What Influences Accounting Research? A Citations-Based Analysis

Abstract

We compile and analyze the reference lists from papers published in nine accounting journals over the period 1996–2011 to identify the individual antecedent works that have been cited the most often by accounting research. We conduct our analyses separately for different topical areas (audit, financial, managerial, tax, other) and research methodologies (archival, experimental, theoretical, other). We then present and discuss lists of the individual works that are most heavily cited by each category. Our results should be useful to Ph.D. students and those who train them in identifying important prior work that continues to motivate and provide a foundation for contemporary accounting research.

Journal Rankings, Collaborative Research and Publication Strategies: Evidence from China

“…There is already a significant body of work on the ranking of accounting journals, although not in relation to our particular research focus (Beattie & Goodacre, 2006, 2012Chan, Chan, Seow, & Tam, 2009;Dunbar & Weber, 2014;Fogarty & Jonas, 2013;Glover, Prawitt, Summers, & Wood, 2012;Hoepner & Unerman, 2012;Holderness, Myers, Summers, & Wood, 2014;Hussain, 2010Hussain, , 2011Sangster, 2011). The increasing obsession with metricising and ranking research outputs both for individual faculty and for universities is now well documented across a range of countries including the USA (Adler & Harzing, 2009;Ashford, 2013;Collet & Vives, 2013;Currie & Pandher, 2013;Giacalone, 2009;Hitt & Greer, 2012), Canada (Malsch & Tessier, 2015), South Africa (Nkomo, 2009), Australia (Moosa, 2011), and the UK (Hussain, 2015;Nedeva, Boden, & Nugroho, 2012;Taylor, 2011;Tourish, 2011;Willmott, 2011).…”

Building Blocks of Contemporary HRD Research: A Citation Analysis on Human Resource Development Quarterly between 2007 and 2013

“…Few empirical studies have investigated HRD's disciplinary and theoretical foundations by analyzing citations in peer‐reviewed HRD publications. This study contends that citation analysis can help us understand the “multidisciplinary” foundations of HRD research because “it tells us what to read, what to have our students read, and perhaps how to frame and communicate our own research” (Dunbar and Weber, , p.1). This approach is particularly important because the identity of HRD is not fixed and continues to evolve and change as it adapts to the complexities of practice and changing organizational environments (Jo, Jeung, Park, & Yoon, ; Gilley, Eggland, & Gilley, ).…”

Quality in the process of scientific production in accounting in Brazil

“…Finally, a set of studies explores citation analysis (Brown & Gardner, 1985;Dunbar & Weber, 2014); and perceptions of accounting journals quality, also called peer reviews (Ballas & Theoharakis, 2003;Brinn et al, 2001;Brown & Huefner, 1994;Lowe & Locke, 2005;Lowensohn & Samelson, 2006;Taylor, 2011). Such studies, though not specifically focused on the quality attributes of good research, explore quality criteria and their relationship with productivity and quality evaluation of what is published in scientific journals in the area.…”

“…The resonance of the scientific production analyzed was considered low; data variability is related to the characteristics of the articles/journals; and the distance among the journals' IFs has decreased. Dunbar and Weber (2014) Theoreticalempirical…”

“…This resource reveals important evidence about the average performance of business scholars, such as the number of contributions, citations, and the h-index is much higher when performances are assessed using Web of Science (Amara & Landry, 2012), so, it can be considered useful to identify the best sources. The focus of the selected set of studies covers citation analysis (Aragão et al, 2014;Brown & Gardner, 1985;Dunbar & Weber, 2014); perceptions of the quality of accounting journals, also called peer reviews (Ballas & Theoharakis, 2003;Brinn et al, 2001;Brown & Huefner, 1994;Lowe & Locke, 2005;Lowensohn & Samelson, 2006;Taylor, 2011); productivity and quality in university business departments Doyle & Arthurs, 1995;M.J. Jones et al, 1996;Martins & Lucena, 2014); quality criteria, such as validity (Libby et al, 2002); rigor (Evans et al, 2015;Williams, 2014); relevance (Reiter & Williams, 2002); impact (Carmona, 2006); and integrity (Andrade, 2011;Antunes et al, 2011); and research practices and features (Martins & Lucena, 2014;Mendonça Neto et al, 2009;Miranda et al, 2011;Taylor, 2011;Theóphilo & Iudícibus, 2005).…”