Oler Et - Al

Accounting Horizons
Vol. 24, No. 4

2010
pp. 635670
American Accounting Association

DOI: 10.2308/acch.2010.24.4.635
Characterizing Accounting Research

Derek K. Oler, Mitchell J. Oler, and Christopher J. Skousen
SYNOPSIS: In response to concerns over the viability of the academic discipline of
accounting, we investigate trends in accounting research by examining papers published in six top accounting journals from 1960 to 2007. We use citations made by
accounting papers as a proxy for their antecedent ideas and examine trends in citations, topics, and methodologies, in aggregate and by journal. Our results suggest that
the growing body of accounting research draws increasingly from both finance and
economics. Financial accounting topics and archival methodologies are becoming more
dominant over time relative to other topics and methodologies, although these trends
vary by journal. Though most concerns we discuss are recent, we find that the situation
today is the result of trends set in motion decades ago with an explicit decision by
influential researchers to move the discipline from a normative perspective to a positive
perspective. Given its current state, accounting research may be broadly characterized
as research into the effect of economic events on the process of summarizing, analyzing, verifying, and reporting standardized financial information, and on the effects of
reported information on economic events.
INTRODUCTION
ccounting research has emerged as a literature that draws from and adds to a larger body
of work dealing primarily with businesses and their interactions with society at large,
often through capital markets. Several researchers have identified threats to accounting as
an academic discipline, and some question its future viability. Others have noted the gap that often
exists between academics and practitioners in accounting. We offer an alternative approach to
examining these threats and concerns, and an approach to characterizing accounting research, by
1 examining its antecedent seminal ideas, proxied by the papers cited by research published in
six top accounting journals; 2 examining the general topics covered; and 3 examining the
general methodologies used. We summarize trends in citations, topics, and methodologies from
1960 to 2007, both in aggregate and by journal. We conclude by proposing a characterization of
accounting research based on our observations.
Derek K. Oler is an Associate Professor at Texas Tech University, Mitchell J. Oler is an Assistant Professor
at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Christopher J. Skousen is an Assistant Professor at
Utah State University.
The authors thank Tom Dyckman, Michael Gibbins, Bill Kinney, Kenny Reynolds, Stephen Zeff, Anthony Hopwood, Dana
Hermanson, two anonymous reviewers, and participants at the 2007 BYU Accounting Research Symposium and the 2009
American Accounting Association Annual Meeting for helpful comments on prior versions of this paper. All remaining
errors are our own. We also thank Laura Oler for her programming assistance. We are grateful to Kevin Federico, Robert
Brandt, Kara Brandt, Monte Searle, and Brian Watson for their research assistance.
Submitted: March 2010

