U.S. DOCTORAL STUDENTS'
FAMILIARITY
WITH
ACCOUNTING JOURNALS:
INSIGHTS INTO THE STRUCTURE
OF
THE U.S. ACADEMY
by
Bill N. Schwartz
School of Business and
Economics
1700 Mishawaka Avenue
Indiana University - South
Bend
South Bend, IN 46634
Phone: 219 – 237 – 4292
Fax: 219 – 237 - 4866
Email: bschwart@iusb.edu
Satina Williams
School of Business
Virginia Commonwealth
University
1015 Floyd Avenue
Richmond, VA 23284
Phone: 804 – 828 – 1608
Fax: 804 – 828 – 8884
Email: s2svwill@att.net
Paul F. Williams
Dept. of Accounting Box 8113
North Carolina State
University
Raleigh, NC 27695
Phone: 919 – 515 - 4436
Fax: 919 – 515 - 4446
Email: paul_williams@ncsu.edu
Address all correspondence to Paul F. Williams
U.S. DOCTORAL STUDENTS'
FAMILIARITY
WITH
ACCOUNTING JOURNALS:
INSIGHTS INTO THE STRUCTURE
OF
THE U.S. ACADEMY
Abstract
The academic journal is the primary
means through which a discipline defines its content and communicates that
content among its members. In the last
few years the number and diversity of accounting journals has grown quite
substantially as the field of accounting takes on the low paradigm consensus
characteristics of many other social sciences.
This paper reports the results of a survey of doctoral students enrolled
in U.S. Ph.D. programs as to their familiarity with various journals reflecting
the current intellectual diversity of the field. Results indicate that familiarity is generally low with anything
other than the traditionally regarded "premier" journals, but it is
lowest among those doctoral students enrolled in the most “elite”
programs. The paper concludes by a
discussing the implications of this lack of familiarity for doctoral education
and for the progress accounting as an academic discipline can make.
U.S. Doctoral Students'
Familiarity with Accounting Journals:
Insights into the Structure
of the U.S. Academy
Introduction
The state of the contemporary accounting
academy is, by some authoritative accounts, in a state of crisis (Demski, et
al, 1991; Demski and Zimmerman, 2000; Demski, 2001; Albrecht and Sack,
2000). Joel Demski’s American
Accounting Association (AAA) presidential inaugural address was a tale of woe
punctuated by sincere lamentations about how “…a malaise appears to have
settled in. Our progress has turned
flat, our tribal tendencies have taken hold, and our joy has diminished
(Demski, 2001, 1).” Blame for this
situation is laid at the feet of nearly everyone: employers of accounting
students, textbook publishers, academic administrators, and faculty,
particularly those who have most readily succumbed to their “tribal tendencies”
and helped to Balkanize the U.S. academy.
This sense of crisis is not
baseless. Enrollments in accounting
programs have dropped significantly in recent years (Albrecht and Sack,
2000). Interest in doctoral studies in
accounting has declined significantly.
According to Hasselback (2001, ii), U.S. PhD programs graduated around 200
persons per year throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. But in 1998 only 144 were graduated, only
103 in 1999, and only 74 in 2000.[1]
The persons who pursue a
doctoral degree in accounting are usually preparing for a career of teaching
and research within a university setting.
Prospects of teaching and research are some of the appealing aspects of
academic life, thus, the nature of accounting as a scholarly discipline should
have some influence on who chooses such a life.
The last 35 years have been
witness to rather significant changes in the scholarly nature of accounting and
of the academic life of accountants.
Among these changes has been the increasing stress on research and the
associated scientization of accounting.
