0.9ontrol/Governance 34 27.6% 18.2% 13.8% 1.4% 0.1% 3.0ther Topics 623 32.9% 5.6% 5.6% 3.5% 0.9% 5.6

anel B: Financial Accounting by Decade

ecadeNumber of

Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme960s 334 34.7% 3.0% 2.3% 0.2% 0.7% 1.8%970s 408 33.8% 10.2% 4.6% 1.8% 1.3% 3.1%980s 497 41.1% 13.8% 7.5% 2.3% 0.7% 1.2%990s 610 46.9% 13.0% 8.5% 1.0% 1.4% 0.9%000s 728 50.3% 15.6% 7.0% 0.6% 0.1% 0.6%

anel C: Managerial Accounting by Decade

ecadeNumber of


PD nt


OtherCitations

1 3.7% 65.0%1 1.3% 47.8%1 0.4% 46.0%1 1.5% 38.0%2 0.5% 32.0%

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1 5.3% 66.0%1 0.8% 50.3%1 0.7% 47.8%1 0.7% 37.2%2 1.1% 32.7%

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1 NA NA1 0.0% 80.0%1 0.0% 44.9%1 0.0% 42.8%2 1.8% 30.0%


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ecadeNumber of


anel E: Tax by Decade

ecadeNumber of


anel F: Control/Governance by Decade

ecadeNumber of

Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme960s 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA970s 1 8.0% 4.0% 0.0% 8.0% 0.0% 0.0%980s 2 6.7% 7.9% 39.3% 0.0% 0.0% 1.1%990s 6 26.0% 18.0% 9.0% 0.0% 0.0% 4.2%000s 25 30.5% 19.6% 13.4% 1.5% 0.1% 3.0%

PD nt


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1 10.7% 57.5%1 3.5% 43.6%1 1.1% 34.7%1 2.4% 39.3%2 0.9% 29.3%

a orary Accounting Research, Journal of2007 for papers with at least one U.S.l citations. Other Academic Journalsitations represents an aggregate of all

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ecadeNumber of


This table shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and Society, ContempAccounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review from 1960 toauthor, broken out by research topic Panel A then by decade for each topic Panels B to G. Proportions are calculated based on the totarepresents an aggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, and miscellaneous disciplines, and Other Cother citations accounting regulations, books, working papers, etc..

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AA000s but still remains a relatively small topic. Figure 3 plots the relative proportion of papersy topic graphically, and emphasizes the increase in financial accounting papers, from about 42ercent in 1960 to about 65 percent in 2007. However, the most dramatic increase in financialccounting occurred around 1995, coinciding with the publication of Feltham and Ohlson 1995,loan 1996, and the founding of RAST in 1996. The portion of other topics has generallyecreased in a similar manner: relative stability until around 1995, tapering off slightly thereafter.

Table 3 breaks out papers by research methodology instead of topic. Because most financialccounting research is archival, our results show a similar dominance by archival research theumber of archival papers is over twice the next highest methodology, theoretical modeling.rchival research draws heavily from finance at almost 15 percent, and Panel B shows that the

rend is increasing over time. Theoretical research draws more from economics than other meth-

4 Comparing absolute numbers can be misleading because we have only eight years of data from 2000 to 2007, versus tenyears for the 1990s.

FIGURE 3Proportion of Papers by Topic

80%

60%

70%

30%

40%

50%

Prop

ortio

n FAMAAuditTaxOther

10%

20%

30%P

0%1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 20051963 JARLaunched

1968 Ball& Brown

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1985Healy




Launched



Launched


Launched

his figure shows the proportionate number of papers published by topic in the top six accounting journalsAOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007 for papers with at least one U.S. author. If a paperovered more than one topic, then we selected the primary topic for purposes of categorization. Because gov-rnance topics make up a relatively low proportion of topics, for brevity governance is excluded from this figure.RSP refers to the Chicago Center for Research into Stock Price, EMH refers to the Efficient Market Hypoth-sis, FASB refers to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, APB refers to the Accounting Principles Board,

RDS refers to Wharton Research Data Services, and SOX refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

