Australian Business Deans Council Research Articles

Exploring corporate governance research in accounting journals through latent semantic and topic analyses

SummaryThe literature on corporate governance (CG) has been expanding at an unprecedented rate since major corporate scandals surfaced, such as Enron, WorldCom, and HealthSouth. Corresponding with accounting's important role in CG, accounting scholars increasingly have investigated CG in recent years, so the body of literature is growing. Although previous attempts have been made to summarize extant literature on CG via reviews, none of these attempts has utilized recent developments in text analyses and natural language processing. This study uses latent semantic and topic analyses to address this research gap by analysing abstracts from 1,399 articles in all accounting journals that the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) has rated A and A*. The ABDC journal list is widely recognized as a journal‐quality indicator across many universities worldwide. The analyses revealed 10 distinct research topics on CG in the ABDC's top accounting journals. The results presented include the five most representative articles for each topic, as distinguished by topic scores. This study carries important practice and policy implications, as it reveals major research streams and exhibits how researchers respond to various CG problems.

Corporate entrepreneurship of emerging market firms: current research and future directions

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) of emerging market firms (EMFs) and provide direction for future research on the topic.Design/methodology/approachThe authors specifically review the recent literature between the years 2000 and 2019 on CE with the keywords “corporate entrepreneurship,” “emerging economies” and “emerging countries” published in the Australian Business Deans Council list journals. The authors review the existing literature about CE in emerging markets, summarize current achievements and present an agenda for future research.FindingsBased on the review, the authors categorized the macro and micro contexts of CE and summarized the current articles on CE in emerging markets within each macro and micro context. The authors conclude that despite the abundance of research on CE that investigates the three prongs of CE in terms of innovation, strategic renewal and new venturing in developed market contexts, there is a scarcity of literature that focuses on CE in emerging markets from a holistic perspective.Originality/valueWhile there is an abundance of literature review on CE in general in terms of the drivers of the construct, the contexts contributing to it and the outcomes, the reviews are lacking about CE specifically within the context of emerging markets. Emerging markets vary from developed markets institutionally, economically, culturally, socially and technologically. However, the questions of how these differences impact the CE activities, as it relates to innovation, venturing and strategic renewal in EMFs, and how these differences provide incentives or hinder the activities that contribute to CE remain mostly unanswered. This paper reviewed the research on CE and emerging market contexts from 2000 to present. It targets to provide a better understanding of the current achievement on this topic and what to be done in the future.

Toward a better understanding of the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) list and its rankings

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the variables that drive the rating within the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) list. The list is used in so many different ways throughout academic research that a better understanding of its component parts is essential. Design/methodology/approach The 2016 list was used as a base and additional variables added. The resulting database was subjected to statistical analysis using the PLS methodology. Findings The overall finding is that the most significant driver of the ratings system is the impact factor. When this number is not available, the Cabell’s rating may be a weaker proxy. Research limitations/implications The researchers used a set of additional variables that were limited in nature. Other variables not included in the study may be included in later work and be found to have some correlation with the ABDC rating. Originality/value Given the use of the ABDC list and the paucity of work in this area, the reported research may have significant value; especially for authors working in areas where journals are “crossover” in nature.

A quarter century of management research in South Asia – II: India and Pakistan

PurposeIn part-I of this review series, research from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka was reviewed. The purpose of this paper which is part-II of the series, is to review management research from India and Pakistan over a 25-year period from 1990 to 2014.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review approach was adopted for this research. As a quality standard for inclusion, articles were restricted to journals rated A*, A, or B by the Australian Business Deans Council in 2013 and either Q1 or Q2 in the Scopus/Imago classification system. The divisions and interest groups of the Academy of Management were used as framework to organize the search results.FindingsA total of 1,039 articles related to India (n= 930) and Pakistan (n= 112) emerged from the search process, with three articles being related to both countries. The research was published in 163 different journals that met the quality criteria. The period under review coincides with the advent of economic liberalization in India and this emerged as a major theme in the India-related research. Other context-specific insights for these two countries are also derived from an ecological and institutional theory perspective.Originality/valueThis research represents the first comprehensive and systematic review of management research in India and Pakistan. As in part-I, the unique review approach allows for strict adherence to a predetermined quality standard while including a wide variety of journals and research traditions.

