Towards a More Inclusive Accounting Academy

Abstract

This essay provides descriptive evidence on the state of underrepresented minority (“URM”) PhD faculty in the accounting academy. The number of URMs in the accounting academy has almost tripled since the inception of The PhD Project in 1994. Despite that growth, the proportion of URM faculty in the academy remains less than 5% of all accounting PhD faculty. More than 60% of the URM faculty earn their PhDs at research-intensive institutions, however, these institutions do not generally employ accounting URM PhDs. Moreover, the employment rate for accounting URM PhDs at the nation’s top ranked universities and MBA programs remains low. URM accounting faculty representation in leadership roles at accounting journals and the American Accounting Association is also low relative to their numbers in the academy. Although URM faculty are largely excluded from leadership roles, they have made contributions to accounting research that are on par with productivity metrics for all accounting faculty (e.g., publishing 354 articles of which 126 appear in the top 3 elite accounting journals and over 200 in the top 6 (‘A') journals in the field). As the first report on the state of the academy, this essay provides a review of relevant existing literature and offers suggestions for future research on URM accounting faculty. This essay also includes recommendations for improving the recruitment and retention of URM accounting faculty, and transparency in the publication process aimed at achieving greater inclusiveness in the accounting academy.