Accepted: April 2010
Published Online: December 2010
Corresponding author: Derek K. Oler
Email: derek.oler@ttu.edu
635
636
Oler, Oler, and Skousen
Researchers have raised significant concerns about the viability of accounting research as an
academic discipline. Fogarty and Markarian 2007 argue that the academic accounting profession
is in decline because there are shrinking numbers of accounting researchers at the assistant and
associate professor levels. Their results are consistent with Plumlee et al. 2005 and Leslie
2008. One implication of these studies is that, ceteris paribus, fewer accounting research papers
will be published over time as the number of researchers declines.
Another concern, raised by Hopwood 2007, is that accounting research is becoming more
insular and self-referential also see, Biehl et al. 2006. This concern suggests that the proportion
of citations from other fields will decrease over time because more recent accounting research
ignores new ideas from other literatures. We examine trends in the relative proportion of ideas in
accounting research being drawn from other disciplines to determine the extent to which accounting seems to be becoming more insular. Rayburn 2005, 2006 expresses concern over the increasing dominance of financial accounting research topics in academic journals, and Tuttle and Dillard
2007 find a strong trend in publications in The Accounting Review toward more financial accounting papers and fewer papers on other topics. We investigate whether this trend extends to
other journals. Specifically, we examine Accounting, Organizations and Society AOS, Contemporary Accounting Research CAR, Journal of Accounting and Economics JAE, Journal of
Accounting Research JAR, Review of Accounting Studies RAST, and The Accounting Review
TAR. These journals are currently and commonly viewed as top-tier publications at researchintensive U.S. schools. Two of these journals, AOS and CAR, are not based in the United States
and publish a greater proportion of papers by non-U.S. academics. To enhance comparisons
between our journals, we exclude papers without at least one U.S. author.
Accounting research intersects with a number of neighboring disciplines, primarily finance,
economics, psychology, and management. Building on Zeff 1996, we classify citation sources
into eight categories: accounting, finance, economics, psychology, management, statistics, other
academic journals, and other citations i.e., books, professional journals, working papers, popular
media, legal cases, etc.. We classify the topics covered by accounting papers into six categories:
financial accounting, managerial accounting, auditing, tax, governance, and other topics.1 We
classify the research methodologies used into seven categories: archival, experimental, field study,
review, survey, theoretical often referred to as analytical, and normative.2 These are broad categories, but we believe they are adequately descriptive while remaining reasonably digestible.3 In
cases where a paper addresses multiple topics, or uses multiple methodologies, we select the
primary topic and primary methodology for our classifications. We provide an expanded description of our categories in the Appendix.
Our results indicate that the nature of accounting research has changed significantly over the
past 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 define
governance research here as research relating to the overall corporate management, as opposed to a firms system of
internal controls. While some governance papers occurred prior to the Gompers et al. 2003 paper, we note that most
governance research builds on their work. Our selection of governance is also an example of a newer hot topic that
is essentially borrowed from economics.
We note that our terms for methodology are not parallel: archival, experimental, and field study methodologies are
examples of positive research the study of what is, and theoretical work is similar the study of what is, from the
perspective of mathematical logic, although one could also consider theoretical work to be normative as well. Normative research deals with what ought to be see Keynes, 1891, 34. Review is not really a methodology, but rather a
summation and synthesis of prior work.
Our selection of topics and methodologies, while consistent with prior work, is open to criticism. For example, Abbott
2004 provides a taxonomy of 36 different methodologies, compared to our seven. However, increasing our categories
has the adverse effect of increasing the complexity and size of the paper, making it more difficult to group the thousands
of papers we examine into tractable categories.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
637
1960s to positive research from the mid-1970s onward. This shift seems to continue to guide the
trajectory of accounting research today. The total number of papers published by the top accounting journals has increased dramatically from 1960 to 2007, mostly because of new journals being
inaugurated and later commonly accepted as A journals. We also break out paper counts by
individual journal, and find that research production overall has not decreased. Accounting papers
currently draw just under 50 percent of their antecedent ideas from other prior accounting work
Table 1, and this ratio has remained consistent since the mid-1990s. Borrowing from finance and
economics has been slowly but steadily increasing. Financial accounting research has remained
the dominant topic of research, and is becoming increasingly so. Tuttle and Dillard 2007 find that
this trend occurs in TAR; we show that the trend extends to other top journals except for AOS and
CAR.
Papers in our six accounting journals indicate a different mix of citations, topics, and methodologies. For example, RAST papers cite other accounting papers 50 percent of the time on
average from its 1996 inception to 2007, and cite psychology papers only 0.2 percent of the time,
compared with AOS papers, which cite accounting papers 30 percent of the time and psychology
papers only 9.4 percent of the time. Differences in citations reflect significant differences in topic
and methodology: from inception to 2007, 22 percent of CARs papers focus on audit issues,
compared to 3.8 percent of RASTs. Papers dealing with financial accounting make up an increasing proportion of the total papers published in almost all journals from their inception through
today except for AOS and CAR. In terms of methodology, archival research is becoming more
dominant in all journals.
Our results have several implications. First, although the number of accounting A journals
and the number of total accounting publications have increased significantly over time, when our
results are considered in conjunction with Plumlee et al. 2005 and Leslie 2008, warning signs
emerge. The increase in output does not appear to be attributable to a general increase in researchers, but rather to 1 a slight increase in researchers at doctoral-granting schools, and 2 a
significant increase in the amount of time spent on research Leslie 2008. But faculty cannot
indefinitely increase their time devoted to research. The large unmet demand for auditing and
taxation Ph.D.s noted by Plumlee et al. 2005 corroborates our finding that the proportion of
auditing and taxation papers has decreased in the 2000s relative to prior decades. This decrease in
the number of publications and researchers in audit and tax is especially disconcerting to auditing
firms, who look to academics to supply new generations of CPAs Solomon 2008.
The Final Report of the Treasurys Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession also
reflects concern about the adequacy of both the near- and long-term supply of doctoral faculty
given the anticipated pace of faculty retirements Levitt and Nicolaisen 2008, especially for audit
and tax. The recent AICPA Accounting Doctoral Scholars Program announced in July 2008
should help to counteract this trend by encouraging and funding CPAs who wish to obtain Ph.D.s
and pursue auditing or tax.
Over time, citations from finance and economics have increased, suggesting that accounting
research is drawing closer to these related disciplines and moving away from audit and tax. This
is consistent with the shift in accounting research from primarily normative research in the 1960s
to positive research that uses methods from finance, economics, and other established academic
disciplines Granof and Zeff 2008. Citations from psychology, statistics, and management are
relatively low in the 2000s when compared to prior years. The increasing dominance of financial
accounting research is also consistent with the observations of Tuttle and Dillard 2007 and
Plumlee et al. 2005. It is important to note that the selection of papers published in any journal
is jointly determined by the authors who determine the topic, methodology, and where to submit
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
638
TABLE 1
Proportion of Citations Made by Papers Published in Top Accounting Journalsa
Year
Acctg.
Fin.
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
29.7%
31.2%
24.2%
27.5%
27.7%
29.7%
28.1%
33.0%
42.7%
41.1%
40.0%
25.4%
30.1%
36.7%
34.2%
37.6%
31.7%
34.7%
35.3%
31.6%
35.1%
25.6%
37.6%
34.0%
36.3%
35.9%
44.0%
39.2%
44.3%
43.3%
39.8%
39.8%
42.2%
37.9%
42.2%
38.9%
45.7%
47.9%
44.7%
49.1%
45.5%
48.1%
48.4%
49.9%
48.9%
1.9%
2.5%
0.8%
1.5%
3.8%
0.7%
2.1%
4.7%
4.3%
2.5%
5.9%
6.4%
6.2%
6.4%
5.7%
6.7%
7.6%
5.6%
11.7%
8.2%
8.2%
10.0%
7.8%
8.8%
10.4%
8.6%
8.4%
8.7%
6.9%
9.0%
9.7%
9.3%
8.4%
10.7%
8.7%
6.6%
8.0%
7.9%
7.6%
9.5%
10.0%
8.2%
11.2%
13.2%
13.7%
Papers
Total
Other Acad. Other
with No Number
Econ. Psych. Stats. Mgnt.
Jrnls.
Citations Citations of Papers
1.3%
1.1%
2.1%
1.6%
2.6%
1.6%
2.5%
2.7%
1.5%
2.7%
3.3%
3.5%
3.8%
2.6%
6.5%
3.1%
4.8%
4.4%
5.0%
6.8%
7.7%
8.1%
5.2%
6.1%
5.6%
9.8%
6.2%
9.4%
7.9%
7.8%
10.4%
10.8%
7.7%
8.9%
8.2%
13.3%
7.7%
4.7%
8.3%
10.0%
8.4%
6.0%
8.0%
7.6%
8.3%
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
0.2%
0.4%
0.0%
0.0%
0.3%
0.1%
2.0%
0.6%
1.5%
3.4%
2.5%
3.0%
3.6%
6.0%
6.3%
2.1%
3.8%
6.1%
6.7%
6.4%
6.3%
5.3%
3.7%
2.5%
2.5%
3.3%
3.9%
2.6%
2.1%
3.2%
2.9%
1.5%
2.3%
1.3%
2.4%
1.0%
1.6%
2.0%
2.2%
1.5%
1.2%
1.2%
0.0%
2.3%
0.0%
0.1%
1.0%
0.4%
1.4%
2.4%
0.7%
2.0%
1.5%
0.7%
3.1%
0.9%
1.8%
1.4%
0.6%
0.8%
1.3%
0.6%
0.2%
0.4%
1.2%
0.6%
1.0%
0.9%
1.0%
0.9%
0.5%
0.2%
0.6%
0.3%
1.3%
3.2%
2.8%
2.6%
1.8%
0.3%
0.2%
0.0%
0.2%
0.1%
0.1%
0.2%
0.0%
2.3%
1.7%
0.8%
2.5%
2.7%
2.6%
2.6%
4.9%
3.9%
5.3%
5.3%
4.5%
3.5%
3.7%
1.6%
5.2%
7.9%
9.8%
5.5%
4.9%
4.7%
5.8%
3.4%
7.4%
3.5%
3.2%
6.1%
2.1%
5.5%
1.7%
3.2%
1.9%
3.1%
2.1%
1.2%
3.6%
1.1%
1.6%
1.2%
1.9%
2.1%
1.8%
1.8%
1.1%
2.3%
4.6%
1.1%
0.8%
10.3%
10.9%
5.6%
8.0%
5.2%
3.0%
4.1%
2.7%
4.1%
2.8%
1.6%
2.8%
0.1%
0.7%
1.0%
0.2%
0.3%
0.4%
0.7%
0.4%
0.4%
0.4%
0.6%
1.6%
0.6%
0.9%
0.7%
0.8%
1.6%
1.0%
1.0%
1.7%
1.4%
1.0%
0.6%
2.4%
1.0%
0.5%
0.2%
0.3%
0.7%
0.8%
60.3%
60.1%
71.2%
56.4%
50.9%
59.4%
55.3%
46.7%
43.8%
40.3%
40.6%
54.0%
47.1%
45.7%
44.5%
42.3%
40.6%
37.3%
38.8%
43.7%
37.6%
42.6%
38.0%
36.3%
37.6%
37.4%
30.2%
36.7%
30.6%
33.5%
32.9%
34.2%
33.0%
33.2%
33.7%
31.2%
33.4%
34.5%
34.5%
26.8%
31.3%
33.3%
28.7%
26.1%
24.8%
15
16
20
14
17
10
16
18
12
8
4
6
5
1
5
1
4
3
2
2
1
2
1
1
0
4
0
0
0
1
3
5
2
0
3
0
1
7
2
2
0
1
0
1
1
57
60
70
88
93
72
87
80
90
95
83
87
86
73
68
62
87
96
79
89
90
97
113
86
107
121
99
101
108
116
152
115
120
122
121
119
131
127
119
152
118
125
171
173
157
(continued on next page)
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
639
TABLE 1 (continued)
Year
Acctg.
Fin.
Papers
Total
Other Acad. Other
with No Number
Econ. Psych. Stats. Mgnt.
Jrnls.
Citations Citations of Papers
2005
46.9% 14.3% 7.2%
2006
48.3% 13.5% 8.5%
2007
47.2% 14.5% 8.5%
Total Papers
2.5%
1.4%
2.5%
0.1%
0.1%
0.3%
1.8%
1.2%
2.8%
0.6%
1.3%
1.0%
26.5%
25.7%
23.0%
Wtd. Avg. 40.2%
2.5%
0.8%
3.1%
1.6%
36.4%
8.5% 6.8%
0
1
0
218
144
165
143
5,114
This table shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and
Society, 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 an
aggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, and miscellaneous disciplines. Other
Citations represents an aggregate of remaining citations including working papers, books, popular media, and professional journals. The weighted average is calculated based on the number of papers published in a given year.
their paper, reviewers, and editors who determine which papers to accept and publish based on
the papers that are submitted. Thus, our research should not be interpreted as a criticism of the
editorial choices of particular journals.
Another important caveat is that we do not consider all accounting journals. Researchers
specializing in tax or audit will likely place some of their work in topical journals such as the
Journal of the American Tax Association or Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory. However,
these are not generally accepted as A publications in top U.S. schools. Researching academics,
especially those currently untenured, recognize that a publication in one of our selected journals is
very helpful, and often essential, to attaining tenure. Our choice of six top accounting journals
implicitly assumes that the choices made by submitting authors, reviewers, and editors of these
journals 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 reported information on economic events.
This characterization is necessarily broad, reflecting the diversity of papers published over the past
40 years. We also emphasize that this characterization is a reflection of what has been published as
accounting research, and not necessarily what accounting research should be.
Our results are useful to researchers in deciding where to submit their work. Students, administrators of Ph.D. programs in accounting, and accounting professionals may wish to use our
results in making decisions on resource allocations, especially toward encouraging and expanding
audit and tax research. Accounting Ph.D. students may benefit from our long-term overview of
accounting 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, even
before they came to be commonly accepted as A journals. Because the inclusion of a journal on an A list is
determined 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.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
640
accounting practitioners in understanding the pressure on the education of the next generation of
auditors and tax professionals, especially since it seems more difficult for audit/tax professors to
publish their research in the top accounting journals.
Levitt and Nicolaisen 2008 note that there is an underdeveloped bond between the accounting profession and accounting academia. Personal interactions between the authors and accounting
firm employees including their former supervisors and co-workers in accounting firms confirm
that the typical CPA firm employee has a limited understanding of exactly what accounting
academics do. Our overview of academic publications, and our proposed definition of accounting
research, should help to alleviate this problem and to encourage additional discourse between
accounting professionals and academics.
In the next section we expand on our motivation and review the prior literature. In the third
section we review our data and methodology. In the fourth section we present our results and
propose a current characterization of accounting research, and in the fifth section we conclude.
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
Some 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 Premiums
in Acquisitions of Private Corporations, Erickson and Wang 2007; Industry Product Market
Competition and Managerial Incentives, Karuna 2007; Measuring Customer Relationship
Value: The Role of Switching Cost, Dikolli et al. 2007. One heuristic used by many researchers
in deciding if their paper is accounting, and therefore where to submit their work, is to count
citations: if the majority of citations are from accounting journals, then it is an accounting paper.
This heuristic clearly works for the Schipper paper above 42 out of 44 citations from academic
journals are from other accounting journals, but less so for Erickson and Wang only 9 out of 21
citations are from accounting journals. Beavers 1968 seminal work in 1968 cites only 3 accounting papers out of 17 total citations: according to the citations-count heuristic, The Information Content of Earnings Announcements is a finance paper. This ad hoc analysis suggests that
the citations-count heuristic alone cannot adequately define accounting research.
A simple approach to describing and conceptualizing accounting research is to look at papers
published in top accounting journals. We look at six top journals AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST,
and TAR for U.S. schools because a publication in one of these journals represents a highly sought
after achievement that is required for tenure at top institutions and can often guarantee tenure at
lower-tier institutions.5
Accounting journals do not explicitly define the term accounting research. TARs editorial
policy is to publish articles reporting results of accounting research from any accountingrelated subject. JARs first issue states that the journal will be devoted to reporting the results of
research activities in all areas of accounting Shultz and Caine 1963. The inaugural issue of
RAST describes its mission as to provide an outlet for significant academic research in accounting where research must contribute to the discipline of accounting. Similarly, the inaugural
issue of AOS discusses the need for research into understanding the way in which all forms of
accounting information are actually used Hopwood 1976, 2, suggesting that accounting research could consider individuals response to accounting information. The lack of an explicit
definition of accounting research does not suggest sloppy thinking or laziness; rather, it suggests
that accounting research is hard to define. Hopwood 2007 argues that accounting research has
5
An elite university will often require six top-tier publications for someone to have a likely chance at tenure, and many
other research-intensive schools will require two to four top-tier publications. Lower-tier schools have reduced tenure
requirements, but typically pay less Carcello 2007.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
641
changed over time; for example, pre-JAR 1963 and pre-Ball and Brown 1968, accounting
research was largely normative i.e., focusing on how economic events should be accounted for,
but afterward positive research became more dominant and accounting research came to embrace
the consequences of accounting in wider institutional settings focusing more on the effect of
accounting information on economic events.6 Thus, looking at the effect of net income on stock
prices seems to have become accounting research, where previously it was not. With Ball and
Brown, the contemporaneous shift toward positive research discussed by Reiter and Williams
2002, and the explosion of archival research see Kothari 2001 accounting researchers seem to
have 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 over
the profession, as well as an overview of accounting research, by examining prior work. We
assume that papers published in top accounting journals are a faithful representation of the accounting literature, and that the prior work they cite is an effective proxy for their antecedents.8
That is, the papers cited by accounting research in top journals can give us insight into where
seminal ideas in accounting are coming from and can help us characterize what accounting research is. Insights from investigating citations and trends in citations from published accounting
research will also help us to evaluate threats to the profession identified by various researchers.
Threats to the Academic Accounting Profession
Fogarty and Markarian 2007 recount changes in accounting faculty numbers from 1982 to
2002 and conclude that a decline in the number of assistant and associate accounting professors
over that period indicates that the future of the academic discipline is in doubt. Leslie 2008 finds
a similar decline. Buchheit et al. 2002, Swanson 2004, and Swanson et al. 2007 report that
accounting has the lowest proportion of faculty who publish in a top journal.9 These results seem
consistent with Plumlee et al. 2005, Fogarty and Markarian 2007, and Leslie 2008, because if
it is more difficult for accounting researchers to obtain publications needed for tenure, then fewer
potential accounting Ph.D. students may consider the field as a viable career. Plumlee et al. 2005
report expected shortages of accounting researchers for 20052008, especially in audit and tax
and report no indication that this trend will reverse in the near futuresee also Levitt and
Nicolaisen 2008. If the number of active researchers decreases and acceptance rates at journals
remain the same, then we should expect to see a corresponding drop in accounting papers published especially in audit and tax. This expectation is corroborated by Carcello 2007, who notes
that many accounting Ph.D. programs today welcome students with strong backgrounds in economics and finance as opposed to students with a professional background as a CPA. Such
students are more likely to pursue a Ph.D. in financial accounting as it is closer to their educational foundations and less likely pursue a Ph.D. in auditing or tax. Additionally, accounting
Ph.D.s granted to individuals with no practical experience in accounting can only widen the gulf
between academics and professional accountants.
Another concern, perhaps best articulated by Hopwood 2007, is that accounting research has
grown more insular and less innovative over time. Williams 1985 raises similar concerns. If
correct, this concern should manifest itself in a reduction of citations from other literatures over
time in accounting research.
6
7
8
9
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 consider
JAE, JAR, and TAR from accounting as well as top-tier journals from other business disciplines.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
642
Diversity within accounting research is also a concern e.g., Rayburn 2005, 2006; Tuttle and
Dillard 2007; Granof and Zeff 2008. If one topic or methodology becomes overly dominant to the
detriment of other topics or methodologies, then the entire profession may suffer, as researchers
focus on a shrinking set of acceptable papers. Granof and Zeff 2008 note that developments in
the 1960s, including a desire by accounting researchers to obtain more academic respectability
from peers in other fields, have led to the unintended consequence of interesting accounting
questions now being ignored because they cannot be addressed through currently accepted quantitative and theoretical analysis. Their work is consistent with Tuttle and Dillard 2007, who find
that the field of academic accounting research is becoming more homogenized as it matures.
Specifically, they find that the proportion of nonfinancial accounting papers published in TAR has
decreased significantly from 1976 to 2006, and they find corroborating trends in papers winning
the American Accounting Association Competitive Manuscript Award, downloads of working
papers from the Social Sciences Research Network SSRN website, and accounting dissertations
awarded. We investigate whether their findings extend to five other top accounting journals.
Related Prior Research
Similar to our paper, McRae 1974 uses citations as a proxy for information transfers between disciplines. He examines the proportion of citations in both academic and professional
accounting journals from 1968 and 1969, and finds that accounting journals draw mostly from
other business fields and also from economics and law.10 Hofstedt 1976 uses citations to compare
and contrast behavioral accounting research with capital markets research. Dyckman and Zeff
1984 examine citations as part of their review on the impact of JAR on academic accounting
research. They also note that the pace of interdisciplinary borrowing by accounting research
increased in the 1960s and 1970s. Brown and Gardner 1985 use citations to assess the impact of
TAR, 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, they
provide a breakdown of papers by topic and methodology.11 We extend their work by time frame
and also by journal. Similarly, Stone 2002 provides a breakdown of accounting publications by
method and topic from 1989 to 1998 for AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, and TAR, and finds that the
dominant topic and methodology over that period was financial accounting and archival,
respectively.12 We extend Stone in both years and journals covered. Buchheit et al. 2002 compare the proportionate publication rates for accounting, finance, management, and marketing, and
find that the proportionate number of accounting faculty publishing in top accounting journals is
significantly lower than the corresponding rates for other disciplines.13 More recently, Wakefield
2008 uses citations to estimate the relative influence of 22 accounting research journals from
2000 to 2006. She finds the most influential journals are JAR, TAR, JAE, AOS, and CAR, respectively, with RAST as the 9th most influential journal see also Lowe and Locke 2005; Bonner et al.
2006.
We extend a number of prior studies by examining a much longer time series of data and by
expanding the set of accounting journals investigated. However, we do much more than merely
extend prior work: We provide insight into long-term trends in top accounting journals, and
ultimately help to inform the debate on the trajectory of accounting research and the status of the
profession.
10
11
12
13
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.
Their specific classifications for topic and methodology are also similar to our own.
As with Carnaghan et al. 1994, Stones categories of topic and methodology are similar to ours.
Their results are corroborated by Swanson 2004 and Swanson et al. 2007.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
643
DATA AND METHODOLOGY