Mapping the evaluation results between quantitative metrics and meta-synthesis from experts’ judgements: evidence from the Supply Chain Management and Logistics journals ranking

Meta-syntheses from experts’ judgements and quantitative metrics are two main forms of evaluation. But they both have limitations. This paper constructs a framework for mapping the evaluation results between quantitative metrics and experts’ judgements such that they may be solved. In this way, the weights of metrics in quantitative evaluation are objectively obtained, and the validity of the results can be testified. Weighted average percentile (WAP) is employed to aggregate different experts’ judgements into standard WAP scores. The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is used to map quantitative results into experts’ judgements, while WAP scores are equal to the final closeness coefficients generated by the TOPSIS method. However, the closeness coefficients of TOPSIS rely on the weights of quantitative metrics. In this way, the mapping procedure is transformed into an optimization problem, and a genetic algorithm is introduced to search for the best weights. An academic journal ranking in the field of Supply Chain Management and Logistics (SCML) is used to test the validity obtained by mapping results. Four prominent ranking lists from Association of Business Schools, Australian Business Deans Council, German Academic Association for Business Research, and Comite National de la Recherche Scientifique were selected to represent different experts’ judgements. Twelve indices including IF, Eigenfactor Score (ES), H-index, Scimago Journal Ranking, and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) were chosen for quantitative evaluation. The results reveal that the mapping results possess high validity for the relative error of experts’ judgements, the quantitative metrics are 43.4%, and the corresponding best weights are determined in the meantime. Thus, some interesting findings are concluded. First, H-index, Impact Per Publication (IPP), and SNIP play dominant roles in the SCML journal’s quality evaluation. Second, all the metrics are positively correlated, although the correlation varies among metrics. For example, ES and NE are perfectly, positively correlated with each other, yet they have the lowest correlation with the other metrics. Metrics such as IF, IFWJ, 5-year IF, and IPP are highly correlated. Third, some highly correlated metrics may perform differently in quality evaluation, such as IPP and 5-year IF. Therefore, when mapping the quantitative metrics and experts’ judgements, academic fields should be treated distinctively.

Getting Published in PAJAIS: A Practical Guide from the Editors Perspective

In the previous issue, an editorial comment categorized PAJAIS articles in order to provide future authors with the necessary details on how to connect their works with PAJAIS. PAJAIS has been selected to the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) issued by Thomson Reuters Corporation; it is also recorded by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List, and the UKbased Association of Business Schools Journal Quality List. This practical guide sets out the basic essential requirements framework for what editors consider a theoretical and/or practical contribution to PAJAIS. It outlines the considerations that are a necessary part of any submission, and describes how future submissions will be evaluated.

A review of accounting research in Australasia

AbstractThis study examines recent accounting research published in 10 journals led by New Zealand and Australia based editors, namely: Abacus; Accounting and Finance; Accounting Forum; Accounting History; Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal; Australian Accounting Review; International Journal of Auditing; Meditari Accountancy Research; Pacific Accounting Review; and Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management. The paper identifies the most cited recent articles (2015–2017), and the most prolific authors, universities and geographical regions. It then reveals trends in research areas and relevance of recent accounting articles. The paper discusses the importance of the Australian Business Deans Council journal quality list in facilitating novel and relevant research, and recommends the integration of citation metrics into its ratings methodology.

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

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.