This scientization has been accomplished through the importation into
accounting of theories from the social sciences, most notably and
predominantly, neo-classical economics (Zeff, 1978, 1983; Whitley, 1988;
Flesher, 1991; Reiter, 1998; Reiter and Williams, 2002; Fleming, et al, 2000;
Williams, 2001). This change in the
nature of accounting scholarship has contributed to a proliferation in the
number and kinds of scholarly journals devoted to accounting. For example, between the time of Heck, et al
(1990) first edition of Accounting
Literature Index and the third edition (Heck, et al, 1994), a period of
only four years, there was an increase of eleven journals in the number of
sources listed.[2] As the amount and diversity of accounting
literature has grown so has the apparent “Balkanization” of the accounting
academy lamented by Demski.[3]
Paradoxically,
as the literature in accounting has grown in amount and diversity, the
accounting reputation system in the U.S. has grown increasingly narrow. Demonstrated capability in a narrower-and-narrower
realm of accounting scholarship, published in a few so-called "elite"
journals, is the avenue for achieving an academic reputation and, thus, the
power to participate in setting the discipline's intellectual agenda (Lee,
1995, 1997; Williams and Rodgers, 1995; Rodgers and Williams, 1996). Since an understanding of the academic
accounting literature is the essence of doctoral education, an important
question for the scholarly health of a discipline is how accounting doctoral
programs define “accounting literature” and how the structure of doctoral
education contributes to that definitional process. Does education in U.S.
doctoral programs reflect the growing diversity of accounting literature? Are there attributes of the structure of the
U.S. accounting academy contributing to the alleged lack of scholarly vitality?
In order to provide some insights into these
questions we surveyed a sample of
doctoral students enrolled in U.S. doctoral programs to assess their degree of
familiarity with a selection of diverse accounting journals and also the basis
of that familiarity. We also compared
the responses of doctoral students at “elite” schools with those matriculating
at non-elite schools to determine if exposure to accounting literature differed. This paper is a report on the results of the
survey.
The remainder of this paper is divided into three sections. The next section will provide the
theoretical context for the survey and describe the design of the survey; the one following that will report the
results of the survey; and the final section will contain a summary and
discussion.
Context and
Design of the Journal Familiarity Survey
Among philosophers of science, the social
nature of scientific rationality and knowledge is generally acknowledged (e.g.,
Kuhn, 1970; Feyerabend, 1975; Mulkay, 1979; Radnitzky and Bartley, 1987;
Fuller, 1988; Abbott, 2001). Longino
(1990, 75-76) notes that:
Scientific knowledge is, therefore, social knowledge. It is
produced by processes that are intrinsically
social, and once
a theory, hypothesis, or set of data
has been accepted by
a community, it becomes a public
resource. It is available
to use in support of other hypotheses
and as a basis of
action. Scientific knowledge is social both in the ways
it is created and in the uses it
serves.
The social nature of disciplinary knowledge has produced considerable research indicating that the social organization of the discipline affects what passes for legitimate knowledge in that discipline (e.g., Hagstrom, 1965; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Fuchs and Turner, 1986; Barnes, et al, 1996). Whitley (1984, 7) describes academic disciplines as “…distinct social organizations which control and direct the conduct of research on particular topics in different ways through the ability of their leaders to allocate rewards according to the merits of intellectual contributions.” What constitutes meritorious contribution is shaped by the social structure of the discipline, which could mean criteria for merit could include economic or ideological considerations.
Disciplines
tend to be stratified, that is, they produce an “elite” that controls the
development of the field.[4] Research has demonstrated that two important
determinants in achieving “elite” status are quantity of research publications
and/or citations to published work and prestige of the institution from which
the doctorate was received – the “old school tie” phenomenon (Thomas, 1978;
Whitley, 1973) (see Williams and Rodgers, 1995, for a summary of the research
on stratification). Not surprisingly,
stratification has been observed in the U.S. accounting academy (e.g., Brown
and Gardner, 1985a, 1985b; Brown, 1996; Lee, 1997; Williams and Rodgers, 1995;
Rodgers and Williams, 1996).
