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The accounting establishment and AICPA Foundation responded to an inadequate supply of new accounting faculty by creating the Accounting Doctoral Scholars (ADS) program. Between 2009 and 2018, the $17 million program enabled 105 practitioners to become audit and tax faculty. Based on market data and an ADS participant survey, we find an increase in doctoral graduates at ADS and non-ADS schools relative to pre-ADS years, and unmet demand for audit has decreased after ADS, whereas tax remains in need. Compared to the market, ADS graduates experienced somewhat better placements by moving up to more prestigious strata and were more likely to place at schools with a doctoral program. Additionally, we present results for ADS students' motivations, degree completion time, and differences between audit and tax participants. Our findings have important implications for academic accounting, business schools, regulators, and policymakers. We provide important context for changes in market trends preceding COVID-19.

PurposeMuch in accounting research depends upon equity valuation. Too often, what the stock of publicly traded companies trade at is taken at its face value. Knowing that valuation is a function of performance relative to consensus security analyst expectations, more needs to be known about how these expectations are created and changed. The paper aims to assert that the guidance provided by top-level company management is important to the work product of analysts. The paper develops information from managers involved in these interactions.Design/methodology/approachSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 high-level executives employed by large USA companies in several industries. What those companies provided was interpreted through the theoretical lens of institutional theory and amounts to a qualitative content analysis approach to the subject.FindingsThe authors find that institutional theory well describes the important features of analyst guidance. Participants are aware of the broad societal interest that exists in the outcome of the guidance process. The participants accept the need for independent analyst opinions about their companies and their future prospects. In many ways, executives provide analysts more than just raw information and employ strategic structuring for analysts to produce expectations that will allow their companies a favorable pathway to future success as such is judged by the markets. The result is understood as being in the best interests of all market participants, even if it disproportionately benefits current corporate leadership.Research limitations/implicationsResults are dependent upon the interview process, needing the correct questions to be asked and the willingness of interviewees to speak their lived truth. The paper calls into question traditional capital markets studies that evaluate quantitative relationships between projected accounting balances and subsequent stock market prices as a literal truth or as the result of scientific calculation.Practical implicationsMarket participants should be somewhat more skeptical about companies that are routinely able to meet analyst expectations. To a large extent, such displays do not just happen but instead are manufactured to take place by virtual of a careful dance that is mindful of excesses on several sides.Social implicationsThe antagonistic interests of two important groups in the stock market is actually an unrecognized symbiotic dependency that prioritizes continued permission.Originality/valueThe accounting literature is very dependent on the work product of analysts. This is a rare opportunity to peak behind the curtain of their expertise in a critical fashion. The paper breaks ranks with the literature by trying to understand the thinking behind the narratives of capital market participants.

This study investigates accounting firm office mergers and acquisitions (M&A). It explores whether office M&A affect post-acquisition office audit quality, particularly whether there is a spillover effect on the existing client base of the acquiring office. We capitalize on a unique circumstance: the 2002 acquisition of Arthur Andersen (Andersen) office practices by other audit firm offices. This setting involves a set of offices in each of the remaining large international audit firms that acquired entire Andersen local practices (treatment group) and a set of offices that did not acquire Andersen practices (control group). Using a within-audit firm matched sample and difference-in-difference research design, we find robust evidence of higher audit quality post-acquisition among the audits of existing clients of the acquiring offices. These findings extend the literature on office audit quality and provide initial evidence of the impact of audit firm office M&A on the existing client base. The findings also suggest that practitioner and scholarly literature on audit practice mergers should consider the impact of audit firm M&A on the existing client base as well as the acquired clients.

The literature shows that, in the wake of negative media exposition, organizations’ self-regulation tends to be strengthened. We investigate such motivation from the perspective of the psychosocial consequences in executives’ and organizational self-confidence. A grounded-theory approach supports findings from 27 different events described by top-level executives from major publicly traded organizations. Their testimonies document that scandalous episodes, when they occur, leave a trauma footprint within the organizational and individual consciousness because of the perceived post-event humiliation, remorse, guilt, and fear. The paradigm of reliance and trust in the designed structures is severely altered. In turn, a climate of excessive self-regulation explains the recovery from the traumatic experience. New boundaries for regulatory balance, also called “the confidence zone,” exists until design changes coalesce with organizational blame to create the perception that reputational safety has been achieved. Fears of subsequent media scrutiny are mitigated by the perception of moral safety based on governance. Consequently, the over-regulatory response comprises the organizations’ healing process as they recover from the psychosocial trauma caused by media exposition.

