Academic Accounting Research Articles

Effectiveness of University Research Policy in Promoting Research Engagement among Accounting Academics in Public Universities in KwaZulu-Natal

Wiseman Nzuza, Lawrence Mpele Lekhanya
 Durban University of Technology, South Africa
 zwelihlen@dut.ac.za, lawrencel@dut.ac.za
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1st Author:
 Mr Zwelihle Wiseman Nzuza is a lecturer at the Durban University of Technology in the Department of Management Accounting
 Email address: zwelihlen@dut.ac.za
 Physical and Postal Address:
 PO Box 1334 Durban University of Technology
 Durban
 4001
 
 2nd Author:
 Dr Lawrence Mpele Lekhanya in a senior lecturer at the Durban University of Technology in the Department of Public Management & Economics
 Email address: lawrencel@dut.ac.za
 Physical and Pos
 It has been frequently observed that many academics with an accounting background are not research-oriented, whereas academics from fields in science and engineering believe strongly in research. At the present moment, public universities from KwaZulu-Natal are failing to grow accounting research outputs to at least minimum requirement of 0.50 units per year per lecturer as required by the South African government. University research policy (URP) is the main tool that can be used to promote research engagements of the academic staff. Therefore, the aim of the study was to identify the effectiveness of the URP in promoting accounting academics research engagement, with specific reference to the KwaZulu-Natal public universities. This study was census, descriptive, cross-sectional and quantitative in nature. With quantitative data gathered from a sample of 82 accounting academics. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.0 was used to determine statistical results. The study found that the URP is effective in terms of promoting the engagement of accounting academics in research activities and that it is highly significant. Based on the findings, the research concludes that the URP is valuable to grow accounting research outputs beyond existing limitations. 
 Key Words: university research policy, accounting academic staff

Undergraduate accounting students’ perception of a course in accounting research and theory

PurposeThis study aims to measure the response of undergraduate accounting students to a stand-alone course in accounting theory and research. The aim of the study was to gauge students’ perceptions of the usefulness of this course and to determine if exposure to this material would increase student interest in accounting research and in pursuing a career in academia.Design/methodology/approachThree cohorts of students enrolled in the course completed an in-class survey. The study was conducted from 2015 to 2017.FindingsThe results of the survey show that student interest in accounting research and theory increased substantially as a result of the course. Students felt that learning about accounting research and the theories used in accounting research enhanced their overall understanding of accounting and would be useful to them as accounting practitioners. This study also reports that students interested in pursuing a PhD and/or an academic career also increased.Research limitations/implicationsData were only collected at a single university and represent student perceptions only.Practical implicationsThe results of this study and the description of the course design will inform academics seeking to answer the American Accounting Association Pathways Commission’s call to integrate accounting research and education. This study also suggests a pathway towards addressing the chronic academic accounting faculty shortage. Finally, the results will be of interest to those designing undergraduate accounting curriculum.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature on the “teaching-research nexus” in accounting by providing evidence, from the perspective of undergraduate accounting students, of the usefulness of integrating research into undergraduate accounting education. While many accounting researchers view accounting research and teaching accounting as separate activities, the response from students suggests that there is value in fostering a more complementary relationship between these two activities.