Considerable
research has been conducted investigating the social organization of the U.S.
academy. To become an “elite” in the
U.S. one must receive one’s doctorate from one of the “elite” institutions and,
further, demonstrate scholarly competence by publishing in a small set of “elite”
U.S. journals.[5] Fastidious application of positive social
theory in the interpretation of econometrically shaped empirical results is the means through which one is admitted to
these “elite” journals (Brown, 1996; Williams and Rodgers, 1995; Rodgers and
Williams, 1996; Lee, 1995, 1997; Lee and Williams, 1999). Lee (1999) demonstrates the significant role
that the AAA plays in the perpetuation of this structure. Reiter and Williams (2001) develop a
theoretical argument, with empirical evidence to support it, that this current
structure of the U.S. academy is not one conducive to intellectual
progress. The Balkanization of
accounting through proliferation of journals is a symptom of the current
academic structure, which is currently more concerned with creating politically
correct academic reputations than with progressive scholarship (e.g., Tinker
and Puxty, 1995).
Accounting
journals are the critical element in the social structure of the discipline, as
they are in most others. As Hargens
(1988, 139) observed, the academic journal is "...both a means by which a
community certifies additions to its body of accepted knowledge and a means
through which individual scientists compete for priority and recognition." The importance of the academic journal
cannot be overestimated. It largely
constitutes the knowledge content of any discipline and, depending on the
prestige of the journal, gives the individual scholar who publishes in the
journal his or her reputation among the other scholars in the field (Hagstrom,
1965; Mulkay, 1979; Fuchs & Turner, 1986; Hasselback and Reinstein,
1995). It is one of the principal
devices for creating an “elite.” The
journal also serves an important pedagogical role since it is a primary means
by which students in a discipline learn the things they are to know to become
qualified as scholars. Scholars are
shaped substantially by the content of their academic journals. An academic career in accounting is studying
the topics and utilizing the research strategies reflected in the content of
academic journals. Were someone
uninterested or unwilling to do the things necessary to publish in academic
accounting journals, they would not likely choose an academic career.
The
question in which we are interested is whether the growing diversity of the
accounting literature is reflected in the content of U.S. doctoral programs,
i.e., are doctoral students being exposed to the many paradigms being expressed
in the literature? A related question is whether there are differences in exposure
to diverse literature depending upon the doctoral program in which the
accounting student matriculates. That
is, does the structure of the U.S. academy appear to affect the exposure to
diverse paradigms. Given the discussion
about the structure of the U.S. academy, we would expect that students enrolled
in "elite" programs would be different from their non-elite
counterparts in terms of familiarity with the diverse accounting literature
that exists today.
To
answer these questions, directors of selected U.S. doctoral programs were
contacted to solicit their participation in supplying their doctoral students
with a questionnaire (a copy appears in the Appendix).[6] We asked all students matriculating in the
participating programs in the fall, 1999 term to complete the questionnaire
which asked them to indicate the degree of familiarity (a Likert scale response
from 1 = not familiar at all to 5 = extremely familiar) they had with the
journals listed in Table 1. In
addition, each respondent indicated the basis of their familiarity (0 = not
heard of the journal; 1 = heard of it but have not read any of it; 2 = have
read at least one article in it). Two
of the journals listed in Table 1 are fictitious; these were provided as a
response validity check. Any subject
who provided a familiarity response of 3 or greater for either of the
fictitious journals was excluded from the analysis. The total number of doctoral students receiving the questionnaire
was 261. Considering the questionnaires
not returned
Insert Table 1
and those rejected for invalid responses, the total
number of usable responses was 151 (a 57% response rate).
The
analyses we provide in this paper are of differences in student responses
depending on whether they are in an "elite" program or not. Whether a program is “elite” or not is based
on the work of Jolley and Schroeder (1995) and Schwartz and Schroeder
(1997). The programs designated as
“elite” for the analyses presented in this paper are: Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Texas-Austin, Minnesota, U. of S. Cal.,
Stanford, Wisconsin, and Iowa.[7] All of the other programs are considered
non-elite.
Survey Results
Familiarity and basis of familiarity: all subjects
Figures 1 and 2 contain the
average responses for all respondents.