Facing a more competitive environment, institutions in the higher education sector increasingly deploy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to facilitate better decision making. Of more recent origin, business analytics approaches are supplementing this technology. However, based on anecdotal accounts, many of these organizations have not reaped the advantages that were sought from these advances. The current research explores this conundrum by proposing and testing a model of perceived ERP effectiveness. Using data collected in a survey of colleges in the U.S., the results show that although distinctions between information quality and systems quality tend not to be made, overall perceived input quality is associated with ERP effectiveness. ERP effectiveness is only indirectly affected by general information technology competence. Here, perceived organizational support exists as an important mediating construct, but business analytics are not perceived to play a consequential role. JEL Classifications: C3; L3; I22. Data Availability: Survey data available upon request.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is a reflective account in which one person who has been around long enough to see a good bit considers how COVID-19 might change the general contours of the world. Design/methodology/approach This paper follows a broadly based and relatively unstructured approach, based on personal understandings and whatever rigor might have been gained by a life spent thinking about research design and the limits of methodology. Findings The opposite of what many others believe will happen is argued for. Things will change more than we wish. Most will change for the worse. Research limitations/implications Accounting research will have a role to play, but to have impact, this study will require that researchers adopt a much more critical perspective about capitalism and its consequences than before. Practical implications Everyone must do the best they can. Everyone must learn to accept the new and not rage to restore that which existed in before times. Social implications Harsher climate of interpersonal relations will be realized. Originality/value This paper is more about change than about accounting. A 30,000-foot level analysis that does not try to provide many examples. An effort to rise above the specifics that vary across the world.

Regulators desire punishment that restores individuals to monetary positions before the damage and deters future violations. Thus, enforcement effectiveness is partially a function of punishment severity. Under the Securities and Exchange Commission's oversight, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority provides enforcement and punishment guidelines for securities fraud cases. However, motivation crowding theory suggests extenuating and aggravating circumstances may complicate punishment. We investigate the concern that individuals charged with punishing securities fraud might be excessively tolerant, illustrated by recommended sanctions. Using two samples of participants—compliance examiners and securities arbitrators—in an experimental task that manipulates the fraudster's motivation, history, and personal gain, we find participants may be overly influenced by situational circumstances. Further, participants recommend monetary sanctions that fail to achieve regulators' restoration goals. We discuss practical implications of these findings for regulators. Further, we illustrate the need to extend motivation crowding theory to consider factors associated with non-direct financial benefits.

The COVID-19 pandemic either forced or let the author “flip the classroom” for his courses in three different programs. This chapter provides an anecdotal account of teaching and learning in the world made necessary by the pandemic. Although it remains just one person’s experience, it offers general ideas about going forward in higher education wherein we confront assumptions about traditional pedagogy. © 2022 by Emerald Publishing Limited.