Digital Accounting trends of the future – a behavioral analysis

The academic accounting literature usually applies a retrospective approach in capturing reality. Accounting topics are explored considering past implementation in the economic practice in a ‘backtesting’ approach. This is very much criticized outside academia, as academia may thereby miss the practical relevance due to this backward approach. Accounting in academia is said to therefore fail to treat real practical business issues on time as for lacking the intention to perform any predictive statements. Accounting is the language of business, however, the landscape of business is changing dramatically at breakneck speed with a technological disruption ongoing in the wake of the artificial intelligence, algorithms and robotics introduction into our contemporary economy. This paper intends to follow a prospective approach and future-oriented direction in attempting to predict the future of digital accounting. The main research question is how accounting will be impacted by digitalization and how will the dynamic business in reverse impact the future of accounting? The method applied is a qualitative. In a focus group, in which accounting experts were asked to brainstorm on future trends with regards to accounting, four mega trends were identified. Those four mega trends are: (1) Blockchain/Distributed Ledger Technology, (2) Big Data, (3) Agile organizational model and (4) artificial intelligence, which are analyzed applying a behavioral approach in this paper to assess from which accounting will be the most impacted and how. The discussion reflects on the fact that the digital accounting revolution may be completely novel as – for the very first time in a historical line of economic disruptions and market innovations – this time decision making will be given up to algorithms. The results of this conceptual paper are structured applying Scott’s model of Financial accounting to the four mega trends. The final outlook projects the need for measuring economic growth differently and legally prepare for a preponderance of artificial agents. The paper is of unprecedented value in a current market of rising corporate debt as the outlook can aid the integration of novel economic growth features derived from the new economy that are not accounted for in neither standard economic growth theory nor accounting standards.

Critical accounting scholarship and social movements: The case of rail privatisation in Britain

This paper reflects upon how accounting academics can contribute to emancipatory social change through connecting with the agency of social movements. A review of critical accounting work on rail privatisation in Britain is conducted, and a comparison is made with other instances of accounting academics working with social movements. Past work emphasises a Bourdieusian pre-occupation with intellectual autonomy from social movements. An alternative – a Gramscian understanding of the potential for ‘organic intellectuals’ to develop subaltern consciousness – is instead proposed. This frames a discussion on the similarities and differences between critical academic accounting work with rail social movements, compared to past efforts. The central questions addressed are: What ‘value’ do accounting scholars bring to social movements, and how might we judge and learn from the ‘successes’ of our activities? Is it preferable for critical academics to maintain ‘autonomy’ from the class struggle while striving to assist subaltern social movements? Does the neoliberalisation of higher education preclude social movement-orientated praxis? And, if not, how might the constraints that it poses on our activities be overcome? It is argued that a class-orientated, political praxis is both possible and desirable in the current conjecture, but more examples and studies are needed.

The Intersection of Academia and Practice: Publishing in Leading U.S. Accounting Organizations' Journals

ABSTRACTFor the period 2013–2017, we examine top contributors to five practitioner journals published by leading U.S. accounting practitioner or professional organizations, based on an analysis of the authorship of over 1,000 main articles. Further, we survey leading contributors. Our authorship analysis reveals that the leading academic institutions and academic authors in practitioner journals are more likely to be top 100 in accounting education research, rather than in traditional academic accounting research. Further, most of the academic authors are tenured faculty members, and many have extensive practice experience. While some large accounting firms are leading contributors to practitioner journals, most of the top non-academic institutions are other accounting, consulting, and law firms. The survey findings highlight that authors' key motivations to publish in practitioner journals relate to potentially contributing to/influencing practice and gaining wide readership of their work, but the formal rewards to authors often are limited.

Creating Relevance of Accounting Research (ROAR) Scores to Evaluate the Relevance of Accounting Research to Practice

The relevance of academic accounting research to practice has been frequently discussed in the accounting academy, yet very little data has been put forth in these discussions. We create relevance of accounting research (ROAR) scores by asking accounting professionals to read and evaluate the titles and abstracts of every article published in 12 leading accounting journals for the years 2016 to 2018, inclusive. These scores allow for an evidence-based evaluation and discussion of how academic accounting research is perceived by accounting professionals. The scores also allow us to identify the articles, authors, journals, and accounting topic areas that are perceived to be more relevant to accounting practice. By continuing to produce these scores in perpetuity, we expect this data to help academics and professionals better identify and utilize research relevant to the accounting profession.

Part 6: Formative and summative evaluation and action research

Evaluation is essential to the analysis of the performance of academic programmes and is a central feature of the academic accountability movement. Most study abroad programmes, however, lack evaluation protocols, even though establishing them and acting on the results would contribute to their credibility. This final section of a comprehensive account of the reform of a study abroad programme presents how CASA-Sevilla has developed evaluation strategies to inform pedagogical changes in each successive semester to improve student-learning outcomes. The programme’s aim is to achieve a 360-degree assessment by treating students holistically and including all involved faculty, staff, community partners and host families. The aim is also to be transparent in pointing out the problems in the programme’s performance and use them as an impetus for improvement. This section is written to share what we have learned in hopes of starting a more robust dialogue among study abroad programmes about evaluation.