A Time-Series Analysis of the Scale of Coercive Journal Self-Citation and its Effect on Impact Factors and Journal Rankings

ABSTRACTThe growing institutional significance of impact factors and journal rankings currently stands alongside serious concerns about the scale and distorting effects of the practice of coercive journal self-citation. Survey-based studies have highlighted journals suspected of such coercion but there has been very little empirical analysis of actual citation practice and the respective impact on journal quality rankings. This paper collects information on actual self-citation trends over the period 2000–2012 for all business and management journals indexed in Journal Citation Reports and finds evidence of sudden and sharp increases in self-citation relative to outside citation. This paper also finds that two leading hybrid journal ranking systems, the UK’s 2010 Association of Business Schools (ABS) and the 2013 Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) rankings, do not discriminate between legitimate and coercive self-citation. Collectively, these findings have implications regarding the institutional reliance placed on citation counts as quantitative measures of accountability. However, the deterrent potential of our analysis, especially given the ease with which coercive self-citation behavior can be empirically detected from publicly available data, could provide an important limit on the spread of performativity.

Gender is not “a dummy variable”: a discussion of current gender research in accounting

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflect on the corpus of gender research in accounting journals, with the overall aim of evaluating the extent to which it has contributed to the understanding of the organization of accounting and its social and organizational functions.Design/methodology/approachGender articles have been critically analyzed. The selection included all gender papers published between the years 2000 and 2014, in 58 journals ranked A*, A and B from the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) journal ranking list. Patterns within the publishing norms of those journals were identified and critically reflected upon.FindingsGender research has been grouped into three categories, namely, gender as a dummy (or control) variable, gender as giving voice and gender as a process and organizing principle. Of these three categories, it can be contended that using gender as a dummy variable is very common, and it proved to be the least fruitful in explicating the roles of gender in accounting. Moreover, many published papers confuse sex with gender.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper discusses future avenues and approaches for research gender in accounting without, however, expanding on recent changes in gender research.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to systematically review gender research in the accounting field over the past three decades. Its key insight is to identify two persistent pitfalls within the current gender research practice, namely, the use of gender as a control variable only and the confusion of sex with gender. These pitfalls diminish the value of gender research overall and render it less relevant to the broader accounting literature. By using the term gender either as an add-on or, mistakenly, as a biological rather than cultural marker, the totality of those articles helps marginalize gender as an accounting research area because they fail to bring about the reconceptualization of accounting as a discipline. This stands in marked contrast to the achievements of gender approaches in other disciplines, such as sociology, history or work and employment. Articles that frequently decry the status of gender in accounting research turn out to be also reinforcing the marginalization of gender in accounting.

Grading Journals in Economics: The ABCs of the ABDC

Many institutions and governments grade academic journals for the evaluation of research. In this paper, we implement a multi‐bibliometric methodology for the evaluation of such a list of journal grades. We examine the grades assigned by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) for over 750 journals in the fields of economics and statistics. Firstly, we generate up to 48 bibliometric‐based grades for each journal based on the grade distribution implied by the ABDC. Secondly, we categorize the bibliometrics employing a cluster analysis of an interrater agreement statistic. Thirdly, we present a visualization of the consistency of the grading by journal. Finally, we list those journals where the majority of the matched bibliometrics indicate a higher or lower grade than their ABDC grade.

Contextualized indigenous entrepreneurial models: A systematic review of indigenous entrepreneurship literature

AbstractGovernmental development strategies focus on entrepreneurship as a major resource for the economic development of indigenous peoples. While initiatives and programs are locally based, there is a debate in the academic literature about how contextual factors affect the identification of indigenous entrepreneurship. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and integrate indigenous entrepreneurship literature to identify the main indigenous entrepreneurship models. Thus, a systematic literature review was conducted. In total, 25 relevant articles were identified in selected electronic databases and manual searches of Australian Business Deans Council ranked journals from January 1, 1995 to the end of 2016. Using a systematic analysis of sociocultural contexts and locations, the paper proposed that a typology of contextualized indigenous entrepreneurship models was possible, that were classified as urban, remote and rural. The parameters of these models, and their potential theoretical and practical applications to the study and practice of indigenous entrepreneurship ecosystems were also outlined.