We review and collect data on all articles published in six top accounting journals: AOS, CAR,
JAR, JAE, RAST, and TAR.14 We exclude letters, committee reports, book reviews, notes, and other
articles not related to research.15 We collect data as far back as 1960 for TAR i.e., back to volume
35, and to the journal inauguration date for the other five JAR, 1963; AOS, 1976; JAE, 1979;
CAR, 1984; RAST, 1996.16 Although we include non-U.S. journals AOS and CAR, our primary
focus is on the state of accounting research in the United States. Therefore, we restrict our analysis
to papers with at least one U.S. author except for our analysis on total papers published over time,
where we plot total papers versus papers with at least one U.S. author.
We classify citations into eight major categories: accounting, finance, economics, psychology,
management, statistics, other academic journals, and other citations i.e., books, professional journals, working papers, popular media, legal cases, etc..17 An alternative approach would be to
exclude nonacademic journal citations, but this would preclude our comparison of citations going
back to 1960, since many early articles did not cite other academic journals few academic
journals existed at the time. We include a large number of items in other citations, because
books and working papers are more difficult to classify e.g., should a book on business valuation
be classified as accounting or finance?, and because of the diversity of other items cited e.g.,
professional journals, court cases, websites, etc.. A few papers, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s,
make no citations at all, and we exclude these papers from our citations analysis but not from our
analysis of topic and methodology.18
We classify papers by topic using six categories: financial accounting, managerial accounting,
auditing, tax, governance, and other topics which captures a variety of topics, including education, research methodology issues, and history. Finally, we also classify papers by methodology:
archival, experimental, field study, review, survey, theoretical, and normative i.e., research arguing over what should beand often advocating a particular accounting treatmentas opposed to
positive research. See the Appendix for further description.
Because we examine a 48year time trend of changes in citations, topics, and methodologies,
we add information on significant historical events affecting accounting. Our timeline is admittedly ad hoc, necessarily brief, and considers the creation of new academic journals, the introduction of accounting and financial databases, changes in major accounting institutions, and publications of seminal research.19
RESULTS
Table 1 presents our results for proportionate citations by literature from 1960 to 2007. The
period from 1960 to 1966 is characterized by relatively low proportionate citations from accounting or other academic fields and very high proportionate citations from books, legal cases, court
14
15
16
17
18
19
We include RAST in our set of journals because its rapid rise of influence makes it representative of newer trends in
accounting 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.
For example, TAR featured articles sectioned under Teachers Clinic and Education Research headings until 1985,
and we exclude these articles.
We also include discussion papers, and classify them in the same topic and methodology as the paper they discuss unless
clearly warranted otherwise for example, a discussion paper on theoretical work that uses archival data to test the
works implications.
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, statistics, and management may be more accurately described as applied fields.
The listing of journal classifications is available from the authors.
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.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
644
cases, and other sources, reflecting the practitioner-oriented early years of the discipline. However,
starting with 1967, the proportionate citations in accounting papers from accounting journals
begins to increase significantly.20 At the same time, citations from finance, economics, and management also begin to increase. For the most part these trends continue, but one exception is that
citations from the management literature reached a high point of 9.8 percent in 1977 and have
reverted back to early 1960s levels in subsequent years.
Figure 1 plots the same results in graphical form alongside our historical timeline.21 To avoid
clutter, we show only the top three categories accounting, finance, and economics. The increase
in accounting citations appears to have been precipitated by the launch of JAR in 1963 and the
origination of CRSP and Compustat in 1964. Accounting citations accounted for between 30 and
40 percent of citations between 1972 and 1985 other than one exception in 1981, increased from
1986 to 2003, and have tapered off slightly since then. Citations from finance and economics have
increased steadily from 1960 to 2007, with a few spikes e.g., 1978 for finance, contemporaneous
with the publication of Watts and Zimmerman 1978, and a spike in economics citations in 1995
contemporaneous with the publication of Feltham and Ohlson 1995.22 Citations from finance
research reach their highest point in 2007, at 14.5 percent.
Overall, these results suggest that 1 current accounting research has a considerable foundation from which to draw, and if accounting has been growing more insular over time, the level of
insularity appears to have peaked in 2003; 2 accounting research in general appears to be
drawing closer to finance and economics, but even by 2007, combined citations from finance and
economics represent just under 25 percent of total citations. These trends are consistent with the
rise 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,
with the same timeline as in Figure 1. These results indicate that the number of accounting papers
published has increased significantly since 1982 even though Fogarty and Markarian 2007 and
Leslie 2008 report a drop in accounting researchers. The increase is not monotonic for example,
there was a decrease from 1968 to 1975, but the upward trend from 1975 to 2007 is clear and
appears to be associated with the introduction of new major journals. This apparent disconnect
between our results on publications and prior work on the number of researchers can be explained
by two factors: First, Leslie 2008 reports a slight increase in accounting researchers at doctoralgranting schools although they also report a significant drop in researchers at four-year nondoctoral schools. As faculty at doctoral-granting schools are more likely to be research active
because of higher research budgets and because of reduced teaching loads, the decrease in the
number of researchers may not translate directly into a decrease in the number of publications.
Second, Leslie 2008 also finds that the number of hours spent on research reported by accounting
faculty has increased by 52 percent from 1993 to 2004, suggesting that an increase in output-perfaculty is compensating for a decrease in the number of faculty. A breakout not provided by
individual journal reveals inconsistent trends in the number of papers published by year across the
journals, 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 fall
into financial accounting 2,577, over three times the number published in managerial accounting,
the next closest topic. Different topics draw from somewhat different categories. Auditing and
20
21
22
We also note that, with the inauguration of JAR, proportionate citations to Other Citations mainly books and court
cases begin to decrease in 1963.
We use several acronyms to conserve space. EMH stands for the efficient market hypothesis, WRDS stands for
Wharton Research Data Services offered by the University of Pennsylvania, and SOX stands for the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act of 2002.
However, given the ad hoc nature of our timeline, we do not provide evidence on causality.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
645
FIGURE 1
Proportion of Citations Made by Top Accounting Journals
60.0%
Proportion off Citations
50.0%
40.0%
A
Accounting
ti
30.0%
Finance
Economics
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
1960
1963 JAR
Launched
1965
1970
1968 Ball
& Brown
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
1973 FASB
replaces APB
1979 JAE
1985
1995 Feltham 1998 WRDS
Launched
Healy
& Ohlson
Launched
1978 Watts &
1987
19 0 EMH
1970
1960 CRSP 1964 Compustat
Zimmerman
Hopwood
1996 Sloan;
2002 SOX
1984 CAR
Articulated by
Launched Launched
RAST
Passed
Launched
Eugene Fama 1976 AOS
Launched
Launched
This figure shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR,
RAST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007 for papers with at least one U.S. author. Proportions are calculated based on
the total citations listed in the paper. For brevity, only citations from accounting, finance, and economics are
shown. CRSP refers to the Chicago Center for Research into Stock Price, EMH refers to the Efficient Market
Hypothesis, FASB refers to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, APB refers to the Accounting Principles
Board, WRDS refers to Wharton Research Data Services, and SOX refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
financial accounting draw proportionately more from prior accounting research than from other
categories, at 44 percent for auditing and 43 percent for financial accounting; however, auditing
draws the most from psychology at 5.1 percent.
The newest topic, corporate governance and control, draws the least from accounting and the
most from economics consistent with the seminal paper in that field, Gompers et al. 2003,
published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, as well as substantially from finance. Managerial 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 toward
more accounting citations as accounting researchers take ownership of research streams and build
on prior accounting papers in the area. Financial accounting, auditing, tax, governance, and other
topics all show increased borrowing from finance, while managerial accounting has decreased its
borrowing from finance. Borrowing from economics also increased from decade to decade across
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
646
FIGURE 2
Number of Papers by Year
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
1960
1963 JAR
Launched
1965
1968 Ball
& Brown
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
1973 FASB
replaces APB
1979 JAE
1985
Launched
Healy
& Ohlson
Launched
1987
1978 Watts &
19 0 EMH
1970
Hopwood
Zimmerman
1996 Sloan;
2002 SOX
Articulated by
1984 CAR
Launched Launched
RAST
Passed
Launched
Launched
Launched
This figure shows the aggregate number of papers with at least one U. S. author published in six top accounting
journals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007. CRSP refers to the Chicago Center for
Research into Stock Price, EMH refers to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, FASB refers to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, APB refers to the Accounting Principles Board, WRDS refers to Wharton, Research
Data Services, and SOX refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
most topics from the 1960s through to the 1990s, but tapered off for many topics from 2000 to
2007. Borrowing from statistics is small across all fields, and management research also plays a
limited 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 significantly from the 1960s to the 2000s. Panels C to G show that managerial accounting, auditing, and
tax have all decreased from the 1990s to the 2000s; governance has increased significantly in the
23
Our finding on statistics is indicative of accounting research using primarily tried and true statistical methods. In many
cases papers that show improved methodologies are published in finance journals e.g., Petersen 2009, published in the
Review of Financial Studies.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
Panel A: Citations by Topic