PurposeBased on exchange theory and the generalized norm of reciprocity, psychological contracts perceived by employees are believed to have dysfunctional consequences for organizations if breached. This paper aims to study the willingness of employees to report fraud, as such is an important aspect of internal control for organizations.Design/methodology/approachA 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment was conducted in which 99 participants with diverse accounting backgrounds were first asked questions about their preconceived beliefs (psychological contract) regarding how reports of unethical conduct would be managed, and their reaction if these beliefs were broken (psychological contract violation). Participants were given a hypothetical situation of fraud and then asked to indicate their likelihood of reporting fraud to a supervisor.FindingsThe main hypotheses are that employees will be less likely to report fraud when the organization fails to signal the presence of a positive ethical environment or when management reacts weakly to previous reports of unethical activity. The data and findings support these hypotheses. Additional testing also reveals that a psychological contract violation mediates the relationship between the outcome of previous reports and the intention to report fraud.Research limitations/implicationsAs with any experimental study, this study’s results come with limitations. Reading an overly simplistic scenario that omits real world details and providing intention to report is very different from actually reporting fraud in one’s own place of employment. Therefore, reporting intentions may vary from actual reporting behavior. Further, reporting motivation (self-defense, altruism, etc.) and concern over retaliation are not measured.Practical implicationsEmployees have expectations surrounding ethical corporate environments. Psychological contract violations occur as a result of broken expectations and are common in the workforce. In this study, a breakdown in the internal control environment because of a poor ethical culture, caused an even greater breakdown in internal controls because of employees’ decreased reporting intentions.Social implicationsPsychological contract violations impact employees’ intention to report fraud. These violations need to be understood so that additional measures and safeguards can be instituted when employees are not acting as a fraud defense or detection mechanism. During such times when there is a breakdown in this type of internal control (that is, when employees might be hesitant to report fraud), extra safeguards against fraud, additional procedures to detect fraud, and enhanced employee training encouraging reporting of suspected unethical conduct, become even more important.Originality/valueStrong experimental methods provide a rigorous way to evaluate a problem of our day: job insecurity caused by rampant organizational turbulence. The hidden cost is expressed in terms of how less can be expected of employees as a first line of defense against fraud.

Using the pause created by the COVID-19 pandemic, this essay expands upon the reflections offered by many accounting academics across the world. Many questions about where we find ourselves in our ...

This chapter questions the contribution of bureaucratic organization to the core missions of the modern university. Although perfectly fit for the execution of peripheral functions, teaching and research do not thrive in such an environment. This accommodation failure has much to do with the many ways the marketplace has crept into our thinking about the function of education and the value of new discovery. Relevant external forces only exacerbate these tendencies. The prospects for emancipation include a resurgence of individuality, perhaps carried by the possibilities of technology which reverses its current capability to standardize and commodify. A more fundamental rethinking of post-secondary education may be needed.

Every year, accounting researchers interested in ethics convene to share their recent work. They should be wondering why so little progress has been made over all the years these efforts have continued. Whereas we might not dare to hope that people could be made more honorable or more virtuous, one would think that incremental insights could be produced as to why they are not. We could point to the many obstacles that impede good research, but times are tough for all researchers. Let us instead entertain the idea that we might be asking the wrong questions. More precisely, perhaps the inquiry into accounting ethics is out of step with our times. While double entry bookkeeping celebrated its 500th birthday almost three decades ago, accounting ethics is a more time-sensitive topic. That which we recognize as appropriate behavior and that which we sanction as wrongful changes rapidly over time. Our scholarship is regrettably historically sensitive. Such a contingency recommends that we more fully appreciate the nature of our particular historical moment. We posit the possibility that the problem with the study of ethics is out of step with the zeitgeist. Specifically, we should worry that the world has moved on rendering our work moot, naive or even oxymoronic. This chapter uses a straightforward three-part structure. The first characterizes the important dimensionality of modern life. The second applies this characterization to ethical analyses. The chapter ends with a brief conclusion.

The development and progressive refinement of the concept of academic freedom has generally occurred without material participation by the American business school. Whereas the business school looms large as a component of higher education in the twenty-first century, most believe that it is indifferent or perhaps hostile to the concept of academic freedom. For the most part, business school faculty fail to share the liberal political leanings of their colleagues from across the university, and therefore are less likely to find themselves to need academic freedom protection from those who would like to squelch opinions that run contrary to government and establishment elites. This chapter recognizes the fundamental alignment of what is taught in the business school and what business faculty research. However, that does not gainsay prospects for academic freedom protection when such is not the case. The chapter explores public interest dimensions of being a faculty member in a business school and how these might be manifested. Examples of controversial work are offered for each of the major business disciplines.

All organizations confront the possibility of scandal; however, the reputational threat caused by scandal is exacerbated when these events are not properly addressed. Since scandals also have the potential to adversely affect organizational personnel, dilemmas arise regarding traditional ideas of employee agency. In this study, we conduct an experiment manipulating the severity of the reputational threat and its financial consequences for decision-makers, using actual corporate officers and internal auditors. One key question is this: “Are corporate decision-makers’ responses to potential scandals affected by whether they, as incentivized individuals (via stock options), have “skin in the game?” Findings indicate that corporate personnel believe corporations should respond aggressively to scandals having potential reputational consequences; however, they prefer not to proactively respond to reputational threats when expected personal gains are likely to be jeopardized. Internal auditors, by contrast, are less sensitive to personal gains. An archival supplementary analysis supports these findings by suggesting that equity compensation was 17.7% higher before a severe reputational event.