A quarter century of management research in South Asia – I

Purpose – Research from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka has received relatively less attention of management scholars. To date, there has been no major review of the content of management research in these rapidly growing economies. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by reviewing management research in these six countries over a 25-year period from 1990 to 2014. Design/methodology/approach – An electronic search of 11 databases was carried out using 53 search terms pertaining to the field of management. Only articles in journals rated A*, A, or B by the Australian Business Deans Council and either Q1 or Q2 in the Scopus/Imago ratings were included in the study. The articles were then classified as belonging to one of the divisions of the Academy of Management. Results are presented in thematic clusters, highlighting the major focus of management research in these countries. Findings – A total of 211 articles were identified as a result of the search process. The highest number of articles (n=54) were classified under the “Public & Non-Profit.” This was the only area common to research in all six countries as represented by the selected articles. The results are reviewed from an ecological and institutional theory perspective which suggests that the various dimensions of the local environment are reflected in the type of management research emerging from these countries. The paper concludes that these countries represent “greenfield sites” in terms of research opportunities for management scholars from all over the world. Originality/value – This review approach adopted in this paper is unique and represents an attempt to be as inclusive as possible without sacrificing quality. This is the first comprehensive and systematic review of management research in these six countries.

A Report into Methodologies Underpinning Australian Law Journal Rankings. Prepared for the Council of Australian Law Deans (CALD)

Law schools face significant institutional pressure to adopt journal ranking lists that are used to inform comparative assessment of the Faculty, School and individual researcher performance. CALD has commissioned a written report that: 1. critically evaluates the methodology of up to eight Law journal lists or rankings agreed to by the parties; 2. makes recommendations about the suitability of the lists to act as a proxy for academic research quality, including suggesting revisions or modifications to methodology and reference to how to maintain the currency of any proposed list, as appropriate; 3. comments on the utility of the lists in view of the suggested purposes for which they may be used.This report is in four parts.Part One provides a brief overview of bibliometric databases and indices currently in use in the higher education sector to assess research productivity, quality and influence. New non-citation based alternative metrics for the Humanities and perception studies are also discussed. There is also discussion of the Washington & Lee journal ranking list, which underpinned the original CALD/ERA lists. An updated version informed the Deakin List. This part also contains comments on difficulties in applying existing bibliometrics to the output of Australian legal researchers.Part Two provides analysis of the following Australian law journal ranking methodologies and lists: CALD list (2009); ERA 2010; Australian Business Deans Council Journal Quality List 2013; Deakin University Law Journal Rankings; University Of Tasmania Law Journal Rankings. This part also includes tables that allow for review of the performance of particular law journals across the various ranking lists provided.Part Three addresses new developments in research assessment and current critical literature on the use and misuse of metrics. Part Four provides recommendations to guide future discussion of the use of metrics to assess legal research.

Management Learning: The journal for critical, reflexive scholarship on organization and learning

The journal’s 2-year impact factor currently stands at 1.25 and the 5-year impact factor at 1.89 in the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports (2014). In terms of 5-year trends, the journal’s mean 2-year impact factor stands at a healthy 1.37. As far as journal quality lists go, we await with interest the outcome of the revision to the United Kingdom’s Association of Business School (ABS) journal quality list to see how things stand. Further afield, the Australian Business Dean’s Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List (2013) rated Management Learning as an ‘A’ journal. However, the ABDC is right to remind us that journal lists should be only a starting point for assessing quality, and that there is no substitute for assessing the scholarship of a piece of work on a case-by-case basis. In this latter regard, the outcome of the United Kingdom’s Research Excellence Framework (unknown at the time of writing this Editorial) may also shed light on the quality, impact, and relevance of Management Learning scholarship. Management Learning has a long and respected history, the first issue being published in 1970 under the name of Management Education and Development. In 1994, the journal title changed to Management Learning, and in 2009, we celebrated our 40 th anniversary. We entered our fifth decade with the conviction and optimism that the type of scholarship the journal publishes “continues to be different” from the scholarship to be found in the mainstream management journals or that of the journals we consider our closest “relatives.” Perhaps better known in the UK, Australasia and Europe, we continually seek to expand our reach to North America and Asia to provide a forum for scholars wishing to challenge mainstream work. But we still struggle against the perception that we are a pedagogic teaching and learning journal—which clearly we are not. Rather, we publish innovative critical and reflexive scholarly work around learning, managing, and organizing—a philosophy that can be traced back to Mark Easterby-Smith and Mike Pedler’s 1986 Editorial, when in