Outcome-based education in accounting

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the operationalization of the outcome-based education (OBE) model in an accountancy study program in Sri Lanka and the impact of education frameworks on OBE.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows the case study approach to the first academic accounting study program in a Sri Lankan public sector university. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews and secondary data through a content analysis of various relevant documents. The data were analyzed thematically using the theory of constructive alignment.FindingsIn accounting, the most significant imperative for the OBE stems from normative pressures. Since the accounting education frameworks have closely followed the approach suggested in constructive alignment, the normative institutionalization of professional standards in accounting supports OBE in accounting education. The OBE approach with its diverse range of teaching and learning activities and assessment methods in accounting has yielded multi-stakeholder benefits while posing some challenges in operationalization.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper’s insights are based on a single case study in Sri Lanka and may be difficult to generalize to other countries.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical attempt to study the operationalization of the theory of constructive alignment of OBE in accounting for a study program.

Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia as historian of the Eastern Orthodox Church

ABSTRACT Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia treats the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church not as a mere academic account of separate events, but rather as a means of manifesting the self-understanding of being Orthodox in unbreakable continuity with the Early Church. He seeks also to present this identification in language suitable to an audience living in the modern West. In this task he outlines the historical background of important theological or canonical aspects of the life of the Orthodox Church (e.g. ministry, synodality etc.) in his publications and the more important critical moments of the relations between East and West, especially the so-called ‘rebaptism controversy’ in the second half of the eighteenth century. In so doing, he manages to state the distinct position of Eastern Orthodoxy without taking a polemical or biased position.

The accounting curriculum and the emergence of Big Data

Research Question: Is there a gap between the accounting curriculum and its practice in this era where Big Data analytics is potentially a vital part of accounting? Motivation: The emergence of Big Data has instigated modifications in the professional accounting world. Collecting and analysing Big Data has become a part accounting as it is beneficial. The role of university curriculums is to prepare students for the practice, so it is expected to evolve along with the profession. However, Big Data analytical skills are not included in the accounting curriculum in universities which has resulted in graduates being incompetent at workplaces because the skills they possess are obsolete. Idea: The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which the accounting curriculum is capable of equipping students with the necessary competencies to become accounting practitioners with the emergence of Big Data in the profession. It seeks to discover the level information asymmetry between the accounting curriculum and the practice. Data: 15 Interviews were conducted with accounting professors and practitioners in a bid to discover the competencies needed and what the potentially curriculum lacks. Additionally, document analysis was also used to examine learning materials provided to accounting students in form of lecture notes, coursework and examinations to support claims made by professors. Tools: interviews and content analysis were used to collect research data. Findings: It was found that the accounting curriculum is lacking adequate knowledge to equip students with the competencies to handle Big Data Analytics and has restricted accounting graduates’ capabilities. Contribution: Based on the findings, a framework has been developed which contains the necessary competencies accounting students should possess in order to be able to handle Big Data analytics. The results of this study will potentially be of interest to several stakeholders including accounting academics and professionals.

A Content Based Assessment of the Relative Quality of Leading Accounting Journals

This analysis advances faithful representation of statistical evidence as a substantive basis for assessing accounting journal research quality. The analysis builds upon recent work by Cready et al. (2019) indicating that accounting research articles commonly misrepresent null outcomes in their abstracts. Our analysis exploits this reporting deficiency to objectively assess journal reporting quality. The analysis determines misrepresentation rates for five leading general interest academic accounting journals based on direct review of article abstract contents. While all five of these journals commonly publish articles with containing such misrepresentations, the relative frequencies with which they do so differ considerably among them. Moreover, the resulting rankings vary from those commonly reported in existent accounting journal quality and impact assessments. The analysis also finds that financial and archival studies are less prone to statistical evidence misrepresentation while audit and experimental studies are more prone to engaging in such misrepresentation.