Topic
Financial Accounting
Managerial Accounting
Auditing
Tax
Control/Governance
Other Topics
Number of
Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
2577
741
684
237
34
623
43.1%
34.5%
44.0%
36.3%
27.6%
32.9%
12.2%
4.1%
1.8%
9.1%
18.2%
5.6%
6.5%
10.6%
3.7%
8.6%
13.8%
5.6%
1.2%
4.3%
5.1%
1.5%
1.4%
3.5%
0.8%
1.0%
1.0%
0.6%
0.1%
0.9%
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
1.3%
9.2%
1.8%
0.9%
3.0%
5.6%
1.2%
1.9%
1.1%
1.3%
1.3%
4.0%
33.8%
34.4%
41.5%
41.7%
34.6%
42.0%
Accounting Horizons
TABLE 2
Proportion of Citations Made by Papers Published in Top Accounting Journals by Research Topica
Panel B: Financial Accounting by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number of
Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
334
408
497
610
728
34.7%
33.8%
41.1%
46.9%
50.3%
3.0%
10.2%
13.8%
13.0%
15.6%
2.3%
4.6%
7.5%
8.5%
7.0%
0.2%
1.8%
2.3%
1.0%
0.6%
0.7%
1.3%
0.7%
1.4%
0.1%
Other
Citations
1.8%
3.1%
1.2%
0.9%
0.6%
3.9%
1.4%
0.5%
0.8%
0.6%
53.3%
43.8%
32.9%
27.5%
25.1%
Other
Citations
39.7%
38.0%
31.9%
35.1%
28.4%
Panel C: Managerial Accounting by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number of
Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
113
139
164
182
143
38.1%
32.5%
33.4%
31.6%
38.7%
4.7%
4.9%
4.0%
3.3%
3.8%
3.6%
5.3%
8.8%
17.5%
14.6%
0.3%
6.0%
7.4%
2.7%
4.5%
1.9%
1.6%
0.4%
1.0%
0.1%
6.1%
10.7%
13.1%
7.1%
8.6%
5.7%
1.0%
1.0%
1.6%
1.2%
647
December 2010
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
648
Accounting Horizons
Panel D: Auditing by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number of
Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
33
91
186
223
151
25.0%
40.5%
38.0%
45.9%
54.7%
0.0%
0.7%
1.6%
1.9%
3.2%
0.0%
1.7%
3.5%
5.1%
4.1%
0.9%
3.7%
7.3%
5.0%
4.3%
1.7%
1.1%
1.1%
1.2%
0.2%
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
3.8%
3.1%
2.1%
1.3%
1.0%
3.7%
1.3%
0.4%
1.5%
0.5%
65.0%
47.8%
46.0%
38.0%
32.0%
Other
Citations
Panel E: Tax by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number of
Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
26
14
42
85
70
23.7%
35.8%
31.4%
38.7%
41.2%
2.5%
3.9%
6.3%
9.6%
13.7%
0.9%
4.4%
10.7%
10.9%
8.1%
0.0%
1.1%
1.4%
1.5%
2.1%
0.0%
1.1%
0.7%
1.1%
0.1%
1.7%
2.6%
0.9%
0.3%
0.9%
5.3%
0.8%
0.7%
0.7%
1.1%
66.0%
50.3%
47.8%
37.2%
32.7%
Other
Citations
NA
80.0%
44.9%
42.8%
30.0%
Panel F: Control/Governance by Decade