Methodologya

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OtherCitations

A 0.9% 30.9%E 1.3% 40.5%F 1.8% 37.4%R 1.1% 34.4%S 3.4% 38.8%T 1.1% 33.0%N 4.3% 50.1%

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1 4.0% 53.2%1 1.5% 42.3%1 0.5% 33.2%1 0.8% 29.2%2 0.7% 26.1%

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1 3.1% 53.0%1 2.1% 47.3%1 0.7% 43.6%1 1.4% 37.5%2 0.9% 30.9%


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anel A: Citations by Methodology

opicNumber

of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Managemrchival 2134 45.3% 14.4% 6.2% 0.4% 0.7% 1.2%xperimental 745 36.7% 3.1% 5.0% 9.5% 1.0% 3.0%ield Study 66 27.6% 3.2% 5.0% 7.3% 0.1% 17.6%eview 124 41.8% 7.0% 5.9% 5.0% 0.9% 4.0%urvey 156 30.3% 3.1% 2.8% 8.0% 0.7% 13.0%heoretical 844 40.0% 5.9% 14.6% 0.8% 1.2% 3.3%ormative 827 32.8% 2.6% 2.9% 1.7% 0.7% 4.9%

anel B: Archival by Decade

ecadeNumber

of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme960s 59 26.2% 8.3% 5.0% 0.0% 0.6% 2.7%970s 219 33.9% 12.5% 5.2% 0.7% 1.7% 2.1%980s 433 43.1% 14.5% 5.9% 0.9% 0.6% 1.3%990s 651 47.6% 13.4% 6.5% 0.2% 1.2% 1.1%000s 772 49.3% 16.4% 6.4% 0.2% 0.2% 0.8%

anel C: Experimental by Decade

ecadeNumber


PD nt


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1 NA NA1 0.6% 11.0%1 2.1% 29.9%1 2.4% 50.7%2 1.0% 42.0%

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1 3.0% 63.4%1 0.3% 45.6%1 1.0% 32.4%1 2.7% 35.9%2 0.1% 22.5%

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1 21.2% 58.2%1 2.3% 43.3%1 1.5% 32.9%1 3.8% 43.6%2 1.3% 32.4%


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ecadeNumber

of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme960s 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA970s 6 23.3% 11.3% 9.4% 16.4% 0.0% 27.9%980s 23 29.5% 2.3% 5.4% 10.0% 0.1% 20.9%990s 19 27.5% 1.4% 1.7% 4.3% 0.1% 11.9%000s 18 26.9% 3.5% 6.4% 3.9% 0.2% 16.2%

anel E: Review by Decade

ecadeNumber


anel F: Survey by Decade

ecadeNumber


PD nt


OtherCitations

1 4.6% 40.1%1 1.3% 38.9%1 0.3% 37.2%1 1.1% 29.3%2 0.7% 25.0%

P

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OtherCitations

1 5.9% 54.0%1 2.0% 48.5%1 1.3% 33.8%1 2.6% 50.4%2 0.8% 42.8%

a orary Accounting Research, Journal of2007 for papers with at least one U.S.on the total citations. Other Academics, and Other Citations represents an

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ecadeNumber


anel H: Normative by Decade

ecadeNumber


This table shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and Society, ContempAccounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review from 1960 toauthor, broken out by research methodology Panel A then by decade for each method Panels B to H. Proportions are calculated basedJournals represents an aggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, and miscellaneous disciplineaggregate of all other citations accounting regulations, books, working papers, etc..

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AAdologies also at almost 15 percent and experimental research draws significantly from psychol-gy almost 10 percent. Field studies draw the least from prior accounting and are much moreependent on management. We find a similar result for survey papers.

Figure 4 illustrates the time trend in the relative proportion of methodologies, and indicateshe precipitous drop in normative research, from a high in 1963 to almost negligible by theid-1980s, consistent with observations from Bricker and Previts 1990, Reiter and Williams

2002, Williams 2003, and Granof and Zeff 2008. The period from 1968 to 1979 is charac-erized by roughly equal representation among all methodologies except normative, whicheclined.25 However, roughly corresponding with the publication of Watts and Zimmerman 1978nd the inauguration of the JAE in 1979, we see a growing dominance of archival research over

5 We are ignoring reviews here, which may be viewed as a pseudo-methodology because they are concerned withsummarizing and synthesizing prior research rather than discovering new knowledge.