Figure 1 contains the familiarity scores; figure 2 the basis of
familiarity scores. The familiarity
results illustrated in Figure 1 are consistent
Insert Figures 1 & 2
with previous research indicating the preeminence of
certain journals, i.e., TAR, JAR, and JAE (Howard & Nikolai, 1983; Brown
& Gardner, 1985 a,b; Brown, 1996; Hagerman & Hagerman, 1989; Hull &
Wright, 1990). Any journal with an
average score of three or greater is a journal with which doctoral students are
familiar; those with average scores below three are journals with which most
students are relatively unfamiliar.
Students indicated that they were very familiar (score of 4.0 or higher)
with only six journals. Three of these
are ranked as accounting’s top journals (Brown, 1996).[8] The importance of the American Accounting
Association (AAA) is evident from these results. Regardless of the subject matter of the journal, if it is
published by the AAA students are at least familiar with it. For example, three of the journals (AEJ,
ISSUES, JAED) are devoted exclusively to issues pertaining to accounting
education. Of the three, only the AAA
journal, ISSUES, has an average familiarity score above three. Tax journals (AIT, JCT, JOT, JATA, NTA) as a
group are unfamiliar to students, as are most journals dealing with public
policy issues pertaining to accounting (APIA, CPOA, JAPP, RAR). One somewhat surprising result is AOS,
considered one of the top four journals in accounting (Brown, 1996), receiving
an average familiarity score below four.
However, with the growing dominance of neo-classical economic theory as
the root metaphor for accounting scholarship in the U.S., familiarity with any
journal not so informed is likely to be low.
Given the current state of the U.S. academy any journal not dominated by
positive economics that scores above three could be considered relatively well
known.
The
basis-of-familiarity results (Figure 2) mirror rather closely the familiarity
scores. The higher is the basis of
familiarity score, the higher the familiarity-score. Everyone of the students has read at least one article in TAR and
most have read something in JAR, AH, and JAE.
The score for JOA is somewhat surprising. Since this is the journal of the professional association of
accountants it would be a principal source of information about what is
occurring in practice. Such information
is apparently of little consequence to doctoral education in the U.S.
Effects of length of time in program
The
doctoral students who responded to the survey had been in their respective
programs for varying lengths of time when they completed the survey. All had been in their programs at least one
term before they completed the survey.
We compared the familiarity and basis of familiarity scores of those
students entering their programs from fall 1994 through fall 1995 to those
entering their programs from spring 1998 through spring 1999, i.e., the cohorts
farthest apart in duration in their programs.
The only familiarity scores that were significantly different in a
statistical sense (p = .05) were for the journals AOS, BRIA, JAAF, and
JAL. Basis of familiarity scores were
also significantly different for those journals as well as JMAR. Familiarity would appear to occur very early
in a student's matriculation, it if occurs at all. However, results reported later will indicate that the absence of
notable differences between new and more seasoned students is attributable as
much to the lack of change in familiarity as students' progress through
doctoral programs as it is to rapid immersion in the literature upon
matriculation in a program.
We
also compared the familiarity and basis of familiarity scores for our sample of
doctoral students with familiarity and basis of familiarity scores for the same
journals from a separate sample of students who responded prior to their
matriculation into a doctoral program (Schwartz & Walden, 2000). Table 2 panels A and B contain the results
of these comparisons for only those journals for which there was no significant
(p = .05) change in familiarity or basis of familiarity. Thirteen journals had the same familiarity
scores for students in doctoral programs as for students who had yet to enter
programs. Only two of these journals,
JOA and CPAJ, were familiar to the sample of doctoral students; the rest
continued to be unfamiliar (see Figure 1).
The journals that experienced no change in familiarity are ones that are
associated with areas regarded as either highly specialized, i.e., tax (3) and
systems (1), or not "mainstream", i.e., public interest/policy
(4). For 21 of the journals,
significant increases in familiarity and basis of familiarity scores occurred
as a result of exposure to a doctoral program.
