Inclusion fairness in accounting, finance, and management: An investigation of A-star publications on the ABDC journal list

Abstract

Substantial research has examined inclusion fairness, which is whether a fair distribution of available publication space exists in quality journals across the functional disciplines of business. Historically, researchers have assessed inclusion fairness using the top two to four journals in each discipline. This study examines inclusion fairness using the Australian Business Deans Council list, which is a much more inclusive sample of quality journals. Using hand-collected data from 11746 articles in accounting, finance, and management, and standardized faculty counts of AACSB accredited institutions, we find evidence against inclusion fairness as the number of articles published per faculty member as well as the number of authors per paper are larger for management than for accounting and finance. Further, while A-star publications in management are distributed among a very large pool of academic institutions, publications in accounting and finance are limited to a much smaller and more elite group of institutions.