FIGURE 4Proportion of Papers by Methodology

100%

70%

80%

90%

A hi l

40%

50%

60%

70%

Proport ion

ArchivalExperimentalTheoreticalNormative

10%

20%

30%

40%P

0%

10%

1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 20051963 JARLaunched

1968 Ball& Brown

19 0


1978 Watts &


1998 WRDSLaunched

1985Healy




Launched



Launched


Launched

his figure shows the proportionate number of papers published by methodology in the top six accountingournals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007 for papers with at least one U.S. author. If aaper used more than one methodology, then we categorized the paper by its primary methodology. Becauseeld studies, reviews, and surveys make up a relatively low proportion of methodologies, for brevity they arexcluded from this figure. CRSP refers to the Chicago Center for Research into Stock Price, EMH refers to thefficient Market Hypothesis, FASB refers to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, APB refers to theccounting Principles Board, WRDS refers to Wharton Research Data Services, and SOX refers to thearbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

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Ather methodologies. This significant increase is preceded by the availability of significant dataets such as CRSP and Compustat, which allowed archival researchers to investigate questions thatere previously only answerable using experimental or field study approaches. Over 1970 to 2007e also see a slight decrease in theoretical research, and a more pronounced decrease for experi-ental research.26

Tables 46 break out citations, topics, and methodologies by journal, and help to characterizehe flavor of each journal. Panel A in Table 4 gives an overview of citation sources by journal.onsistent with its name, JAE papers draw from economics 11 percent, but even more heavily

rom finance 18 percent. AOS draws the least from prior accounting work 30 percent versus 39ercent for TAR, the next lowest and draws the most from psychology and management. Panels Bo F detail the trend in citations for each journal by decade. Each journal shows a strong trendoward citing prior accounting work except JAR which remains stable in accounting citationsrom the 1990s to 2000s, at 45 percent, coupled with a large increase in citations from finance.

Table 5 examines paper topics by decade and journal. The increasing dominance of financialccounting is evident in Panel A, along with the relative decline of managerial accounting, audit,nd tax. Panel B breaks out topics by journal and indicates some stark differences. RAST publishesredominantly financial accounting papers with some managerial, but relatively few audit, tax,nd governance papers. In contrast, AOS publishes proportionately more managerial accountingapers than other journals 34 percent to 16 percent, the next highest from TAR, and CARublishes proportionately the most audit research. Tax research makes up a relatively small portionf total research, with JAE publishing proportionately more tax research than the other journals.he drop in published research in audit and tax is consistent with the unmet demand for audit and

ax researchers noted by Plumlee et al. 2005.Breaking out trends by individual journal, CAR is the only journal to move contrary to the

rend toward increasing financial accounting research 64 percent of papers in the 1990s to 50ercent in the 2000s; all other journals have increased the proportion of financial accountingapers published. CAR also increased its proportion of managerial, audit, and tax papers, whilehese topics have declined or remained the same for JAR, RAST, and TAR. AOS shows a smallncrease in financial papers published 15 percent to 17 percent but also shows a large jump in

anagerial research, from 27 percent to 41 percent. The aggregate number of governance papersublished is small 34 papers, from Table 2, and are published mostly by AOS and JAE.

Table 6 examines methodologies by decade and journal. Consistent with the increase innancial accounting research noted in the prior tables, there is a strong trend toward proportion-tely more archival research, shown in Panel A. Normative research drops from being the domi-ant methodology in the 1960s to being almost nonexistent. Experimental work declined from aenith in the 1980s, and theoretical work seems to have wide swings over time. Panel B revealsonsiderable variation by journal: JAE and RAST publish primarily archival papers; JAR, AOS, andAR publish relatively more experimental papers; RAST and CAR publish relatively more theo-

etical papers.Panels C to G present the time trend for each journal. We find an increase in the relative

roportion of archival research from the 1990s to the 2000s for almost all journals the onlyxception being JAE, which devoted its entire September 2001 issue to reviews. We also find arecipitous decline in experimental research in JAR, going from 25 percent in the 1970s down topercent in the 2000s, but an increase in experimental research published in both CAR and AOS.