The sudden collapse of Arthur Andersen & Co. (Andersen) in 2001–2002 altered the careers of many professionals who were employed by that international accounting firm. Now that many years have passed since that event, some long-run consequences can be quantified. This paper examines the subsequent careers of 267 managers employed by Andersen at that time in seven Midwestern U.S. cities. Benchmarking these results against similarly situated individuals at another large firm, we conclude that ex-Andersen managers were much less likely to continue in large firm employment, stay in public accounting, or achieve partnership status in the profession. However, the professional networks maintained by ex-Andersen people many years after that firm's collapse appear as strong as that of the control sample. Data Availability: Data are available from the first author upon request.

A rapidly changing and increasingly hostile environment creates incentives for organizations in the higher education sector to invest in high capability information systems technology. However, effective adoption and implementation of such systems has been rarer than one would expect. Using interviews of higher education administrators, this paper identifies structural, cultural, and strategic reasons for this shortfall. That which must be overcome to prepare colleges and universities for the information-intensive future is discussed.

The differences shown in the Endenich and Trapp article help us formalize the cartography of publishing opportunities in accounting. In this commentary, I offer some ways that the paper could have offered more insight. I also propose a broader agenda for the sociological study of the social organization of academic accounting. For this purpose, elements of elite reproduction, the rhetoric of quality and the politics of journal production are proposed as core elements.

The accounting educational literature is heavily focused on the characteristics and productivity of individual faculty members. The research contributions of these individuals are also aggregated by their departmental affiliations. However, very little work focuses upon how accounting departments are built and how they change over time. To evaluate the change in accounting departments over several decades, a detailed look at the major schools of one state (Ohio) is offered by this paper. Implications for the management of academic departments are offered, and suggestions for future research are made.

This paper recasts the debate over whether accounting research is relevant to accounting practice by asking the more fundamental question of whether modern academic accounting is an applied discipline. Using an institutional theory template, we argue that academic accounting only purports to be an applied discipline relative to the professional practice of accounting. We study the human capital of personnel inflows into academic accounting in terms of practice work experience. We conclude that pre-academia practice experience is counterproductive to academic success in terms of research productivity and movement in academic labor markets. Implications pertaining to the broadly based schism between “town and gown” in accounting are drawn.

The accounting literature has long analyzed whether and how mentoring relationships affect public accountants' turnover intentions. To continue the study of that question, we examine the mediating effect of value congruence and organizational knowledge. Analyzing data from mentored accountants, we find that two aspects of mentoring (career development and role modeling) are positively associated with higher levels of perceived person-organization value congruence. Social interaction, a third aspect of mentoring, was negatively associated with the measure of value congruence. Mentoring's career development aspect is associated with building protege implicit knowledge of the organization, but proves unrelated to turnover intentions. Value congruence is found to associate with higher levels of supervisory satisfaction, which, in turn, strongly associates with decreased turnover intentions. Therefore, the dimensions of mentoring have a selective effect on valuable organizational outcomes which are dependent upon other psychological and behavioral contingencies.

• A rejoinder to “Forces for Change in Higher Education and Implication for the Accounting Academy”.

Academics and the public have long questioned whether research and teaching are symbiotic activities, with each enhancing the other. Revisiting this question for the U.S. accounting discipline, we analyze publication output in top-tier journals and CPA exam pass rates to indicate an accounting department's total research and educational achievement. Examining data for 65 top programs from 1985 to 2016 finds that research productivity and this desired educational outcome are positively, but not significantly, related. This suggests that an accounting department's two major activities do not conflict—but also do not strongly support each other. This result is generally reproduced for different levels of research production. Some variation is observed after the CPA exam changed to its current computerized administration.