Insert Table 2 A & B
Response differences by type of school
As we
explained in the previous section, the U.S. academy is markedly
stratified. Academic reputations and,
thus, power in accounting are the nearly exclusive province of graduates of
"elite" schools. Are products
of “elite” doctoral programs more versed in a wider array of accounting
literature than their non-elite counterparts or are they more narrowly trained
in a dominant paradigm? We performed a
number of comparisons between doctoral students matriculating at those schools
we identified earlier as “elite” and those we identified as non-elite. First we did a journal-by-journal comparison
for both familiarity scores and basis of familiarity scores. These are presented in Tables 3 and 4. For the 35 journals, there were
statistically significant differences in familiarity scores for 18 (Table
3). In 17 of those differences,
students at non-elite schools exhibited a higher level of familiarity than did
those students at “elite” schools.
Insert Tables 3 & 4
Only in the case of CAR did students at “elite”
schools exhibit a greater degree of familiarity than did the non-elite
students. These differences are also
reflected in the differences in the basis of familiarity scores between the two
groups (Table 4). Twenty of the
differences in basis of familiarity scores were statistically significant and
nineteen of those were attributable to the non-elite students having higher
scores. Though the basis of familiarity
scores for both groups are quite low for most of the journals for which there
were differences, more students among the non-elite schools have heard of the
journals or have read at least one article.
For
each subject we computed a total familiarity and basis of familiarity score by
adding the scores for all journals. If
a student was very familiar with all of the journals on the list, his or her
score would be 175 (maximum score of 5 times 35 journals); if a student had
read at least one article in each of the journals, the basis of familiarity
score would be 70 (maximum score of 2 times 35 journals). The highest scores actually received were
144 for familiarity and 60 for basis of familiarity. These scores were both received by students at non-elite
schools. The test of mean differences
between aggregate scores for “elite” and non-elite students was highly significant. For familiarity scores the mean for “elite”
students was 92.3 and for non-elite students, 103.8 (F = 13.09, p =
.0004). The basis of familiarity mean
score for “elite” students was 33.5 and for non-elite 40.9 (F = 28.67, p =
.0000).
To
provide some perspective on the statistical differences, Table 5 contains the
percentage of respondents for each journal at each type of school that provided
the highest score for familiarity (a five) and basis of familiarity (a two). Though the numbers for many journals are
small, it is still the case that more students at non-elite schools are
extremely familiar with all of the journals and more have read at least one
article in those journals.
Insert Table 5
What these results also indicate is that familiarity
with less prominent journals does not come at the expense of neglecting
mainstream research, since non-elite students have the same familiarity and
basis of familiarity scores as their “elite” counterparts for those journals
considered to be the leading ones in the field. These results also suggest that students interested in pursuing
accounting research not endorsed by the “elite” structure of the American
academy matriculate at schools which provide them with a wider range of options
in terms of the work for which they may prepare themselves.[9]
To provide further perspective we grouped
journals according to the general nature of the journals' contents. These groupings are admittedly arbitrary and
may be subject to challenge. Our intent
is only to organize the individual journals into some meaningful groupings
based on the subject matter that seems to motivate the articles published in
those journals. The groupings and the
journals included in those groupings are provided in Table 6. Some groups contain only one journal. For
Insert Table 6
example, history contains only AHJ. While history articles appear in, e.g., AOS,
AHJ is the only journal on the list devoted exclusively to issues of accounting
history. The same is true with
auditing. Many of the other journals
contain papers dealing with audit topics, but they also contain other types of
papers.
For
each group, we computed an average score for both familiarity and basis of
familiarity. This score is an average
of the averages of the journals in that group.
For example, the group containing all of the tax-related journals has an
overall average familiarity score of 2.20.
Considering all subjects and all tax related journals, the familiarity
with tax is only 2.20, i.e., relatively unfamiliar. Table 7 panels A and B contain the results of mean comparisons by
school type for familiarity (7A) and basis (7B) scores.