The ghost of rankings past - The lasting harmful impact of journal rankings, and what we should do instead

A journal ranking exercise took place in 2008–2010. It tried to produce a journal ranking list with international scope and validity. It failed. The urge to rank — and to use ranking in the assessment of quality — appears to remain strong in Australian law schools. There is a risk this discredited process will be given new impetus by the latest Australian journal ranking list involving law, this time by the Australian Business Deans Council. Its list ranks 2,767 different journal titles, including selected law journals. The authors believe rankings like these should be formally abandoned for a number of reasons. First, the ranking process is difficult, arbitrary and infected by subjective opinion. This leads to perverse outcomes for legal academics whose career advancement is tied to this uncertain standard. Secondly, the urge to rank is the product of a damaging misconception of the proper role of legal academics and the legal academy. Finally, in the brave new educational world, markets will provide surprisingly nuanced and rigorous measures of quality that cannot be captured in a crude ranking.

The Decades of AEP Survival: Changes are Afoot

You may have already noticed some changes in the editorial structure of Australian Economic Papers. I have the privilege of taking over from Professor Mark Weder as Managing Editor of Australian Economic Papers. I take this opportunity to acknowledge Mark's tremendous contributions over his tenure under extremely difficult circumstances and am pleased to announce that he will continue to be involved, joining Professor Daniel Leonard in the important role of Co-Editor. With the journal in its 53rd year I am excited at the challenge of ensuring that Australian Economic Papers continues to be relevant and viable, publishing high-quality papers from leading Australian and international economists in a broad range of theoretical, empirical and policy topics. I hope that it will also provide a lively forum for scholarly debate. There has been some commentary about the journal appearing to be struggling and needing to compete for copy and contributions to ensure its survival. I acknowledge that the fortunes of the journal have waxed and waned over recent decades; however, Australian Economic Papers continues to publish high quality articles and has maintained its Level B ranking in the Australian Business Deans Council list. In addition, its Impact Factor increased in 2013. Unfortunately papers with no citations continue to be a challenge for Australian Economic Papers, however I am confident that as the journal is reinvigorated the Impact Factor will continue to increase. One of the features of the journal I would like to highlight is its global acceptance as a quality journal with a substantial increase in manuscripts being received from international authors. Traditionally, the journal has published high-quality papers from leading international economists in theoretical, empirical and policy economics. It offers a forum for debate between theorists, econometricians and policy analysts and covers an exceptionally wide range of topics. In recent years, in addition to all the major fields in economics, the journal has published papers in theoretical and empirical industrial organisation, theoretical and empirical labour economics and macro and micro policy analysis. As the new editor of the Journal, I intend to expand areas of Australian Economic Papers' focus to include high quality articles in the fields of Banking and Finance that use applied economics. This will ensure that the journal will sustain through the challenges facing economics journals in the second decade of the 21st Century and beyond. Further to these initiatives, in partnership with our publishers at Wiley I am also implementing a new electronic submission system to ensure that all authors are responded promptly, that their manuscripts are reviewed in a timely manner and that all aspects of the publication process are streamlined. Undoubtedly this will allow us to conduct proper monitoring of the submission and review process, thereby reducing the turnaround time between submission and publication of papers that are accepted. The journal has recently overcome the difficulties associated with key staff of the editorial office facing serious health issues. I am confident that the benefits of these administrative changes will quickly become apparent to everyone associated with Australian Economic Papers. I am excited at the changes we are making at the journal and hope that you will consider submitting your work to Australian Economic Papers again in the future. I am committed to the task of taking the journal successfully into the third decade of the 21st Century. The Editors particularly welcome innovative and thought-provoking contributions that work on and extend the frontiers of the subject.