SYNOPSIS Much has been written about the so-called “millennial generation.” Many commentators believe that Millennials possess values and preferences that render them qualitatively different from the cohorts that preceded them. These writers have suggested, often without benefit of empirical evidence, that such differences will consequentially affect social institutions such as the accounting profession. This paper compares the generation of millennial individuals who are currently entering accounting with previous generational groups, represented by Baby Boomers, who entered the profession in the 1980s, and older students and younger professionals (Generation X). The results suggest that few personality differences exist to support the premise that the millennial generation now entering the accounting profession is truly unique. For the most part, differences are limited to growth need strength, and do not appear in locus of control or need to achieve. Implications for practice management are drawn.

Institutional quality has been, and will continue to be, an important dimension of academic accounting. How we measure it, by increasingly featuring objective output measures, has taken the construct away from demonstrated meaningfulness among its most important constituency. This paper forms several research propositions that attempt to identify the antecedents of perceived accounting program quality. Using accounting faculty judgments about accounting programs provided to a popular press request – the Public Accounting Report – the results show that an institution's educational success is more important than its research productivity. More general school characteristics, including the program's accreditation profile and the reputation of the business school in which the program is embedded, are also significant in their direct association with perceived program quality. These more remote factors also indirectly impact program reputation through their significant direct effect on educational outcomes. Implications for further research are drawn.

This paper analyzes ongoing efforts by the large public accounting firms to manage their legal liability. For this purpose, the paper focuses on extreme financial losses from the audits of U.S. publicly traded clients incurred by Big Four firms. The possibility that this form of legal liability has changed as a result of the new world order brought to the accounting profession by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) is the paper's main premise. This paper finds a major decline in the severity of these cases. However, the results show that firms have not necessarily improved the management of this risk. The drivers of extreme legal liability continue to be client continuance decisions and larger clients.

Charles F. Adams Jr. instigated the creation of the Massachusetts Railway Commission in 1869. This freestanding body sought to oversee the overall the operation of railroads in that state. This paper suggests that many of our current ideas about the process and content of commercial regulation were developed in the historical context.

Although much attention has been devoted to the study of accounting students’ performance, little attention has been shown to the process of accounting students’ performance. Attention to process necessitates that the subject of accounting students’ test-taking behavior be explored. This study invites attention to the amount of time students take to return their examinations. Time spent on this critical task can be understood as a measure of student ambition to do well, student preparation or cognitive engagement. Using data collected from many classes taught by several instructors at one selective private institution, the results suggest that there is a non-linear relationship between the order in which exams are returned and exam performance. Specifically, those who work on their exams for longer tend to score lower. However, those that return their exams relatively quickly do not necessarily score better. The middle range, wherein students complete their exams neither early nor late relative to others, is associated with better test performance. The relationship between exam return order and test performance also varies by the type of exam and by the matriculation level. The study offers to add to our understanding of accounting students, an achievement that may be an underappreciated prerequisite to effective instructional outcomes.

Purpose This paper aims to provide an analysis of the choices Arthur Andersen faced in dealing with the crisis that ultimately let to its downfall in 2001-2002. Design/methodology/approach The paper is built around institutional theory. Specifically, it applies the propositions provided by Oliver (1990, 1991) to the historical record. Findings The failure to develop a coherent response, combined with a failure to anticipate the specific role of the state led to Andersen’s inability to navigate the institutional field. Research limitations/implications The usual limitations of institutional theory are acknowledged. These pertain to the lack of a micro-level analysis, the additional impact of pure economic rationality and the chance that every crisis of faith is unique. Practical implications The article adds to our appreciation of what not to do in the face of crisis by the government and those in charge of large accounting organizations. Social implications The article adds to the recently in the news “too big to fail” problem with successful economic agents. Originality/value The article adds to institutional theory by providing a different story than the usual, where everything is cleverly managed and the crisis is overcome.

The ability to move from one employing institution to another can be very important in an academic career. This study concerns the mid-career opportunities for institutional migration for accounting faculty. Unlike previous studies that focused on the characteristics, motivations, and attainments of mobile faculty, this study examines the relative size of the accounting professoriate that has been in transition at various points in time. When a large component of senior accounting academics have (have not) taken new positions in the last few years, the opportunity structure can be said to be high (low). The findings, using accounting doctoral schools as the empirical setting, document a declining opportunity set. Over time, the fraction of senior accounting academics that have changed schools in the previous five years has dwindled. This conclusion holds true across various divisions of academic accounting. Specifically, a decline is shown for both public schools and private schools, for higher and lower prestige schools, and for most sub-fields of the accounting discipline. The paper offers implications about this long-term trend.