Insert Table 7 A & B
The results indicate that familiarity
with literatures other than the mainstream neo-classical economics paradigm
that increasingly drives the U.S. reputation system is greater among students
at non-elite schools. There appears to
be some greater amount of intellectual diversity present at schools not included
among the “elite” programs. These
results are also consistent with the manner by which the “elite” retains its
status. The economic- modeling group
consists of journals controlled by the “elite” schools, and publishing in these
journals is a mandatory requirement for becoming a member of the “elite.” Perpetuating this system of creating an
“elite” means “elite” programs focus their attentions on recruiting and
educating students inclined toward success at doing empirical economic
research. This indicates that the
crisis in scholarship alleged by President Demski in his inaugural address is
at least partially created by the “elite” structure of the U.S. academy, of
which, ironically, he is a principal architect.
Summary and
Conclusions
The survey results of familiarity with the
journals that comprise the content of accounting as a scholarly discipline
indicate that most accounting doctoral students are relatively unfamiliar with
a substantial number of those journals.
Diversity in accounting scholarship is a phenomenon of apparently small
“cells” of individuals who share paradigmatic interest other than that of the
neo-classical mainstream (e.g., critical theory, history, taxation). As the diversity of accounting's
intellectual content has been increased, accompanied by a larger number of
journals, most U.S. doctoral programs still appear to emphasize the literature
contained in a few journals generally regarded as prestigious. This situation is more pronounced in
accounting doctoral programs that are most closely associated with the governing
structure of the U.S. academy. Students
who seek a course of doctoral study that enables them to pursue non-mainstream
interests seem to be enrolling in non-elite programs where the opportunity is
better for gaining familiarity with a wider array of journals and subject
matters than their counterparts at more “elite” schools. Balkanization in accounting scholarship
seems to be partly a phenomenon created by the structure of the academy in
which the creators and managers of it make diverse perspectives on accounting
illegitimate as evidenced by the lack of familiarity students at the “elite”
schools have with alternative perspectives on accounting.
There
is also indication of the influence of the AAA as an organization that manages
the U.S. academy. Journals published
under the auspices of the AAA, either as organization-wide or section journals,
are known to a greater extent by accounting doctoral students than journals
with similar contents published by others.
This being the case, the AAA could contribute a great deal to solving
the crisis in accounting scholarship by utilizing its publications to
demonstrate the complexity and diversity of accounting scholarship. Instead of TAR being a clone of JAR and JAE,
it could become a truly association journal and publish the best of the
intellectual perspectives of all of accounting’s “tribes.” It also seems that a neo-classical economics
inspired core exists since all accounting doctoral students are very familiar
with and have read articles in those journals that represent this
paradigm. If there is a “malaise” in
the academy, it might be time for doctoral programs to seriously reconsider the
value of having all accounting doctoral students prepare themselves in the same
way. Certainly other social and natural
sciences accommodate diversity (admittedly, often acrimoniously) within the
same departments. Doing it within the
entire academy should be feasible if enough members of the academy have the
will to do it.
The
lack of familiarity with journals representing alternative paradigms and topics
like critical theory, tax, systems, or history, particularly by students at the
more powerful schools, is disconcerting.
It indicates that there is a significant amount of homogeneity among
doctoral programs in the U.S. If all
programs emphasize the same literature, a literature which reflects significant
shortcomings as progressive scholarship (Reiter and Williams, 2002), then
doctoral instruction in accounting contributes less to accounting becoming a
scholarly progressive field. There is
also an issue of what type of person is being attracted into doctoral
studies. If, as our results indicate,
academically accounting has become nearly exclusively an empirical branch of
economics and finance at “elite” schools, what distinguishes it from those
other disciplines and why would someone not pursue graduate work in economics
or finance instead?
