Thematic structure of accounting research by co-word analysis

Abstract

This paper aims to discover the thematic structure of the accounting field and to highlight prominent, emerging, and fading themes across periods and regions. This study follows a systematic approach benefiting from co-word analysis through social network analysis and visualisation maps. This analysis considers the keywords presented within 7,250 articles published by 22 accounting journals over the period from 2000 to 2016. The results indicated that the themes of earnings management, corporate governance, disclosure, auditing, voluntary disclosure, conservatism, analyst forecasts, and executive compensation were the most prominent topics in accounting research. In addition, the regional co-word analysis found that while the regions of North America and Asia mostly focused on auditing- and earnings-related themes, Europe and Oceania focused on management accounting, corporate social responsibility, performance measurement, public sector, and accounting history. This is an initial attempt to examine the thematic structure of the accounting field using co-word analysis.