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Lies, Sex, and Suicide: Teaching Fundamental Accounting Concepts with Sordid Tales from the Seamier Side of Accounting History

ABSTRACTThe Academy of Accounting Historians has as its motto the Latin proverb praetera illuminet postera, the past illuminates the future. It is an apt motto in many ways. Certainly, many thoughtful accounting academics and professionals will consider how accounting theory and practice have evolved over time, and thereby gain a deeper insight into how both professional and scholarly endeavors should be conducted. But this AHJ Salmagundi article suggests another way by which the past can illuminate the future. Accounting history provides concrete examples of fundamental accounting concepts. And, because many of these examples are found in scandalous, shocking, and sordid events, the lessons could be more compellingly and vividly illustrated to the audience, by the operation of the rhetorical phenomena collectively known as the Aristotelean Triad.

The Past, Present, and Future of Accounting History

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to establish statistically and explain the past, present, and likely future of accounting history. The article is based on a recently constructed database of publications in accounting history from 1989 to 2016. The data reveal that the output of accounting history articles grew very rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s attributed to the increased demand from the profession for accountancy teaching in universities, out of which emerged a relatively small number of accountancy academics who took an interest in history. From the turn of the millennium the output of articles has gone into a slow secular decline largely because the growth of accountancy teaching at universities has stalled. If the downward trend continues, the viability of the discipline is threatened. However, action might be taken at least to slow the “death rattle” of accounting history feared by Radcliffe; and some suggestions for doing so are made.

A commentary on learning objectives for accounting education programs: The importance of soft skills and technical knowledge

Position statements on accounting education have generally called for an increased emphasis on developing students’ so-called soft skills in the hope that accounting graduates will be more well-rounded and productive professionals. Many accounting education programs and individual faculty members have responded to these position statements with efforts to develop, for example, students’ communication skills, ability to think critically, and ethical awareness. Largely missing from the accounting education literature has been a discussion of whether soft skills can effectively be taught or developed at the undergraduate level and whether accounting faculty members are trained or equipped to assume this responsibility. In addition, given the constrained number of credit and contact hours, efforts to develop soft skills have largely been made at the expense of covering important technical material. This paper addresses these issues and further questions the balance between soft skill development and coverage of technical accounting knowledge. Although not a zero sum proposition, it is clear that as emphasis on soft skills development increases there has to be a decreased emphasis on technical issues given the class time constraints. It should be noted that we do not take the position that developing soft skills is not important or desirable. Instead, we focus on how accounting faculty members, given their expertise, can best use the limited time they have to educate our students and to prepare them for careers as accounting professionals.

The governance of standard setting and the role of academia in Italian accounting regulation, 1942 to the present

This article provides a historical analysis of the role of the accounting academia in influencing Italian accounting regulation from the 1942 Civil Code to the present. It builds on the theory of social order to investigate the evolution of accounting regulation in accordance with the rise, dominance, and decline of the sources of social order and finds that academia has progressively lost its influence. The declining role of academia is interpreted in light of its inability to evolve from a vibrant community to a more structured association, which contributed to the lack of a unified position and of a formally acknowledged representation in the Italian standard setter. The progressive exclusion of academics also parallels the growing role of professional associations in the increasingly structured governance of standard setting. Moreover, this work highlights a progressive fading of the typical features of community and the collective identity originally characterizing Italian accounting academia.

Is the national talent project effective? Evidence from the Chinese academic accounting leading talents project

ABSTRACTBased on the list of re-examination and selection of the two sessions of China’s Academic Accounting Leading Talent Project of the Ministry of Finance, we directly evaluate the policy effect of the talent project with a Difference-in-Difference approach. We find that, compared with the talents who are not selected in the project, the chosen talents publish more papers after being selected (18.2% higher), and more articles signed as the first author. The incremental downloads and citation rates of these papers after the selection are also more significant than those of the unselected ones. A series of sensitivity test also supports our main findings. Additional research finds that the results of the talent project are more significant for scholars who published fewer papers in the past and for scholars who got doctorates degree from ‘non-985’ universities. The above findings document that Chinese government projects aimed at the selection and cultivation of talent have a significantly positive effect.

