Evaluation of doctoral programs in accounting: an examination of placement

Abstract

Abstract This study evaluates and ranks 80 US doctoral granting institutions based on the placement of their graduates at top-tier universities, productive accounting research departments, AACSB-accredited institutions, and US doctoral granting institutions. We employ two measurement scales that facilitate our evaluations and rankings. Our first scale uses US News and World Report: America's Best Colleges (1997) information to measure the placement of each degree granting institution's graduates along a continuum that ranges from top-tier national universities to tier-four regional universities. Our second scale uses research productivity information reported by Hasselback and Reinstein [ Hasselback, J. R., & Reinstein, A. (1995a). A proposal for measuring scholarly productivity of accounting faculty. Issues in Accounting Education, 10, 269–306. ] to measure the placement of each degree granting institution's graduates along a continuum that ranges from placements in the most productive accounting research departments to placements in the least productive research departments. The primary purpose of our study is to provide potential doctoral students and those advising potential doctoral students with a resource to assist them in the assessment of the placement abilities of US doctoral programs. Consistent with this purpose, we: (1) examine the population of active US degree granting institutions; (2) employ measures of placement ability that are based on the attributes of the initial-placement institutions; and (3) employ measures that are allowed to vary over the entire range of doctoral granting and non-doctoral granting initial-placement institutions.