Decade
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
0
1
2
6
25
NA
8.0%
6.7%
26.0%
30.5%
NA
4.0%
7.9%
18.0%
19.6%
NA
0.0%
39.3%
9.0%
13.4%
NA
8.0%
0.0%
0.0%
1.5%
NA
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
NA
0.0%
1.1%
4.2%
3.0%
NA
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
1.8%
December 2010
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number of
Papers
Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
a
Number of
Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
140
124
137
147
75
24.5%
28.7%
33.0%
39.4%
42.3%
0.5%
4.2%
6.0%
6.8%
13.7%
0.9%
4.7%
9.3%
5.6%
9.1%
0.8%
5.4%
7.0%
1.8%
2.2%
1.2%
0.9%
0.4%
1.4%
0.1%
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
3.9%
9.0%
8.5%
3.3%
2.3%
10.7%
3.5%
1.1%
2.4%
0.9%
57.5%
43.6%
34.7%
39.3%
29.3%
This table shows the proportionate number of citations made by top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and Society, 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, broken out by research topic Panel A then by decade for each topic Panels B to G. Proportions are calculated based on the total citations. Other Academic Journals
represents an aggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, and miscellaneous disciplines, and Other Citations represents an aggregate of all
other citations accounting regulations, books, working papers, etc..
Accounting Horizons
Panel G: Other Topics by Decade
649
December 2010
650
2000s but still remains a relatively small topic.24 Figure 3 plots the relative proportion of papers
by topic graphically, and emphasizes the increase in financial accounting papers, from about 42
percent in 1960 to about 65 percent in 2007. However, the most dramatic increase in financial
accounting occurred around 1995, coinciding with the publication of Feltham and Ohlson 1995,
Sloan 1996, and the founding of RAST in 1996. The portion of other topics has generally
decreased 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 financial
accounting research is archival, our results show a similar dominance by archival research the
number of archival papers is over twice the next highest methodology, theoretical modeling.
Archival research draws heavily from finance at almost 15 percent, and Panel B shows that the
trend is increasing over time. Theoretical research draws more from economics than other meth-
FIGURE 3
Proportion of Papers by Topic
80%
70%
P
Proportion
60%
FA
50%
MA
Audit
40%
Tax
Other
30%
20%
10%
0%
1960
1963 JAR
Launched
1965
1968 Ball
& Brown
1970
1975
1973 FASB
replaces APB
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
1979 JAE
1985
Launched
Healy
& Ohlson
Launched
1978 Watts &
1987
1970
19 0 EMH
Hopwood
Zimmerman
1996 Sloan;
2002 SOX
Articulated by
1984 CAR
Launched Launched
RAST
Passed
Launched
Launched
Launched
This figure shows the proportionate number of papers published by topic in the top six accounting journals
(AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007 for papers with at least one U.S. author. If a paper
covered more than one topic, then we selected the primary topic for purposes of categorization. Because governance topics make up a relatively low proportion of topics, for brevity governance is excluded from this figure.
CRSP refers to the Chicago Center for Research into Stock Price, EMH refers to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, FASB refers to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, APB refers to the Accounting Principles Board,
WRDS refers to Wharton Research Data Services, and SOX refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
24
Comparing absolute numbers can be misleading because we have only eight years of data from 2000 to 2007, versus ten
years for the 1990s.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
Panel A: Citations by Methodology

Topic
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
2134
745
66
124
156
844
827
45.3%
36.7%
27.6%
41.8%
30.3%
40.0%
32.8%
14.4%
3.1%
3.2%
7.0%
3.1%
5.9%
2.6%
6.2%
5.0%
5.0%
5.9%
2.8%
14.6%
2.9%
0.4%
9.5%
7.3%
5.0%
8.0%
0.8%
1.7%
0.7%
1.0%
0.1%
0.9%
0.7%
1.2%
0.7%
Archival
Experimental
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
1.2%
3.0%
17.6%
4.0%
13.0%
3.3%
4.9%
0.9%
1.3%
1.8%
1.1%
3.4%
1.1%
4.3%
30.9%
40.5%
37.4%
34.4%
38.8%
33.0%
50.1%
Other
Citations
Accounting Horizons
TABLE 3
Proportion of Citations Made by Papers Published in Top Accounting Journals by Research Methodologya
Panel B: Archival by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
59
219
433
651
772
26.2%
33.9%
43.1%
47.6%
49.3%
8.3%
12.5%
14.5%
13.4%
16.4%
5.0%
5.2%
5.9%
6.5%
6.4%
0.0%
0.7%
0.9%
0.2%
0.2%
0.6%
1.7%
0.6%
1.2%
0.2%
2.7%
2.1%
1.3%
1.1%
0.8%
4.0%
1.5%
0.5%
0.8%
0.7%
53.2%
42.3%
33.2%
29.2%
26.1%
Other
Citations
53.0%
47.3%
43.6%
37.5%
30.9%
Panel C: Experimental by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
36
140
214
200
155
29.6%
29.3%
35.0%
38.0%
45.7%
3.2%
4.4%
2.4%
2.6%
3.5%
1.7%
2.0%
3.9%
7.9%
6.2%
4.2%
8.9%
10.4%
9.1%
10.3%
2.5%
1.2%
0.6%
1.7%
0.1%
2.8%
4.9%
3.4%
1.8%
2.4%
3.1%
2.1%
0.7%
1.4%
0.9%
651
December 2010
Number
of Papers
652
Accounting Horizons
Panel D: Field Study by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
0
6
23
19
18
NA
23.3%
29.5%
27.5%
26.9%
NA
11.3%
2.3%
1.4%
3.5%
NA
9.4%
5.4%
1.7%
6.4%
NA
16.4%
10.0%
4.3%
3.9%
NA
0.0%
0.1%
0.1%
0.2%
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
NA
27.9%
20.9%
11.9%
16.2%
NA
0.6%
2.1%
2.4%
1.0%
NA
11.0%
29.9%
50.7%
42.0%
Other
Citations
Panel E: Review by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
5
22
46
23
28
27.1%
30.6%
42.7%
38.2%
54.6%
1.5%
5.3%
4.9%
9.2%
10.8%
2.4%
3.4%
6.8%
4.9%
8.1%
1.1%
7.9%
7.2%
2.8%
1.6%
0.0%
1.6%
0.2%
3.0%
0.0%
1.6%
5.2%
4.9%
3.4%
2.3%
3.0%
0.3%
1.0%
2.7%
0.1%
63.4%
45.6%
32.4%
35.9%
22.5%
Other
Citations
58.2%
43.3%
32.9%
43.6%
32.4%
Panel F: Survey by Decade