MUHASEBE ÖĞRETİM ELEMANLARININ İLGİ ALANLARINA İLİŞKİN VERİ MADENCİLİĞİNE DAYALI BİR ENVANTER ÇALIŞMASI: TÜRKİYE YÜKSEKÖĞRETİM SİSTEMİNDE BİR ARAŞTIRMA

Son yıllarda işletme dünyasında, iş yapma biçimleri ve işlem türleri açısından önemli bir dönüşüm süreci yaşanmaktadır. Üniversitelerde verilen muhasebe eğitimi, ilgi alanları itibarıyla yaşanan bu dönüşüme uyum sağlayabildiği ölçüde niteliğini yükseltecektir. Muhasebe öğretim elemanları ilgi alanları temelinde yapacakları bilimsel yayınlarla, muhasebenin işletme dünyasında yaşanan dönüşüme intibakında stratejik bir rol üstlenmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı yükseköğretim düzeyinde görev yapan muhasebe öğretim elemanlarının alt ilgi alanlarını saptamaktır. Araştırmanın verileri Yükseköğretim Kurulunun resmi internet sitesinden temin edilmiş olup 658 öğretim elemanının alt ilgi alanlarına ulaşılmıştır. Akademisyenlerin alt ilgi alanlarına ilişkin olarak oluşturulan veri havuzu üzerinde veri madenciliği uygulamaları ve frekans analizleri gerçekleştirilmiştir. Sonuç olarak öğretim elemanlarının finansal muhasebe, maliyet ve yönetim muhasebesi, denetim ve mali tablo analizi gibi muhasebenin köklü alanlarına görece daha yoğun ilgi gösterdikleri, diğer alt ilgi alanlarına olan ilgilerinin ise çok zayıf olduğu saptanmıştır.

Fad or future? Automated analysis of financial text and its implications for corporate reporting

This paper describes the current state of natural language processing (NLP) as it applies to corporate reporting. We document dramatic increases in the quantity of verbal content that is an integral part of company reporting packages, as well as the evolution of text analytic approaches being employed to analyse this content. We provide intuitive descriptions of the leading analytic approaches applied in the academic accounting and finance literatures. This discussion includes key word searches and counts, attribute dictionaries, naïve Bayesian classification, cosine similarity, and latent Dirichlet allocation. We also discuss how increasing interest in NLP processing of the corporate reporting package could and should influence financial reporting regulation and note that textual analysis is currently more of an afterthought, if it is even considered. Opportunities for improving the usefulness of NLP processing are discussed, as well as possible impediments.

Antecedents of the international association for accounting education and research (1966–1983): A review of early initiatives to develop an international academic accounting association

AbstractInterest in this topic followed examination of new data discussing several antecedent proposals for establishing an international academic accounting association in the period 1966–1983, culminating in the 1984 formation of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research (IAAER). Relevant correspondence between several academics is now publicly available in the R.J. Chambers Archive at the University of Sydney. This enables justified statements to be made about the pre‐1984 antecedents of the IAAER, thereby filling a vacuum in our understanding of the history of the organization. We initially discuss Ray Chambers’ and others’ desire for, and attempts to promote an international approach to accounting research and practice. Chambers unsuccessfully attempted to organize an international think‐tank, beginning in the mid‐1960s with something like the International Economic Association of that time. He persisted, through participation in the Accounting Researchers International Association, an elite accounting society. Eventually, those proposals were discarded as he and others like Adolf Enthoven and David Solomons proposed an international confederation of accounting educators and researchers in 1977 and 1978. Efforts of other leading accounting academics of that time, in particular Norlin Rueschhoff and Seigo Nakajima, are also shown to have influenced the eventual formation of the simplified 1984 IAAER body with, initially, its individual‐based membership and objectives. Later, IAAER would become much more like the international confederation of accounting educators and researchers that Chambers had proposed in the 1997 Berlin International Conference on Accounting Education.