Accounting Research Journals Research Articles

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EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

Pesquisas sobre a lei Sarbanes-Oxley: uma análise dos journals em língua inglesa

The credibility crisis in the U.S. capital market arising from various accounting scandals resulted in the publication of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in July 2002, focused on defining a set of rules in order to certify the accuracy of accounting information. Since SOX is directly reflected in financial statements, it should be took as a subject of investigation by various researchers. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the SOX studies published in accounting journals contained in the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) database on the list of journals with impact factor. Was selected eight accounting journals listed in ISI database on the list of journals with impact factor. The search included the period from 2002 to 2010 and reached a total of 23 papers in five journals. The research found that there is a concentration of publications related to SOX in the Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting & Economics and The Accounting Review. We found some homogeneity in the publications regardind the period and a group of six authors stood out from a total of 55 authors. From the 35 universities linked to the papers, 7 institutions deserve special mention in relation to the number of published researches. Internal control has been the most mentioned topic in the papers, including perspectives relating to internal control weaknesses, cost of equity, stock prices, quality of accruals and qualification and turnover of Chief Financial Officers.

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Editorial Policy

Charles T. Horngren: Mentor, Role Model, Colleague, and Friend

This expresses the feeling of inadequacy of doing justice to the life and career of Charles Thomas Horngren. Chuck, the son of William and Grace Horngren, was born on October 28, 1926, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father worked for over 40 years as a railway mail clerk on the Milwaukee Road. His father was an avid baseball fan, a passion he passed on to his son. Chuck often reminisced about his dad taking him to the baseball games and meeting many of the day’s baseball luminaries. He also had a collection of baseball memorabilia, including Yogi Berra’s autograph in his book, Yogi: It Ain’t Over. . . , co-written by Chuck’s close friend, Tom Horton. Chuck graduated from Washington High School in 1944 and joined the Army. The Army sent him to pre-engineering classes at Ripon College and to engineering classes at what is today known as Texas A&M University. After over two years in the Army, Chuck enrolled at Marquette University and was elected to Beta Alpha Psi. While at Marquette he gained an appreciation for teaching after tutoring basketball players and disabled veterans. He graduated from Marquette as valedictorian in 1949 and remained very loyal to Marquette throughout his life. Upon graduation, he joined Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. (now part of KPMG) as a staff auditor. A year later, he taught full time at Spencerian College, a commercial business college,

Inégalités sociales de santé mentale en population au travail : résultats de l’enquête nationale « santé et itinéraire professionnel » (SIP)

This study extends upon previous research into the profile and direction of social and environmental accounting research, analysing and critiquing 21 years of contemporary research in social and environmental accounting published particularly in four leading interdisciplinary accounting research journals covering the period 1988–2002 inclusive. It reflects upon selected seminal papers on the field, and presents an empirical analysis of SEA publication that updates Parker's (2005) findings. The prospect of a sharing of the territory between critical and managerialist approaches is envisaged, along with the application of multiple theoretical lenses. Social and environmental research show signs of more recent balancing between these two subject areas, while recent shifts in methodological approaches are increasingly emphasising the employment of content analysis/statistical relationships research and case/field/action/ethnograpic research. National practices/comparisons and regulations are leading topic areas occupying researchers. External disclosure, attitudinal studies and theoretical framework papers also attracted significant attention. The paper also overviews emerging research in three non-Anglo-Saxon countries and identifies leading and emerging scholars in the field. The SEA field exhibits considerable momentum, but is found to be largely driven by research and publishing infrastructure outside North American economics focussed research communities.

Author Characteristics for Major Accounting Journals: Differences among Similarities 1989–2009

ABSTRACT Many academic accountants have explicit or implicit motivations to publish their research in the best journals in the discipline. However, whether the chances of success are better at some of these journals is unknown. This paper examines the archival record to find differences within the authorship of three such publications (The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics) over a recently completed 20-year period. The journals do not differentiate according to the authors' doctoral training, but are differently sensitive to place of faculty employment. The journals are equally receptive to non-U.S. authors, but different in their receptivity to recently graduated and frequently appearing authors. Although areas of change over time are noted, both among journals and within each journal itself, the record also shows a good deal of consistency in other relationships over the 20-year period.

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

Meeting the challenge of impact investing: how can contracting practices secure social impact without sacrificing performance?

Impact investors seek financial return and positive economic, social or environmental impact. While certain segments of the impact investing industry see strong returns and high positive impact as conflicting objectives, others argue that strong performance across both objectives can be simultaneously achieved. Despite the importance of this question to the industry, no widely accepted framework exists that enables impact investors to determine whether and how they will be able to invest without a trade-off. This article draws on contract theory and the analysis of incentives in multitask principal–agent relationships in an attempt to fill the void. For impact investors, this article pioneers a theoretical framework for the discussion of strategy, offering a first set of hypotheses that can be elaborated through further theoretical work and tested against actual experience. Within contract theory, this article fits most closely alongside the applied multitask literature concerned with an agent assigned to a financial and an environmental task (Sinclair-Desgagné, B., and H. L. Gabel. 1997. “Environmental Auditing in Management Systems and Public Policy.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 33 (3): 331–346; Lothe, S., I. Myrtveit, and T. Trapani. 1999. “Compensation Systems for Improving Environmental Performance.” Business Strategy and the Environment 8 (6): 313–321; Lothe, S., and I. Myrtveit. 2003. “Compensation Systems for Green Strategy Implementation: Parametric and Non-Parametric Approaches.” Business Strategy and the Environment 12 (3): 191–203), while the theory referenced within bridges models from Holmstrom and Milgrom (1991. “Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 7: 24–52), Feltham and Xie (1994. “Performance Measure Congruity and Diversity in Multitask Principal/Agent Relations.” The Accounting Review 69 (3): 429–453) and Budde (2007. “Performance Measure Congruity and the Balanced Scorecard.” Journal of Accounting Research 45 (3): 515–539).