Decade
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
10
35
48
30
33
6.1%
25.6%
29.2%
34.6%
40.7%
0.0%
4.8%
3.1%
1.4%
3.5%
3.3%
2.7%
3.3%
1.7%
2.8%
0.0%
7.1%
14.2%
4.8%
5.5%
1.4%
0.7%
0.3%
1.5%
0.2%
9.8%
13.5%
15.5%
8.6%
13.5%
21.2%
2.3%
1.5%
3.8%
1.3%
December 2010
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
48
206
172
255
163
34.9%
39.2%
33.9%
40.7%
48.0%
7.2%
6.1%
6.6%
4.5%
6.8%
6.0%
6.3%
16.4%
19.6%
18.0%
0.0%
1.3%
1.3%
0.6%
0.3%
0.7%
1.6%
1.5%
1.4%
0.0%
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
6.5%
5.3%
2.8%
2.7%
1.3%
4.6%
1.3%
0.3%
1.1%
0.7%
40.1%
38.9%
37.2%
29.3%
25.0%
Other
Citations
54.0%
48.5%
33.8%
50.4%
42.8%
Panel H: Normative by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
a
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
488
149
92
75
23
33.3%
31.9%
30.2%
32.0%
40.3%
1.5%
3.6%
6.0%
3.2%
5.6%
1.3%
3.1%
9.3%
4.3%
4.6%
0.2%
2.7%
7.2%
3.0%
0.6%
1.1%
0.3%
0.3%
0.1%
0.1%
2.8%
7.9%
11.9%
4.5%
5.2%
5.9%
2.0%
1.3%
2.6%
0.8%
Accounting Horizons
Panel G: Theoretical by Decade
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, broken out by research methodology Panel A then by decade for each method Panels B to H. Proportions are calculated based on the total citations. Other Academic
Journals represents an aggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, and miscellaneous disciplines, and Other Citations represents an
aggregate of all other citations accounting regulations, books, working papers, etc..
653
December 2010
654
odologies also at almost 15 percent and experimental research draws significantly from psychology almost 10 percent. Field studies draw the least from prior accounting and are much more
dependent on management. We find a similar result for survey papers.
Figure 4 illustrates the time trend in the relative proportion of methodologies, and indicates
the precipitous drop in normative research, from a high in 1963 to almost negligible by the
mid-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 characterized by roughly equal representation among all methodologies except normative, which
declined.25 However, roughly corresponding with the publication of Watts and Zimmerman 1978
and the inauguration of the JAE in 1979, we see a growing dominance of archival research over
FIGURE 4
Proportion of Papers by Methodology
100%
90%
80%
P
Proportion
70%
A hi l
Archival
Experimental
60%
Theoretical
Normative
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1960
1963 JAR
Launched
1965
1970
1968 Ball
& Brown
1975
1973 FASB
replaces APB
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
1979 JAE
1985
Launched
Healy
& Ohlson
Launched
1978 Watts &
1987
19700 EMH
19
Hopwood
Zimmerman
1996 Sloan;
2002 SOX
Articulated by
1984 CAR
Launched Launched
RAST
Passed
Launched
Launched
Launched
This figure shows the proportionate number of papers published by methodology in the top six accounting
journals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) from 1960 to 2007 for papers with at least one U.S. author. If a
paper used more than one methodology, then we categorized the paper by its primary methodology. Because
field studies, reviews, and surveys make up a relatively low proportion of methodologies, for brevity they are
excluded from this figure. CRSP refers to the Chicago Center for Research into Stock Price, EMH refers to the
Efficient Market Hypothesis, FASB refers to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, APB refers to the
Accounting Principles Board, WRDS refers to Wharton Research Data Services, and SOX refers to the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
25
We are ignoring reviews here, which may be viewed as a pseudo-methodology because they are concerned with
summarizing and synthesizing prior research rather than discovering new knowledge.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
655
other methodologies. This significant increase is preceded by the availability of significant data
sets such as CRSP and Compustat, which allowed archival researchers to investigate questions that
were previously only answerable using experimental or field study approaches. Over 1970 to 2007
we also see a slight decrease in theoretical research, and a more pronounced decrease for experimental research.26
Tables 46 break out citations, topics, and methodologies by journal, and help to characterize
the flavor of each journal. Panel A in Table 4 gives an overview of citation sources by journal.
Consistent with its name, JAE papers draw from economics 11 percent, but even more heavily
from finance 18 percent. AOS draws the least from prior accounting work 30 percent versus 39
percent for TAR, the next lowest and draws the most from psychology and management. Panels B
to F detail the trend in citations for each journal by decade. Each journal shows a strong trend
toward citing prior accounting work except JAR which remains stable in accounting citations
from 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 financial
accounting is evident in Panel A, along with the relative decline of managerial accounting, audit,
and tax. Panel B breaks out topics by journal and indicates some stark differences. RAST publishes
predominantly financial accounting papers with some managerial, but relatively few audit, tax,
and governance papers. In contrast, AOS publishes proportionately more managerial accounting
papers than other journals 34 percent to 16 percent, the next highest from TAR, and CAR
publishes proportionately the most audit research. Tax research makes up a relatively small portion
of total research, with JAE publishing proportionately more tax research than the other journals.
The drop in published research in audit and tax is consistent with the unmet demand for audit and
tax researchers noted by Plumlee et al. 2005.
Breaking out trends by individual journal, CAR is the only journal to move contrary to the
trend toward increasing financial accounting research 64 percent of papers in the 1990s to 50
percent in the 2000s; all other journals have increased the proportion of financial accounting
papers published. CAR also increased its proportion of managerial, audit, and tax papers, while
these topics have declined or remained the same for JAR, RAST, and TAR. AOS shows a small
increase in financial papers published 15 percent to 17 percent but also shows a large jump in
managerial research, from 27 percent to 41 percent. The aggregate number of governance papers
published 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 in
financial accounting research noted in the prior tables, there is a strong trend toward proportionately more archival research, shown in Panel A. Normative research drops from being the dominant methodology in the 1960s to being almost nonexistent. Experimental work declined from a
zenith in the 1980s, and theoretical work seems to have wide swings over time. Panel B reveals
considerable variation by journal: JAE and RAST publish primarily archival papers; JAR, AOS, and
CAR publish relatively more experimental papers; RAST and CAR publish relatively more theoretical papers.
Panels C to G present the time trend for each journal. We find an increase in the relative
proportion of archival research from the 1990s to the 2000s for almost all journals the only
exception being JAE, which devoted its entire September 2001 issue to reviews. We also find a
precipitous decline in experimental research in JAR, going from 25 percent in the 1970s down to
8 percent in the 2000s, but an increase in experimental research published in both CAR and AOS.
26
This is consistent with two of the three new journals JAE and RAST launched from 1979 to 1996 being strongly
oriented toward archival research. Only CAR has published a significant number of experimental papers. JAE and RAST
have published almost no experimental papers.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
656
Accounting Horizons
TABLE 4
Proportion of Citations Made by Papers Published in Top Accounting Journals, by Journala
Panel A: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals
Journal
AOS
CAR
JAE
JAR
RAST
TAR
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
520
527
536
1469
208
1636
30.2%
48.0%
43.8%
39.5%
49.8%
39.0%
4.3%
8.6%
18.1%
9.0%
11.5%
6.0%
4.2%
8.8%
10.8%
7.2%
9.6%
4.8%
9.4%
2.3%
0.1%
2.2%
0.2%
1.8%
0.2%
2.9%
0.2%
0.8%
0.2%
0.8%
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
13.5%
1.6%
0.8%
1.7%
0.8%
2.7%
1.9%
1.3%
0.8%
1.0%
1.8%
2.5%
36.2%
26.5%
25.4%
38.7%
26.0%
42.5%
Other
Citations
Panel B: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decade

Decade
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
59
193
169
99
27.9%
30.4%
28.6%
34.1%
7.5%
4.7%
2.7%
4.2%
5.4%
4.8%
2.5%
5.5%
12.8%
13.7%
5.0%
6.2%
0.1%
0.3%
0.0%
0.1%
28.6%
15.9%
6.7%
11.5%
2.0%
1.7%
2.6%
1.2%
15.5%
28.4%
51.8%
37.2%
Other
Citations
33.2%
21.4%
29.4%
Panel C: Contemporary Accounting Research, by Decade

Decade
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
101
237
189
41.2%
47.8%
52.0%
7.3%
9.6%
8.1%
9.7%
10.0%
6.6%
2.6%
2.1%
2.4%
1.2%
5.8%
0.1%
3.1%
1.4%
1.1%
1.8%
1.9%
0.4%
December 2010
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Decade
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
8
102
228
198
17.8%
37.1%
45.7%
46.2%
20.6%
17.6%
16.4%
20.3%
19.7%
11.3%
10.3%
10.7%
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
0.2%
0.3%
0.2%
0.2%
0.2%
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
0.0%
1.0%
0.9%
0.5%
0.0%
0.1%
0.4%
1.7%
41.6%
32.6%
26.0%
20.2%
Other
Citations
Panel E: Journal of Accounting Research, by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
147
331
433
294
264
29.1%
33.2%
40.7%
45.4%
44.8%
4.5%
7.4%
9.1%
7.2%
15.5%
4.1%
4.7%
7.8%
9.3%
8.6%
1.2%
2.7%
2.6%
2.4%
1.0%
1.4%
1.5%
0.8%
0.2%
0.1%
2.7%
2.5%
1.1%
1.9%
0.6%
3.9%
1.5%
0.2%
0.6%
0.3%
53.0%
46.5%
37.6%
33.0%
29.1%
Other
Citations
Accounting Horizons
Panel D: Journal of Accounting and Economics, by Decade
Panel F: Review of Accounting Studies, by Decade

Decade
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
59
149
43.6%
52.2%
6.3%
13.6%
12.9%
8.3%
0.1%
0.3%
0.3%
0.1%
1.2%
0.7%
4.6%
0.7%
31.0%
24.0%
Other
Citations
52.9%
45.0%
42.8%
Panel G: The Accounting Review, by Decade

Decade
1960s
1970s
1980s
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
Management
Other
Academic
Journals
499
379
199
33.0%
35.0%
37.1%
2.0%
6.4%
7.7%
1.4%
3.7%
6.0%
0.1%
2.5%
3.5%
1.0%
1.3%
0.8%
3.2%
4.4%
1.7%
6.3%
1.7%
0.4%
657
December 2010
1990s
2000s
Number
of Papers
Decade
1990s
2000s
a
Number
of Papers
Accounting
Finance
Economics
Psychology
Statistics
266
293
42.6%
52.1%
7.3%
9.6%
10.0%
6.6%
2.0%
2.4%
0.5%
0.2%
658
Accounting Horizons
Panel G: The Accounting Review, by Decade

Management
Other
Academic
Journals
Other
Citations
1.2%
1.6%
0.4%
0.5%
35.9%
27.0%
Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review for papers with at least one U.S. author, broken out by
journal. Panel A presents aggregate results from 1960 to 2007. Panels B to G show proportions for each journal separately, by decade. Proportions are calculated based on the total
citations. Other Academic Journals represents an aggregate of remaining academic citations from law, sociology, education, health, and miscellaneous disciplines, and Other
Citations represents an aggregate of all other citations accounting regulations, books, working papers, etc..
December 2010
Panel A: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Decade

Decade
Number of Papers
Financial
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
792
810
1038
1278
1196
48.6%
52.8%
48.3%
48.4%
61.2%
Panel B: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Journal

Journal
Number of Papers
Financial
AOS
CAR
JAE
JAR
RAST
TAR
524
532
557
1529
210
1762
16.6%
58.1%
52.8%
59.0%
83.8%
50.9%
Panel C: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decade

Decade
Number of Papers
Financial
60
196
169
99
20.0%
16.3%
15.4%
17.2%
Panel D: Contemporary Accounting Research, by Decade

Decade
Number of Papers
Financial
1980s
1990s
2000s
101
242
189
59.4%
63.6%
50.3%
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
16.7%
17.4%
15.9%
14.6%
12.0%
4.8%
11.9%
17.9%
17.9%
12.6%
3.9%
2.1%
4.0%
6.7%
5.9%
0.0%
0.1%
0.2%
0.5%
2.1%
26.0%
15.7%
13.7%
11.7%
6.3%
Managerial
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
33.8%
10.3%
9.5%
12.0%
10.5%
15.8%
15.8%
22.2%
4.3%
15.4%
3.8%
13.1%
1.7%
5.6%
6.5%
4.8%
1.0%
5.4%
1.1%
0.0%
2.7%
0.5%
0.5%
0.3%
30.9%
3.8%
24.2%
8.4%
0.5%
14.4%
Managerial
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
26.7%
38.3%
26.6%
41.4%
11.7%
15.3%
19.5%
13.1%
0.0%
1.5%
0.6%
5.1%
0.0%
0.0%
0.6%
5.1%
41.7%
28.6%
37.3%
18.2%
Managerial
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
14.9%
7.0%
12.2%
20.8%
19.8%
25.9%
1.0%
5.0%
9.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
4.0%
4.5%
2.6%
659
December 2010
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Managerial
Accounting Horizons
TABLE 5
Research Topic by Decade and Journala
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
8
108
242
199
50.0%
58.3%
45.0%
59.3%
Panel F: Journal of Accounting Research, by Decade