6 This is consistent with two of the three new journals JAE and RAST launched from 1979 to 1996 being stronglyoriented toward archival research. Only CAR has published a significant number of experimental papers. JAE and RASThave published almost no experimental papers.ccounting Horizons December 2010American Accounting Association

ournala

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OtherCitations

A 1.9% 36.2%C 1.3% 26.5%J 0.8% 25.4%J 1.0% 38.7%R 1.8% 26.0%T 2.5% 42.5%

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1 2.0% 15.5%1 1.7% 28.4%1 2.6% 51.8%2 1.2% 37.2%

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1 1.8% 33.2%1 1.9% 21.4%2 0.4% 29.4%


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anel A: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals

ournalNumber

of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics ManagemeOS 520 30.2% 4.3% 4.2% 9.4% 0.2% 13.5%AR 527 48.0% 8.6% 8.8% 2.3% 2.9% 1.6%AE 536 43.8% 18.1% 10.8% 0.1% 0.2% 0.8%AR 1469 39.5% 9.0% 7.2% 2.2% 0.8% 1.7%AST 208 49.8% 11.5% 9.6% 0.2% 0.2% 0.8%AR 1636 39.0% 6.0% 4.8% 1.8% 0.8% 2.7%

anel B: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decade

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of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme970s 59 27.9% 7.5% 5.4% 12.8% 0.1% 28.6%980s 193 30.4% 4.7% 4.8% 13.7% 0.3% 15.9%990s 169 28.6% 2.7% 2.5% 5.0% 0.0% 6.7%000s 99 34.1% 4.2% 5.5% 6.2% 0.1% 11.5%

anel C: Contemporary Accounting Research, by Decade

ecadeNumber

of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme980s 101 41.2% 7.3% 9.7% 2.6% 1.2% 3.1%990s 237 47.8% 9.6% 10.0% 2.1% 5.8% 1.4%000s 189 52.0% 8.1% 6.6% 2.4% 0.1% 1.1%

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1 0.0% 41.6%1 0.1% 32.6%1 0.4% 26.0%2 1.7% 20.2%

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1 3.9% 53.0%1 1.5% 46.5%1 0.2% 37.6%1 0.6% 33.0%2 0.3% 29.1%

P

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1 4.6% 31.0%2 0.7% 24.0%

P

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1 6.3% 52.9%1 1.7% 45.0%1 0.4% 42.8%


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ssociationanel D: Journal of Accounting and Economics, by Decade

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of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme970s 8 17.8% 20.6% 19.7% 0.0% 0.3% 0.0%980s 102 37.1% 17.6% 11.3% 0.0% 0.2% 1.0%990s 228 45.7% 16.4% 10.3% 0.1% 0.2% 0.9%000s 198 46.2% 20.3% 10.7% 0.2% 0.2% 0.5%

anel E: Journal of Accounting Research, by Decade

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anel F: Review of Accounting Studies, by Decade

ecadeNumber

of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme990s 59 43.6% 6.3% 12.9% 0.1% 0.3% 1.2%000s 149 52.2% 13.6% 8.3% 0.3% 0.1% 0.7%

anel G: The Accounting Review, by Decade

ecadeNumber

of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme960s 499 33.0% 2.0% 1.4% 0.1% 1.0% 3.2%970s 379 35.0% 6.4% 3.7% 2.5% 1.3% 4.4%980s 199 37.1% 7.7% 6.0% 3.5% 0.8% 1.7%

PD nt


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1 0.4% 35.9%2 0.5% 27.0%

a orary Accounting Research, Journal ofat least one U.S. author, broken out byortions are calculated based on the total

miscellaneous disciplines, and Other

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of Papers Accounting Finance Economics Psychology Statistics Manageme990s 266 42.6% 7.3% 10.0% 2.0% 0.5% 1.2%000s 293 52.1% 9.6% 6.6% 2.4% 0.2% 1.6%

This table shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and Society, ContempAccounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review for papers withjournal. Panel A presents aggregate results from 1960 to 2007. Panels B to G show proportions for each journal separately, by decade. Propcitations. Other Academic Journals represents an aggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, andCitations represents an aggregate of all other citations accounting regulations, books, working papers, etc..