SYNOPSIS Trade associations should play an integral role in defining and defending the legitimacy and jurisdiction of a profession. In addition, they should provide a field upon which individuals can rise above the confines of their organizations and grow their professional leadership capacities. Evidence in the literature suggests that U.S. accounting conformed to this pattern under the auspices of the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). However, various recent events have transpired that reduce the confidence that this continues to be the case. Using network analysis on longitudinal data from 1997 to 2013, this paper documents an increasingly fragmented and isolated leadership structure. This finding suggests the reduced influence of the AICPA. Surprisingly, this decline has not been offset by the stronger influences of the large international firms. Implications for the profession are discussed.

Previous work on academic accounting in the U.S. has documented impressive concentrations in publications and labor market success by faculty with credentials from a relatively small number of prestigious universities. However, this work left open the pre-doctoral origins of people producing this work, and therefore could not rule out the operation of a meritocracy. Utilizing the theoretical contributions of Bourdieu, this paper argues that elite institutions constitute a unique positioning of symbolic capital that favors a particular type of candidate over equally able others. Through systematic personnel movements into doctoral programs, elites within the discipline are able to reproduce. A study of faculty cultural capital acquired from previous matriculation at elite universities offers empirical support for these ideas. The results suggest that previous studies of concentration in academic accounting are set in motion because of this systematic selection process.

Research into fraud has been limited by the assumption that those who commit acts against propriety were necessarily motivated by personal financial gain. This research investigates the purposeful subversion of controls that lead to unwarranted wealth transfers that lack such a personal motive. The so-called “Robin Hood” fraudster appears to be surprisingly prominent in organized securities markets according to the results of this experimental research. Specifically, rule violation that allowed clients to reap excessive rewards thrive in the trading environment. Surprisingly, such behavior is not less likely in the presence of increased detection probabilities, a positive “tone at the top” or when traders earn a commission. However, two interaction effects among these influences are significant. Thus, some support is produced for the multiple influences of the Fraud Triangle. Implications for trading markets and the fraud literature are drawn.

This study investigates accounting firm office mergers and acquisitions (M&A). It explores whether office M&A affect post-acquisition office audit quality, particularly whether there is a spillover effect on the existing client base of the acquiring office. We capitalize on a unique circumstance: the 2002 acquisition of Arthur Andersen (Andersen) office practices by other audit firm offices. This setting involves a set of offices in each of the remaining large international audit firms that acquired entire Andersen local practices (treatment group) and a set of offices that did not acquire Andersen practices (control group). Using a within-audit firm matched sample and difference-in-difference research design, we find robust evidence of higher audit quality post-acquisition among the audits of existing clients of the acquiring offices. These findings extend the literature on office audit quality and provide initial evidence of the impact of audit firm office M&A on the existing client base. The findings also suggest that practitioner and scholarly literature on audit practice mergers should consider the impact of audit firm M&A on the existing client base as well as the acquired clients.

Recent changes to the Uniform Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Exam provide an occasion to widely and broadly reflect about the longer run trajectory of the nature of this exam and about professional licensure. Based on a review of recent changes, we develop a set of general purposes served by the exam. We discuss the relative consistency between these purposes and academic values with the goal of evaluating the alignment of exam objectives with academic values. Concluding that accounting education and admission to accounting practice are not perfectly parallel, the chapter reviews the possibilities for academics to adjust our values or to alter our pedagogical practices. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons, the CPA Examination makes fewer appearances in the accounting education literature than it did in the past. We offer recommendations to reduce the points of schism and propose research relevant to the problem.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set out to examine and critique the current state and future trajectory of interdisciplinary accounting research in the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on the author's involvement in and research into accounting research and publication contexts, drivers and patterns in the accounting discipline. Findings – In all likelihood, research will continue established traditions that prevent the explorations of economics and finance from material broadening. This paper identifies how that which everyone believes to be such a good idea cannot bear fruit. Research limitations/implications – Conventional economics-based accounting research has proliferated in volume but has largely exhausted its potential for significant contributions to knowledge. Failure to embrace broadened interdisciplinary perspectives risks a crisis of accounting research contribution to policy, practice, and society. Originality/value – This critique reveals the serious weaknesses and serious risks to international accounting scholarship of the continuance and global mimicking of the North American pursuit of an exclusively economic accounting research perspective.