On 'Earnings Manipulation and the Cost of Capital': Does Accounting Matter in the Aggregate?

This article develops further results on earnings management and the cost of capital, which complement Strobl (Journal of Accounting Research, forth.). Within a simplified version of the model, I illustrate the existing linkage between earning management activities and firms' cost of capital, even if the individual fraud risk is diversifiable. I identify plausible conditions under which the cost of capital will increase with more earnings management and show that the level of managerial ownership and enforcement are important testable determinants of this association. Lastly, I argue that, in the absence of an observable aggregate wealth portfolio, whether accounting quality is informative on firms' beta or a separate risk factor are observationally equivalent propositions. I then show that an aggregate accounting quality measure would provide information about expected returns.

Developments in accounting regulation: A synthesis and annotated bibliography of evidence and commentary in the 2010 academic literature

In this article, we synthesize in annotated bibliography form, recent regulation-related findings and commentaries in the academic literature. This annotated bibliography is one in a series of bibliographies that summarizes regulation-related academic research. We reviewed academic outlets such as The Accounting Review, The Journal of Accounting Research, The Journal of Accounting and Economics, Accounting Horizons, The Journal of Accounting, Auditing & Finance, The Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, The Journal of Business, Finance & Accounting, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, and Research in Accounting Regulation. We annotate results of regulation-related research studies and key points from regulation-related commentaries.

An evaluation of research authorship by gender in major academic and professional accounting journals

The role of gender is an important issue in the accounting field, both in practice and in higher education. This study provides a longitudinal analysis of female authorship of articles published in six major accounting journals, three academic journals and three professional journals: The Accounting Review , Contemporary Accounting Research , Journal of Accounting Research , The CPA Journal , the Journal of Accountancy, and Strategic Finance . Articles are classified into 11 different research categories and comparisons of authorship by gender are made across these categories. Results reveal that female academicians are making a significantly greater contribution to accounting research than in the past, both in academic and professional journals, reflecting their increasing representation and acceptance among accounting academics. This study makes a unique contribution by its analysis regarding the factors of gender, research topic area, and practice versus academic journals. The study extends prior gender publication research by examining how female researchers’ performance has changed relative to that of males over time.

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EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

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International Developments in Executive Compensation

International Developments in Executive Compensation

Balancing the scorecard through academic accounting research: opportunity lost?

PurposeAs one of the co‐authors of the first academic research papers published in a major accounting research journal on the subject of the balanced scorecard, the author was asked to reflect on his experiences with research in this area over the last 12 years since that first paper was published. The purpose of this paper is to do this through personal reflection and a literature review.Design/methodology/approachEmploying personal reflection and a literature review, the author examines three issues: what motivated him to start this research program; the way the research program unfolded and its unintended consequences; and finally some reflections on the academic research enterprise as it is practised in North America that are reflected by the unintended consequences.FindingsThe author looks at the differences in psychology research traditions and how they shaped the research program on the balanced scorecard into an attempt to “debias” a problem rather than to bring strong human information processing theory to bear on how the scorecard dealt with some of the issues in its application. The author suggests that these different focuses explain how management accounting behavioral researchers lost an opportunity to have greater impact in the development of this performance tool.Originality/valueThe paper questions and documents limitations that arise from the reliance on an underlying psychology paradigm that focuses on human limitations, rather than one focused on aiding humans to perform better. It suggests that greater research contributions in management accounting could be obtained if more researchers focused on how management accounting information can be developed that takes advantage of human information processing strengths.

A profile of accounting research in South African accounting journals

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the profile of accounting research in the two academic accounting research journals in South Africa (Meditari Accountancy Research and SA Journal of Accounting Research) during the ten‐year period from 2000 to 2009.Design/methodology/approachThe archival research method is applied, which analyses existing data (in this case the articles published in the South African (SA) accounting research journals) to come to research conclusions. The research method used to analyse the related articles in the SA accounting research journals is based on various international studies. The following dimensions are assessed: authorship; research field; the nature of the research; and research methods. Authorship is classified by institution, and the top seven authors by relative contribution are also identified. Both empirical and theoretical work are classified separately in different research methods.FindingsThese different dimensions provide a broad‐based review of the current profile of accounting research in South Africa.Research limitations/implicationsOther refereed academic articles in the field of accounting have been published in non‐accounting specific SAPSE‐approved journals. These articles are also excluded from the scope of this research since the journals in which they are published have not been established by accounting academics specifically.Practical implicationsThe motivation for doing this research is to identify the current profile of accounting research in South Africa that could be used as a basis for future research‐related development.Originality/valueKnowledge of the profile of accounting research in South Africa could provide opportunities for scholars to expand identified research areas and explore methods that are currently under‐developed in the South African accountancy research field. The paper also acknowledges the contributions by the most prolific authors in the identified journals.

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

The Information Value of the Annual Earnings Report

This working paper is the first draft of our co-authored publication, An Empirical Evaluation of Accounting Income Numbers, Journal of Accounting Research 6, 1968, pp.159-78. While undated, it subsequently was presented at the November 1967 Seminar on the Analysis of Security Prices organized by the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) at the University of Chicago. It was included in the November 1967 Proceedings of the Seminar on the Analysis of Security Prices. In 1986, the published version received American Accounting Association’s inaugural award for Seminal Contributions to the Accounting Literature. Interest in the historical development of the paper was rekindled by the American Accounting Association appointing the authors as its 2012 co-Presidential Scholars and organizing a Plenary Session entitled “Ball & Brown [1968]: A Seed That Made a Difference” at its 2012 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION

EDITORIAL POLICY AND STYLE INFORMATION