PD Governance Other1 0.0% 26.0%1 0.1% 15.7%1 0.2% 13.7%1 0.5% 11.7%2 2.1% 6.3%

PJ Governance OtherA 1.1% 30.9%C 0.0% 3.8%J 2.7% 24.2%J 0.5% 8.4%R 0.5% 0.5%T 0.3% 14.4%

PD Governance Other1 0.0% 41.7%1 0.0% 28.6%1 0.6% 37.3%2 5.1% 18.2%

PD Governance Other1 0.0% 4.0%1 0.0% 4.5%2 0.0% 2.6%


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ssociationTABLE 5Research Topic by Decade and Journala

anel A: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Decadeecade Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit Tax960s 792 48.6% 16.7% 4.8% 3.9%970s 810 52.8% 17.4% 11.9% 2.1%980s 1038 48.3% 15.9% 17.9% 4.0%990s 1278 48.4% 14.6% 17.9% 6.7%000s 1196 61.2% 12.0% 12.6% 5.9%

anel B: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Journalournal Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit TaxOS 524 16.6% 33.8% 15.8% 1.7%AR 532 58.1% 10.3% 22.2% 5.6%AE 557 52.8% 9.5% 4.3% 6.5%AR 1529 59.0% 12.0% 15.4% 4.8%AST 210 83.8% 10.5% 3.8% 1.0%AR 1762 50.9% 15.8% 13.1% 5.4%

anel C: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decadeecade Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit Tax970s 60 20.0% 26.7% 11.7% 0.0%980s 196 16.3% 38.3% 15.3% 1.5%990s 169 15.4% 26.6% 19.5% 0.6%000s 99 17.2% 41.4% 13.1% 5.1%

anel D: Contemporary Accounting Research, by Decadeecade Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit Tax980s 101 59.4% 14.9% 20.8% 1.0%990s 242 63.6% 7.0% 19.8% 5.0%000s 189 50.3% 12.2% 25.9% 9.0%

PD Governance Other1 0.0% 37.5%1 0.9% 28.7%1 2.5% 26.9%2 4.0% 18.1%


PD Governance Other1 0.0% 1.7%2 0.7% 0.0%


a orary Accounting Research, Journal ofat least one U.S. author, from 1960 to

ournal separately, by decade.

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ssociationanel E: Journal of Accounting and Economics, by Decadeecade Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit Tax970s 8 50.0% 12.5% 0.0% 0.0%980s 108 58.3% 1.9% 5.6% 4.6%990s 242 45.0% 14.9% 4.5% 6.2%000s 199 59.3% 7.0% 3.5% 8.0%

anel F: Journal of Accounting Research, by Decadeecade Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit Tax960s 178 52.8% 19.7% 3.9% 6.2%970s 353 58.4% 13.9% 14.7% 0.6%980s 434 56.9% 11.3% 18.4% 3.7%990s 300 53.3% 10.0% 23.7% 11.3%000s 264 73.9% 7.6% 9.8% 3.8%

anel G: Review of Accounting Studies, by Decadeecade Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit Tax990s 59 74.6% 18.6% 5.1% 0.0%000s 151 87.4% 7.3% 3.3% 1.3%

anel H: The Accounting Review, by Decadeecade Number of Papers Financial Managerial Audit Tax960s 614 47.4% 15.8% 5.0% 3.3%970s 389 53.0% 19.3% 9.5% 3.9%980s 199 49.7% 12.1% 24.6% 8.5%990s 266 47.4% 18.0% 23.7% 9.0%000s 294 59.5% 11.6% 17.3% 6.8%