This paper describes, analyses and critiques accounting education research over the period 2005–2009. In doing so, it compares and contrasts the distinctive North American research tradition with that of Europe and the rest of the world. Six journals and 446 publications by 963 authors were included in the sample frame, along with a further 70 publications in other journals. The findings identify distinguishing characteristics among these publications that range from the composition of their editorial teams to the nature and type of output they publish. Evidence was found of geographic dominance and divergent research traditions which has mitigated against the development of a genuinely international accounting education research community. Possibilities for further research are identified and guidance for researchers publishing in this field is presented.

An increasing number of universities have moved student evaluation of faculty and courses out of the classroom, where it had resided for many years, and onto the web. The increased efficiency of the web-based administrative modality of these instruments seems self-apparent. However, whether the measures obtained using the new modality are the same as the old modality is unclear. This paper compares the results of questionnaires administered on the web with those collected from the same students while they were in class. Data from 181 course offerings over seven terms at one university were utilized. Significantly lower evaluation scores for both the instructor and the course are produced when a web-based modality is used. In general, these results did not vary for courses at different levels of matriculation or at different levels of student participation. However, the magnitude of modality differences varied between highly rated and poorly rated courses. Implications for faculty evaluation are offered.

Many academic accountants have explicit or implicit motivations to publish their research in the best journals in the discipline. However, whether the chances of success are better at some of these journals is unknown. This paper examines the archival record to find differences within the authorship of three such publications (The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics) over a recently completed 20-year period. The journals do not differentiate according to the authors' doctoral training, but are differently sensitive to place of faculty employment. The journals are equally receptive to non-U.S. authors, but different in their receptivity to recently graduated and frequently appearing authors. Although areas of change over time are noted, both among journals and within each journal itself, the record also shows a good deal of consistency in other relationships over the 20-year period.

This paper recasts the debate over whether accounting research is relevant to accounting practice by asking the more fundamental question of whether modern academic accounting is even an applied discipline. Using an institutional theory template, we argue that academic accounting only purports to be an applied discipline relative to the professional practice of accounting. We study personnel inflows into academic accounting and its consequences and conclude that practice experience is counterproductive to academic success in terms of research productivity. Implications pertaining to the broadly based schism between “town and gown” in accounting are drawn.

The inadequate supply of new terminally qualified accounting faculty poses a great concern for many accounting faculty and administrators. Although the general downward trajectory has been well observed, more specific information would offer potential insights about causes and continuation. This paper examines change in accounting doctoral student production in the U.S. since 1989 through the use of five-year moving averages. Aggregated on this basis, the downward movement predominates, notwithstanding the schools that began new programs or increased doctoral student production during this time. The results show that larger declines occurred for middle prestige schools, for larger universities, and for public schools. Schools that periodically successfully compete in M.B.A. program rankings also more likely have diminished the size of their accounting Ph.D. programs. Despite a recent increase in graduations, data on the population of current doctoral students suggest the continuation of the problems associated with the supply and demand imbalance that exists in this sector of the U.S. academy.

This paper uses the template of institutional theory to explore the impact of organizational de-legitimation on its technical core. To operationalize this, social network theory is used to guide an exploratory study of the diaspora of Andersen employees. The results suggest an unusually high degree of entrepreneurial activity is unleashed once the confining legitimacy of the organizational structure is dissolved. It also shows that the value of social capital possessed by Andersen professionals changed in character and possibly increased in value. The paper offers contributions to institutional theory and the practice of modern accounting.

Recent interest in the accounting profession should translate into an inspection of its leadership. Why certain people are leaders and other people are not is a question that bears upon the chances that the profession can regain its stature in the eyes of the public. Even without crisis, an examination of the portals of power adds to our appreciation for the social organization of the accounting profession. Using Accounting Today's list of the 100 most influential people in the field over the first decade of the 21st century, this paper describes these individuals. In many ways, this array reveals the existence of a profession much different than that broadly appreciated in academic circles.