In a
recent article in Accounting Horizons
two notable accounting academics noted the intellectual animosities that
diversity seems to be creating. They
lamented, "We see this, for example, in the Balkanization of the American
Accounting Association, where research methods, paradigms, or compression
devices are treated more as substitutes than as complements in the search for
understanding (Demski and Zimmerman, 2000)." Yet the results of this study indicate that this Balkanization is
at least partly structural because it appears that doctoral instruction is
organized to treat research methods, paradigms, etc. as substitutes. If students have never read an article in a
journal that reflects the applications of alternative methods and paradigms,
how are they to come to understand that these alternatives are legitimate and
complementary to their own work? Our
results suggest that students who do wish to study accounting as a scholarly
field rich in diverse perspectives would be ill-advised to matriculate in an
“elite” program, since the appreciation for intellectual diversity seems to be
less in those programs. This, however,
creates a serious dilemma for any bright person interested in academic
success. Given the current reward
structure in the U.S. academy, one can't become “successful” unless one does
what leads to the power to participate in setting the scholarly agenda.[10] This means attending an “elite” school and
immersing oneself in the literature narrowly comprised of three journals, an
activity that has demonstrably not led to innovation or creativity (Demski, et
al, 1991). But if to gain the freedom
to be innovative or creative one must attend a non-elite school, then one is
certain not to be “successful.”
Considering doctoral study in accounting is a Hobson’s choice. It is hardly conducive to innovation or
creativity in a discipline to require its scholars to commit career suicide at
the very beginning of their scholarly lives in order to be so.
Figure 1
Average
Familiarity Scores Arrayed by Journal
(maximum score
= 5; bold indicates AAA auspices)
Journal
Name Abbreviation Score
|
The Accounting Review |
TAR |
4.87 |
|
Journal of Accounting
Research |
JAR |
4.81 |
|
Journal of Accounting and
Economics |
JAE |
4.59 |
|
Accounting Horizons |
AH |
4.32 |
|
Contemporary Accounting
Research |
CAR |
4.30 |
|
Journal of Accountancy |
JOA |
4.01 |
|
Journal of Accounting, Auditing
and Finance |
JAAF |
3.77 |
|
Accounting, Organizations
and Society |
AOS |
3.76 |
|
Behavioral Research in Accounting |
BRIA |
3.48 |
|
Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory |
AUDIT |
3.42 |
|
Issues in Accounting Education |
ISSUES |
3.40 |
|
Journal of Accounting
Literature |
JAL |
3.33 |
|
Journal of Accounting and
Public Policy |
JAPP |
3.15 |
|
CPA Journal |
CPAJ |
3.14 |
|
Journal of American
Taxation Association |
JATA |
3.11 |
|
Journal of Management Accounting Research |
JMAR |
3.07 |
|
|
JBFA |
2.88 |
|
Management Accounting |
MA |
2.77 |
|
Journal of Accounting
Education |
JAED |
2.53 |
|
Advances in Accounting |
AIA |
2.16 |
|
Journal of Taxation |
JOT |
2.15 |
|
National Tax Journal |
NTA |
2.13 |
|
Accounting and Business
Research |
ABR |
2.01 |
|
Advances in Taxation |
AIT |
1.95 |
|
Abacus |
ABACUS |
1.9 |
|
Journal of Information
Systems |
JIS |
1.83 |
|
Accounting Historians
Journal |
AHJ |
1.73 |
|
Accounting Educators'
Journal |
AEJ |
1.70 |
|
Journal of Corporate
Taxation |
JCT |
1.67 |
|
Advances in International
Accounting |
AINTL |
1.66 |
|
Critical Perspectives on
Accounting |
CPOA |
1.62 |
|
International Journal of
Accounting Education and Research |
INTL |
1.63 |
|
Advances in Public