This table shows the proportion of papers published by topic in top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and Society, ContempAccounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review for papers with2007. Panel A presents aggregate results by decade. Panel B presents aggregate results by journal. Panels C to H show results for each j

PD Theoretical Normative1 6.4% 76.6%1 25.8% 20.0%1 16.6% 9.2%1 20.5% 5.9%2 13.7% 2.0%

P

J Theoretical NormativeA 4.6% 32.1%C 25.2% 1.9%J 11.1% 0.4%J 20.3% 9.5%R 34.3% 0.0%T 14.5% 36.2%

P

D Theoretical Normative1 5.0% 41.7%1 1.5% 33.2%1 10.1% 37.3%2 1.0% 15.2%


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ssociationTABLE 6Research Method by Decade and Journala

anel A: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Decade

ecadeNumber of

Papers Archival Experimental Field Study Review Survey960s 792 9.6% 4.9% 0.0% 0.8% 1.6%970s 810 28.3% 17.9% 0.9% 2.8% 4.3%980s 1038 42.1% 20.6% 2.2% 4.6% 4.6%990s 1278 52.1% 15.8% 1.5% 1.9% 2.3%000s 1196 64.7% 13.0% 1.5% 2.3% 2.8%

anel B: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Journal

ournalNumber of

Papers Archival Experimental Field Study Review SurveyOS 524 10.7% 19.8% 12.0% 6.5% 14.3%AR 532 48.9% 18.8% 0.8% 2.1% 2.4%AE 557 81.9% 0.7% 0.0% 5.9% 0.0%AR 1529 47.8% 20.1% 0.0% 1.8% 0.3%AST 210 63.3% 2.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%AR 1762 31.0% 13.3% 0.0% 1.3% 3.7%

anel C: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decade

ecadeNumber of

Papers Archival Experimental Field Study Review Survey970s 60 8.3% 11.7% 11.7% 5.0% 16.7%980s 196 9.2% 23.5% 11.7% 7.7% 13.3%990s 169 10.7% 16.6% 11.2% 4.7% 9.5%000s 99 15.2% 23.2% 14.1% 8.1% 23.2%

PD Theoretical Normative1 39.6% 5.9%1 26.0% 0.8%2 16.4% 1.1%

P

D Theoretical Normative1 37.5% 0.0%1 11.1% 1.9%1 12.8% 0.0%2 8.0% 0.0%P

D Theoretical Normative1 13.5% 42.1%1 21.5% 15.0%1 22.4% 3.9%1 23.7% 0.0%2 16.3% 0.4%

P

D Theoretical Normative1 54.2% 0.0%2 26.5% 0.0%


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ecadeNumber of

Papers Archival Experimental Field Study Review Survey980s 101 36.6% 8.9% 0.0% 3.0% 5.9%990s 242 50.4% 18.6% 0.0% 2.5% 1.7%000s 189 53.4% 24.3% 2.1% 1.1% 1.6%

anel E: Journal of Accounting and Economics, by Decadeecade

Number ofPapers Archival Experimental Field Study Review Survey

970s 8 62.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%980s 108 79.6% 0.0% 0.0% 7.4% 0.0%990s 242 83.5% 0.8% 0.0% 2.9% 0.0%000s 199 81.9% 1.0% 0.0% 9.0% 0.0%anel F: Journal of Accounting Research, by Decadeecade


960s 178 24.7% 17.4% 0.0% 2.2% 0.0%970s 353 36.0% 25.2% 0.0% 2.3% 0.0%980s 434 45.4% 24.9% 0.0% 3.5% 0.0%990s 300 55.0% 19.7% 0.0% 0.3% 1.3%000s 264 75.0% 8.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.4%

anel G: Review of Accounting Studies, by Decadeecade


990s 59 42.4% 3.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%000s 151 71.5% 2.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

PD Theoretical Normative1 4.4% 86.6%1 32.6% 21.6%1 10.1% 3.0%1 18.0% 3.8%2 11.2% 2.0%

a y, Contemporary Accounting Research,pers with at least one U.S. author, fromfor each journal separately, by decade.