The Ghost of Rankings Past The Lasting Harmful Impact of Journal Rankings, and what We Should Do Instead

Most Australian law academics will recall (many with horror) the journal ranking exercise that took place in 2008-2010. The aim then was to produce a journal ranking list with international scope and validity. Unsurprisingly, this grandiose result was not achieved and the process was abandoned in 2011 – but not before damage was done. The then Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (Senator Kim Carr) noted:"There is clear and consistent evidence that the rankings were being deployed inappropriately within some quarters of the sector, in ways that could produce harmful outcomes, and based on a poor understanding of the actual role of the rankings. One common example was the setting of targets for publication in A and A* journals by institutional research managers." The urge to rank – and to use ranking in the assessment of quality – remains strong in Australian law schools. There is a risk this discredited process will be given new impetus following the release of the latest Australian journal ranking list involving law; this time by the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC). The ABDC describes itself as ‘the authoritative and collective voice of pro vice-chancellors, executive deans and heads of all 40 business faculties and schools in Australia’. Its list ranks 2,767 different journal titles, including selected law journals. The ranking method used involved, ‘public submissions, qualitative and quantitative data assessment, public exposure feedback and international expert consultation’. Rankings like these should be formally abandoned for at least three reasons. First, as the CALD/ERA process demonstrated, the ranking process is practically difficult. It is arbitrary and infected by subjective opinion. That leads to perverse outcomes for legal academics whose career advancement is tied to this uncertain standard. Secondly, the urge to rank is the product of a damaging misconception of the proper role of legal academics and the legal academy. The rankers appear to see law as another social science rather than a professional discipline. Thirdly, the rankings have in any event been rendered redundant by the recent decision to deregulate fees. In the brave new world, markets will provide surprisingly nuanced and rigorous measures of quality that cannot be captured in a crude ranking. We explore these reasons below.

Is Policy Too Important to be Left to Empiricists? Lessons of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics

Fifty years ago, a paper entitled 'College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage' was published in a somewhat obscure journal, the American Mathematical Monthly (currently a 'B' journal, according to the Australian Business Deans Council). The research program and policy developments that have flowed from that abstract and apparently slight seven-page paper recently led to the award of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Economics to one of its authors, Lloyd Shapley. (Shapley's co-author, David Gale, died in 2008.) Shapley shared the Nobel Prize 'for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design' with US economist Alvin Roth, who has been responsible for much of the applied work that has built on Gale and Shapley's insights. The history of the path leading from the abstract Gale/Shapley insights to the design of resource allocation mechanisms in 2012 is a fascinating and instructive one for many reasons. This article tries to give the reader an idea of what this literature is about, and of the many ways in which Matching Theory has led to real improvements in the design of operational resource-allocation mechanisms.

Improving learning and teaching through a multi-institutional, discipline-specific project

Despite repeated calls to improve the quality of Australian business higher education, sector-wide improvement has been elusive. This paper presents an analysis of a multi-institutional project undertaken by the Australian Business Deans Council Teaching and Learning Network. Earlier studies of change in higher education demonstrated the need to move beyond decontextualised, one-size-fits-all models. Building on this earlier work, we suggest that processual approaches to change management, emphasising the instability of organisations rather than stability, are more appropriate within this complex context. The paper makes a case for effecting adaptive change by working with, and through, a network of associate deans. The evolution of this network and the processes that began with one collaborative project designed with a deliberate aim to identify tangible follow-on projects for sector-wide, sustainable improvement is described. The resultant positive and unfolding outcomes that became a potent vehicle for change within and beyond the duration of the original project is reported.