Interest Accounting |
APIA |
1.32 |
|
Research in Government and
Not-for-Profit Accounting |
RIGNA |
1.28 |
|
Research in Accounting
Regulation |
RAR |
1.22 |
Figure 2
Average Basis
of Familiarity Scores Arrayed by Journal
(maximum
score= 2; bold indicates AAA auspices)
Journal Name Abbreviation Score
|
The Accounting Review |
TAR |
2.00 |
|
Journal of Accounting
Research |
JAR |
1.99 |
|
Accounting Horizons |
AH |
1.96 |
|
ournal of Accounting and
Economics |
JAE |
1.92 |
|
Contemporary Accounting
Research |
CAR |
1.87 |
|
Journal of Accountancy |
JOA |
1.79 |
|
Accounting, Organizations
and Society |
AOS |
1.68 |
|
Journal of Accounting,
Auditing and Finance |
JAAF |
1.68 |
|
Journal of Accounting
Literature |
JAL |
1.50 |
|
Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory |
AUDIT |
1.46 |
|
Issues in Accounting Education |
ISSUES |
1.44 |
|
CPA Journal |
CPAJ |
1.44 |
|
Behavioral Research in Accounting |
BRIA |
1.41 |
|
Journal of Management Accounting Research |
JMAR |
1.33 |
|
Journal of American
Taxation Association |
JATA |
1.3 |
|
Journal of Accounting and
Public Policy |
JAPP |
1.29 |
|
Journal of Business,
Finance and Accounting |
JBFA |
1.14 |
|
Management Accounting |
MA |
1.14 |
|
|
JAED |
1.00 |
|
Abacus |
ABACUS |
.89 |
|
Accounting and Business
Research |
ABR |
.85 |
|
Advances in Accounting |
AIA |
.78 |
|
Journal of Taxation |
JOT |
.76 |
|
National Tax Journal |
NTA |
.66 |
|
Advances in Taxation |
AIT |
.65 |
|
Journal of Information
Systems |
JIS |
.62 |
|
Accounting Historians
Journal |
AHJ |
.57 |
|
Accounting Educators'
Journal |
AEJ |
.56 |
|
Advances in International
Accounting |
AINTL |
.46 |
|
Journal of Corporate
Taxation |
JCT |
.43 |
|
Critical Perspectives on
Accounting |
CPOA |
.41 |
|
International Journal of
Accounting Education and Research |
INTL |
.38 |
|
Advances in Public
Interest Accounting |
APIA |
.20 |
|
Research on Accounting
Regulation |
RAR |
.18 |
|
Research in Government and
Not-for-Profit Accounting |
RIGNA |
.18 |
Table 1
List of
Journals Included in the Survey (n=37)
Abacus (ABACUS)
Accounting and Business
Research (ABR)
Accounting Educator's
Journal (AEJ)
The Accounting Historians
Journal (AHJ
Accounting Horizons (AH)
Accounting, Organizations
and Behavior (AOS)
The Accounting Review (TAR)
Advances in Accounting (AIA)
Advances in International
Accounting (AINTL)
Advances in Public Interest
Accounting (APIA)
Advances in Taxation (AIT)
Auditing: A Journal of
Practice and Theory (AUDIT)
Behavioral Research in
Accounting (BRIA)
Contemporary Accounting
Research (CAR)
CPA Journal (CPAJ)
Critical Perspectives on
Accounting (CPOA)
Current Reporting of
Accounting Practices Journal (fictitious)
International Journal of
Accounting Education and Research (INTL)
Issues in Accounting
Education (ISSUES)
Journal of Accountancy (JOA)
Journal of Accounting and
Economics (JAE)
Journal of Accounting and
Public Policy (JAPP)
Journal of Accounting,
Auditing and Finance (JAAF)
Journal of Accounting
Education (JAED)
Journal of Accounting
Literature (JAL)
Journal of Accounting
Research (JAR)
Journal of Business, Finance
and Accounting (JBFA)
Journal of Corporate
Taxation (JCT)
Journal of Financial Reporting
Disclosure (fictitious)
Journal of Information
Systems (JIS)
Journal of Management
Accounting Research (JMAR)
Journal of Taxation (JOT)
Journal of the American
Taxation Association (JATA)
Management Accounting (MA)
National Tax Journal (NTA)
Research on Accounting
Regulation (RAR)
Research in Government and
Not-for-Profit Accounting (RIGNA)
Table 2
Journals for
which There Are Non-significant Differences Between Current Enrolled Doctoral
Students and Pre-admission Students