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ecadeNumber of

Papers Archival Experimental Field Study Review Survey960s 614 5.2% 1.3% 0.0% 0.3% 2.1%970s 389 23.7% 12.6% 0.0% 3.1% 6.4%980s 199 49.7% 25.6% 0.0% 3.5% 8.0%990s 266 50.4% 24.8% 0.0% 0.8% 2.3%000s 294 64.3% 20.4% 0.0% 0.0% 2.0%

This table shows the proportion of papers published by research method in top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and SocietJournal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review for pa1960 to 2007. Panel A presents aggregate results by decade. Panel B presents aggregate results by journal. Panels C to H show proportions

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AAheoretical research is also declining in all journals, most significantly in CAR and RAST.Overall, these results present a mixed picture on the health of accounting as an academic

iscipline. Accounting research appears to have constructed a strong foundation from which touild: about half the citations in recently published accounting papers refer to prior accountingork. However, topics and methodologies appear to be narrowing to financial and archival; other

opics and methodologies are, on average, in decline.

haracterizing Accounting ResearchBuilding on our overview of citations, topics, and methodologies used by papers published in

op accounting journals, we respond to the question: What is accounting research? Accountingesearch necessarily covers a wide swath of related areas, and we use a diagram of financialeporting, modified from Nikolai et al. 2007 to help us classify these areas.27 This is necessarilysimplification, but we believe it captures the essential focus of the various streams of accounting

esearch. As shown in Figure 5, financial accounting research focuses on the effect of accountingnformation on the investment decisions of external users in capital markets. Audit research fo-uses on the audit function, which sits between the accounting information produced by the firmnd capital markets. Managerial accounting focuses on the link between accounting informationnd internal users, while tax focuses on the link between accounting information and taxationuthorities, as well as the capital markets. Governance research focuses on corporate economicctivities, which in turn drives accounting information.

One area of contention centers on the response of capital markets to accounting information.n a recent example, Hand 2002 argues that Skinner and Sloans 2002 earnings torpedo papers not accounting research because it does not focus on any of the key characteristics ofccounting.28 More generally, the effect of economic events on the generation of accountingnformation appears to be commonly accepted as accounting research, but the effect of accountingnformation on economic events appears to be less so. We show this link with a question mark inigure 5.

The results indicate that accounting research refers to a broad spectrum of research that isnformed primarily by finance and economics. Any proposed characterization based on priorccounting publications must be broad enough to include financial and managerial accountingobviously, auditing, tax, and possibly governance. Kinney 2001, 278 defines the domain ofccounting scholarship as the knowledge of the individual and aggregate effects of alternativetandardized business measurement and reporting structures. His approach stems from an insti-utional viewpoint and is perhaps more normative in nature; our focus is on what accountinguthors and editors have concluded on which papers are within the bounds of accounting research.n addition, Kinney is describing an area where accounting researchers have a relative advantage,ot necessarily providing an all-inclusive characterization of accounting research.

In spite of the above differences, our proposed characterization builds on Kinneys descriptionf the domain of accounting:

Accounting research is research into the effect of economic events on the process of summarizing,analyzing, verifying, and reporting standardized financial information, and on the effects of re-ported information on economic events.

7 We place our proposed characterization after our discussion of trends in accounting research to emphasize that it isbased on the data we observe. It is not a hypothesis that we attempt to support with data; it is a description that wederive from the data.

8 He enumerates a nonexclusive list of these key characteristics: accruals, recognition bias, measurement, matching, andaccounting rules versus discretion.ccounting Horizons December 2010merican Accounting Association

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AThe term financial information is purposefully very broad, and is meant to include taxnformation, analyst forecasts, and even relatively simple information such as cash level andnventory.29 For most accounting research, financial information relates to businesses, but account-ng research can also extend to other entities such as governments and nonprofit organizations.Standardized information is information that is generated and presented in compliance with aeasurement structure: GAAP for financial accounting, and internal reporting guidelines for man-

gement accounting information to be used inside the firm. Effect is also a very broad term, andncompasses used, misused, misunderstood, or even ignoredfor example, Sloan 1996nd Picconi 2006. Economic events is equally broad; most accounting research will fall withinpecuniary definition of the change in a firms reported income or stock price, but the term can

lso extend to all human events dealing with the allocation of scarce resources e.g., hiring orring of a CEO.