Decade
Number of Papers
Financial
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
178
353
434
300
264
52.8%
58.4%
56.9%
53.3%
73.9%
Panel G: Review of Accounting Studies, by Decade

Decade
Number of Papers
Financial
1990s
2000s
59
151
Panel H: The Accounting Review, by Decade

Decade
Number of Papers
614
389
199
266
294
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
12.5%
1.9%
14.9%
7.0%
0.0%
5.6%
4.5%
3.5%
0.0%
4.6%
6.2%
8.0%
0.0%
0.9%
2.5%
4.0%
37.5%
28.7%
26.9%
18.1%
Managerial
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
19.7%
13.9%
11.3%
10.0%
7.6%
3.9%
14.7%
18.4%
23.7%
9.8%
6.2%
0.6%
3.7%
11.3%
3.8%
0.0%
0.3%
0.0%
0.0%
2.3%
17.4%
12.2%
9.7%
1.7%
2.7%
Managerial
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
74.6%
87.4%
18.6%
7.3%
5.1%
3.3%
0.0%
1.3%
0.0%
0.7%
1.7%
0.0%
Financial
Managerial
Audit
Tax
Governance
Other
47.4%
53.0%
49.7%
47.4%
59.5%
15.8%
19.3%
12.1%
18.0%
11.6%
5.0%
9.5%
24.6%
23.7%
17.3%
3.3%
3.9%
8.5%
9.0%
6.8%
0.0%
0.0%
0.5%
0.0%
1.7%
28.5%
14.4%
4.5%
1.9%
3.1%
December 2010
This table shows the proportion of papers published by topic in top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and Society, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of
Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review for papers with at least one U.S. author, from 1960 to
2007. Panel A presents aggregate results by decade. Panel B presents aggregate results by journal. Panels C to H show results for each journal separately, by decade.
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Managerial
660
Accounting Horizons
Panel E: Journal of Accounting and Economics, by Decade

Decade
Number of Papers
Financial
Panel A: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Decade

Number of
Decade
Papers
Archival
Experimental
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
792
810
1038
1278
1196
9.6%
28.3%
42.1%
52.1%
64.7%
4.9%
17.9%
20.6%
15.8%
13.0%
Panel B: Summary of Top Six Accounting Journals, by Journal

Number of
Journal
Papers
Archival
Experimental
AOS
CAR
JAE
JAR
RAST
TAR
524
532
557
1529
210
1762
10.7%
48.9%
81.9%
47.8%
63.3%
31.0%
19.8%
18.8%
0.7%
20.1%
2.4%
13.3%
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
60
196
169
99
8.3%
9.2%
10.7%
15.2%
11.7%
23.5%
16.6%
23.2%
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
0.0%
0.9%
2.2%
1.5%
1.5%
0.8%
2.8%
4.6%
1.9%
2.3%
1.6%
4.3%
4.6%
2.3%
2.8%
6.4%
25.8%
16.6%
20.5%
13.7%
76.6%
20.0%
9.2%
5.9%
2.0%
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
12.0%
0.8%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
6.5%
2.1%
5.9%
1.8%
0.0%
1.3%
14.3%
2.4%
0.0%
0.3%
0.0%
3.7%
4.6%
25.2%
11.1%
20.3%
34.3%
14.5%
32.1%
1.9%
0.4%
9.5%
0.0%
36.2%
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
11.7%
11.7%
11.2%
14.1%
5.0%
7.7%
4.7%
8.1%
16.7%
13.3%
9.5%
23.2%
5.0%
1.5%
10.1%
1.0%
41.7%
33.2%
37.3%
15.2%
661
December 2010
Panel C: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decade

Number of
Decade
Papers
Archival
Experimental
Field Study
Accounting Horizons
TABLE 6
Research Method by Decade and Journala
1980s
1990s
2000s
101
242
189
36.6%
50.4%
53.4%
8.9%
18.6%
24.3%
Panel E: Journal of Accounting and Economics, by Decade

Number of
Decade
Papers
Archival
Experimental
1970s
8
62.5%
0.0%
1980s
108
79.6%
0.0%
1990s
242
83.5%
0.8%
2000s
199
81.9%
1.0%
Panel F: Journal of Accounting Research, by Decade
Number of
Decade
Papers
Archival
Experimental
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
178
353
434
300
264
24.7%
36.0%
45.4%
55.0%
75.0%
17.4%
25.2%
24.9%
19.7%
8.0%
Panel G: Review of Accounting Studies, by Decade

Number of
Decade
Papers
Archival
Experimental
59
151
42.4%
71.5%
3.4%
2.0%
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
0.0%
0.0%
2.1%
3.0%
2.5%
1.1%
5.9%
1.7%
1.6%
39.6%
26.0%
16.4%
5.9%
0.8%
1.1%
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
7.4%
2.9%
9.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
37.5%
11.1%
12.8%
8.0%
0.0%
1.9%
0.0%
0.0%
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
2.2%
2.3%
3.5%
0.3%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
1.3%
0.4%
13.5%
21.5%
22.4%
23.7%
16.3%
42.1%
15.0%
3.9%
0.0%
0.4%
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
54.2%
26.5%
0.0%
0.0%
December 2010
1990s
2000s
662
Accounting Horizons
Panel D: Contemporary Accounting Research, by Decade

Number of
Decade
Papers
Archival
Experimental
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
a
614
389
199
266
294
5.2%
23.7%
49.7%
50.4%
64.3%
Experimental
Field Study
Review
Survey
Theoretical
Normative
1.3%
12.6%
25.6%
24.8%
20.4%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.3%
3.1%
3.5%
0.8%
0.0%
2.1%
6.4%
8.0%
2.3%
2.0%
4.4%
32.6%
10.1%
18.0%
11.2%
86.6%
21.6%
3.0%
3.8%
2.0%
This table shows the proportion of papers published by research method in top accounting journals Accounting, Organizations and Society, Contemporary Accounting Research,
Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, and The Accounting Review for papers with at least one U.S. author, from
1960 to 2007. Panel A presents aggregate results by decade. Panel B presents aggregate results by journal. Panels C to H show proportions for each journal separately, by decade.
Accounting Horizons
Panel H: The Accounting Review, by Decade

Number of
Decade
Papers
Archival
663
December 2010
664
Theoretical 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
discipline. Accounting research appears to have constructed a strong foundation from which to
build: about half the citations in recently published accounting papers refer to prior accounting
work. However, topics and methodologies appear to be narrowing to financial and archival; other
topics and methodologies are, on average, in decline.
Building on our overview of citations, topics, and methodologies used by papers published in
top accounting journals, we respond to the question: What is accounting research? Accounting
research necessarily covers a wide swath of related areas, and we use a diagram of financial
reporting, modified from Nikolai et al. 2007 to help us classify these areas.27 This is necessarily
a simplification, but we believe it captures the essential focus of the various streams of accounting
research. As shown in Figure 5, financial accounting research focuses on the effect of accounting
information on the investment decisions of external users in capital markets. Audit research focuses on the audit function, which sits between the accounting information produced by the firm
and capital markets. Managerial accounting focuses on the link between accounting information
and internal users, while tax focuses on the link between accounting information and taxation
authorities, as well as the capital markets. Governance research focuses on corporate economic
activities, which in turn drives accounting information.
One area of contention centers on the response of capital markets to accounting information.
In a recent example, Hand 2002 argues that Skinner and Sloans 2002 earnings torpedo paper
is not accounting research because it does not focus on any of the key characteristics of
accounting.28 More generally, the effect of economic events on the generation of accounting
information appears to be commonly accepted as accounting research, but the effect of accounting
information on economic events appears to be less so. We show this link with a question mark in
Figure 5.
The results indicate that accounting research refers to a broad spectrum of research that is
informed primarily by finance and economics. Any proposed characterization based on prior
accounting publications must be broad enough to include financial and managerial accounting
obviously, auditing, tax, and possibly governance. Kinney 2001, 278 defines the domain of
accounting scholarship as the knowledge of the individual and aggregate effects of alternative
standardized business measurement and reporting structures. His approach stems from an institutional viewpoint and is perhaps more normative in nature; our focus is on what accounting
authors and editors have concluded on which papers are within the bounds of accounting research.
In addition, Kinney is describing an area where accounting researchers have a relative advantage,
not necessarily providing an all-inclusive characterization of accounting research.
In spite of the above differences, our proposed characterization builds on Kinneys description
of 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 reported information on economic events.
27
28
We place our proposed characterization after our discussion of trends in accounting research to emphasize that it is
based on the data we observe. It is not a hypothesis that we attempt to support with data; it is a description that we
derive from the data.
He enumerates a nonexclusive list of these key characteristics: accruals, recognition bias, measurement, matching, and
accounting rules versus discretion.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
665
FIGURE 5
Mapping Accounting Research into Financial Reporting
This figure maps different topics of accounting research into financial reporting, based on a diagram of financial
reporting provided in Nikolai et al. (2007). Ovals denote various areas of accounting research focus. Rectangles
denote the various institutional and economic factors. The thick solid line represents information flow, and the
dashed line represents the effect of external investors and internal managers decisions on the activities of the
firm.
The term financial information is purposefully very broad, and is meant to include tax
information, analyst forecasts, and even relatively simple information such as cash level and
inventory.29 For most accounting research, financial information relates to businesses, but accounting 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 a
measurement structure: GAAP for financial accounting, and internal reporting guidelines for management accounting information to be used inside the firm. Effect is also a very broad term, and
encompasses used, misused, misunderstood, or even ignoredfor example, Sloan 1996
and Picconi 2006. Economic events is equally broad; most accounting research will fall within
a pecuniary definition of the change in a firms reported income or stock price, but the term can
also extend to all human events dealing with the allocation of scarce resources e.g., hiring or
firing of a CEO.
29
However, simple information can have significant and complex implications, as Bernard and Thomas 1989 show with
the relationship between earnings and post-earnings announcement drift, and as Oler 2008 shows with the relationship
between acquirer cash level and post-acquisition returns.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
666
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

This paper examines trends in accounting research in citations as a proxy for the literatures
from which seminal accounting research ideas are drawn, topics, and methodologies. Our intent
is to assess the current condition of academic accounting research as a discipline by examining
antecedent ideas and to propose a characterization of accounting research that is consistent with
papers published in the top six accounting journals.
Our results on the proportion of citations being drawn from accounting research, and on the
number of papers being published by top accounting journals, suggest that there are significant
problems ahead. The increase in output seems more attributable to faculty working increased
hours than to an overall increase in faculty. Trends from Ph.D. programs suggest that there will
continue to be unmet demand, especially in auditing and taxation, and we find that the proportion
of research from these fields published in our six journals is already dropping. The Accounting
Doctoral Scholars program announced by the AICPA in 2008 should help to attract more auditing
and tax researchers to the profession, but no similar program exists to attract managerial or
theoretical researchers.
The relative proportion of citations drawn from prior accounting papers appears to have
plateaued at just under 50 percent, and borrowing from economics and finance has increased,
which suggests that accounting is not becoming more insular. However, concerns about decreasing
diversity in accounting research are supported: We show that financial accounting is becoming
increasingly dominant except for CAR and AOS and other topics are declining. Archival methodologies are also becoming more dominant.
With respect to the trend toward more financial accounting/archival research, this trend is
consistent with a significant number of events. These include the creation of massive databases of
stock returns and financial statement information, advances in computing technology to use these
databases, the founding of JAR in 1963, and the publication of seminal papers such as Ball and
Brown in 1968. All accounting Ph.D. programs of which we are aware can accommodate financial
accounting/archival research interests, but fewer can accommodate other topics or methodologies
especially tax and theoretical research.
Our results augment the observation of Levitt and Nicolaisen 2008, VI:19 that the bond
between the profession and academia is underdeveloped by indicating that the bond is not underdeveloped so much as steadily atrophied. Most papers in the 60s were normative, often cited
work from areas other than finance and economics, and often dealt directly with issues facing a
professional accountant or auditor.30 Similarly, Carcello 2007 observes that students entering an
accounting Ph.D. program today are more likely to come from a quantitative background e.g.,
finance or economics, while the typical Ph.D. student 2030 years ago was more likely to come
from a professional background. Granof and Zeff 2008 note that accounting researchers in the
60s began borrowing methodologies from other disciplines as an effort to improve academic
respectability relative to their peers in other fields. Our results suggest that 1 this effort has had
a profound effect on accounting research in general, but 2 one of the costs of this change is a
widening gulf between accounting academics and accounting professionals. Levitt and Nicolaisen
2008 make several proposals to help close this gap, including cross-sabbaticals where accounting academics temporarily move to professional positions within an accounting firm or government entity such as the FASB, SEC, and PCAOB, and also where accounting professionals
30
A quick perusal of early issues of The Accounting Review will illustrate how much academic accounting research has
shifted over time. The October 1960 issue includes articles titled Decreasing Charge DepreciationA Search for
Logic, 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 Separation
of Fixed and Variable Costs.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
667
temporarily move to academic positions at universities. They also encourage the provision of data
such as audit information to academics to facilitate additional research.
Researchers can also take steps to close the gap between academia and the profession. We
suggest that accounting research should focus on asking and answering questions that are 1
useful to both academics and nonacademics, and 2 are within the varied expertise of accounting
researchers. The particular methodologies used should be the best ones suited for the question, not
necessarily the ones in vogue at the time. When we limit ourselves to only questions that can be
answered by the dominant methodology, existing homogenized databases, or worse, to only questions within the dominant topic of the day, we do the professional accounting community and
ourselves a disservice.
Our study is meant to initiate and continue discussion and debate, not conclude it. Our
proposed current characterization of accounting research is a starting point, to be followed by
further reasoning and discussion. As mentioned previously, we also do not intend for our results to
be interpreted as criticism of editors and reviewers. Authors are the first-movers in the publications
game: Editors cannot accept papers that are never written or never submitted. Accounting researchers desiring tenure at top schools are strongly encouraged to work on projects that appear to
fit at top journals Demski 2007; Moizer 2009, and to send those papers to journals that have
published similar papers. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy; for example, JAE has published
little experimental research, so would an experimental researcher risk sending her work there for
review?
We make several contributions to the literature, primarily by facilitating informed discussion
on the health of the profession, and on facilitating informed discussion on the question: What is
accounting research? Several researchers have raised concerns about the profession e.g., Swanson
2004; Plumlee et al. 2005; Rayburn 2005; Fogarty and Markarian 2007; Hopwood 2007; Demski
2007; Fellingham 2007; Leslie 2008; Granof and Zeff 2008. As Demski notes, many of the
challenges we face today are not new for example, see Williams 1985; Mautz 1965. But this
does not mean they should be ignored.
We believe that this paper will also be a useful tool for introductory Ph.D. research seminars
that wish to provide a general overview on trends in accounting research. Ph.D. students and new
faculty may be interested in our findings when considering possible homes for their research.
Administrators of Ph.D. programs may be interested in our results as they make decisions on
where to allocate scarce resources and on their admissions decisions. Professional accountants can
use this paper to help explain the gap between academic and professional accountants. We also
hope this paper will emphasize calls for greater diversity within the umbrella of accounting
research e.g., Rayburn 2006; Granof and Zeff 2008.
APPENDIX
CLASSIFICATION EXPLANATIONS FOR TOPIC AND METHODOLOGY
Topic Definitions
Financial Accounting: Papers dealing with external financial reporting including analysts
and analyst forecasts.
Managerial Accounting: Papers dealing with internal reporting and evaluation, internal budgeting, and transfer pricing.
Auditing: Papers dealing with auditing and auditors including internal controls over reporting.
Tax: Papers dealing with federal and state income tax issues, tax planning, tax strategies, and
the impact of taxes on capital markets.
Accounting Horizons
December 2010
668
Governance: Papers dealing with overall corporate governance and control e.g., structure of
the board, shareholder rights.
Other Topics: All other topics that do not appear to fit into the above categories e.g.,
education, history, the CPA exam, etc..
Methodology Descriptions
Archival: Papers using data from historical market information typically stock prices, but
could include bond or commodity prices. Also known as capital markets research e.g.,
Kothari 2001.
Experimental: Papers using data from human subjects that are assigned to multiple treatment
groups to distinguish from survey research, where data is collected from all subjects with no
pretreatment assignment.
Field Study: Papers using data from direct observation i.e., company visits, interviews,
characterized by a small sample size often one firm but rich, descriptive data.
Review: A pseudo-methodology because a review does not provide new data. Summarizes
and synthesizes prior research.
Survey: Papers using data gathered by soliciting information from human subjects without
assignment to a treatment group.
Theoretical: Papers constructing and/or using analytical i.e., mathematical models, characterized by proofs, lemmas, etc.
Normative: Papers that do not include data or analytical models and that do not review prior
work. This is a catch-all category for work that does not fit into the above methodologies.
Normative papers typically argue for a particular accounting treatment or course of action
i.e., what should be.
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Accounting Horizons

Vol. 24, No. 4

American Accounting Association

Characterizing Accounting Research

Submitted: March 2010

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Characterizing Accounting Research

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

(continued on next page)

Characterizing Accounting Research

Wtd. Avg. 40.2%

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Characterizing Accounting Research

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Characterizing Accounting Research

DATA AND METHODOLOGY

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Characterizing Accounting Research

Proportion off Citations

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Panel A: Citations by Topic

Characterizing Accounting Research

Panel B: Financial Accounting by Decade

Panel C: Managerial Accounting by Decade

(continued on next page)

Panel D: Auditing by Decade

Panel E: Tax by Decade

Panel F: Control/Governance by Decade

(continued on next page)

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Characterizing Accounting Research

Panel G: Other Topics by Decade

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Panel A: Citations by Methodology

Characterizing Accounting Research

Panel B: Archival by Decade

Panel C: Experimental by Decade

(continued on next page)

Panel D: Field Study by Decade

Panel E: Review by Decade

Panel F: Survey by Decade

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Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Panel H: Normative by Decade

Characterizing Accounting Research

Panel G: Theoretical by Decade

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Characterizing Accounting Research

Panel B: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decade

Panel C: Contemporary Accounting Research, by Decade

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Oler, Oler, and Skousen

Panel E: Journal of Accounting Research, by Decade

Characterizing Accounting Research

Panel D: Journal of Accounting and Economics, by Decade

Panel F: Review of Accounting Studies, by Decade

Panel G: The Accounting Review, by Decade

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Panel G: The Accounting Review, by Decade

Oler, Oler, and Skousen

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

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

Panel C: Accounting, Organizations and Society, by Decade