9 However, simple information can have significant and complex implications, as Bernard and Thomas 1989 show withthe relationship between earnings and post-earnings announcement drift, and as Oler 2008 shows with the relationshipbetween acquirer cash level and post-acquisition returns.

FIGURE 5MappingAccounting Research into Financial Reporting

his figure maps different topics of accounting research into financial reporting, based on a diagram of financialeporting provided in Nikolai et al. (2007). Ovals denote various areas of accounting research focus. Rectanglesenote the various institutional and economic factors. The thick solid line represents information flow, and theashed line represents the effect of external investors and internal managers decisions on the activities of therm.ccounting Horizons December 2010American Accounting Association

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AASUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONThis paper examines trends in accounting research in citations as a proxy for the literatures

rom which seminal accounting research ideas are drawn, topics, and methodologies. Our intents to assess the current condition of academic accounting research as a discipline by examiningntecedent ideas and to propose a characterization of accounting research that is consistent withapers published in the top six accounting journals.

Our results on the proportion of citations being drawn from accounting research, and on theumber of papers being published by top accounting journals, suggest that there are significantroblems ahead. The increase in output seems more attributable to faculty working increasedours than to an overall increase in faculty. Trends from Ph.D. programs suggest that there willontinue to be unmet demand, especially in auditing and taxation, and we find that the proportionf research from these fields published in our six journals is already dropping. The Accountingoctoral Scholars program announced by the AICPA in 2008 should help to attract more auditing

nd tax researchers to the profession, but no similar program exists to attract managerial orheoretical researchers.

The relative proportion of citations drawn from prior accounting papers appears to havelateaued at just under 50 percent, and borrowing from economics and finance has increased,hich suggests that accounting is not becoming more insular. However, concerns about decreasingiversity in accounting research are supported: We show that financial accounting is becomingncreasingly dominant except for CAR and AOS and other topics are declining. Archival meth-dologies are also becoming more dominant.

With respect to the trend toward more financial accounting/archival research, this trend isonsistent with a significant number of events. These include the creation of massive databases oftock returns and financial statement information, advances in computing technology to use theseatabases, the founding of JAR in 1963, and the publication of seminal papers such as Ball andrown in 1968. All accounting Ph.D. programs of which we are aware can accommodate financialccounting/archival research interests, but fewer can accommodate other topics or methodologiesespecially tax and theoretical research.

Our results augment the observation of Levitt and Nicolaisen 2008, VI:19 that the bondetween the profession and academia is underdeveloped by indicating that the bond is not un-erdeveloped so much as steadily atrophied. Most papers in the 60s were normative, often citedork from areas other than finance and economics, and often dealt directly with issues facing arofessional accountant or auditor.30 Similarly, Carcello 2007 observes that students entering anccounting Ph.D. program today are more likely to come from a quantitative background e.g.,nance or economics, while the typical Ph.D. student 2030 years ago was more likely to comerom a professional background. Granof and Zeff 2008 note that accounting researchers in the0s began borrowing methodologies from other disciplines as an effort to improve academicespectability relative to their peers in other fields. Our results suggest that 1 this effort has hadprofound effect on accounting research in general, but 2 one of the costs of this change is aidening gulf between accounting academics and accounting professionals. Levitt and Nicolaisen

2008 make several proposals to help close this gap, including cross-sabbaticals where account-ng academics temporarily move to professional positions within an accounting firm or govern-ent entity such as the FASB, SEC, and PCAOB, and also where accounting professionals

0 A quick perusal of early issues of The Accounting Review will illustrate how much academic accounting research hasshifted over time. The October 1960 issue includes articles titled Decreasing Charge DepreciationA Search forLogic, Influence of Salvage Value upon Choice of Tax Depreciation Methods, Measuring Financial Liquidity,Price Level Accounting, Statistical Sampling in the Audit of the Air Force Motor Vehicle Inventory, and Separationof Fixed and Variable Costs.ccounting Horizons December 2010me

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