Two Selected Papers About Academic Accounting Research
Subtopics (Topical Areas) and Research Methodologies
Bob Jensen
at Trinity University
Jensen Comments on the Holderness, et al. (2014) Paper
Jensen Comments on the Dunbar and Weber (2014) Paper
Introduction
Two Selected Papers About Academic Accounting Research Subtopics (Topical
Areas) and Research Methodologies Published in the February 2014 Edition of
Issues in Accounting Education, American Accounting Association, 2014 ---
Volume 29, Issue 1 (March 2014) ---
http://aaajournals.org/toc/iace/29/1
Only the abstracts are free
"What Influences Accounting Research? A Citations-Based Analysis," by
Amy E. Dunbar and David P. Weber, Issues in Accounting Education, Volume
29, Issue 1 (March 2014), pp. 1-60 ---
http://aaajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.2308/iace-50603
ABSTRACT
We compile and analyze the reference lists from papers published in nine accounting journals over the period 1996 – 2011 to identify the individual antecedent works that have been cited the most often by accounting research. We conduct our analyses separately for different topical areas (audit, financial, managerial, tax, other) and research methodologies (archival, experimental, theoretical, other). We then present and discuss lists of the individual works that are most heavily cited by each category. Our results should be useful to Ph.D. students and those who train them in identifying important prior work that continues to motivate and provide a foundation for contemporary accounting research.. . .
Our approach is based on an analysis of the reference lists from papers published in the following nine accounting journals during the period 1996 – 2011: Accounting, Organizations, and Society (AOS), Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory (AJPT), Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR), Journal of Accounting and Economics (JAE), Journal of Accounting Research (JAR), Journal of the American Taxation Association (JATA), Journal of Management Accounting Research (JMAR), Review of Accounting Studies (RAST), and The Accounting Review (TAR). We refer to the papers published in these journals as the “citing papers.” We classify each citing paper into one of five topics (auditing, financial reporting, managerial accounting, tax, and other) and one of four methodologies (archival, experimental, theoretical, and other). We then use the reference lists from the citing papers to identify the individual antecedent works that are the most heavily cited (we refer to these antecedents as the “cited works”). We conduct our analysis separately for each of the topical and methodological subfields.
"Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual
Scholars," by D. Kip Holderness Jr., Noah M. Myers, Scott L. Summers
and David A. Wood, Issues in Accounting Education, Volume 29, Issue 1
(March 2014), pp. 87-115 ---
http://aaajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.2308/iace-50603
ABSTRACT
Previous rankings of accounting literature have largely ignored the subtopic of accounting education research. Given the important role that rankings play in creating incentives and benchmarks, ranking education research may improve both the quality and quantity of research in this subtopic. This paper ranks academic institutions and individual accounting researchers based on their production of accounting education research. We show that the correlation between education research rankings and singular, noneducation research rankings is very low (i.e., ranges from 0.20 to 0.31), emphasizing the importance of considering education rankings separately from other topical areas in accounting research. We also provide evidence of the institutional factors that contribute to producing accounting education research and when professors produce this type of research in their careers. These findings will likely be of interest to current faculty, administrators, and industry leaders as they make decisions based on accounting education research.. . .
To create the education rankings we start by using an index of 11 major academic accounting journals first created by Coyne et al. (2010). Coyne et al. (2010) examine all articles published since 1990 in the following journals: Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS); Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory (Auditing); Behavioral Research in Accounting (BRIA); Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR); Journal of Accounting & Economics (JAE); Journal of Accounting Information Systems (JIS); Journal of Accounting Research (JAR); Journal of Management Accounting Research (JMAR); The Journal of the American Taxation Association (JATA); Review of Accounting Studies (RAST); and The Accounting Review (TAR). From these journals, we include all peer-reviewed, education-related articles for examination in this study. In addition to these journals, we add the education journals Issues in Accounting Education (IAE) and Journal of Accounting Education (JAED).
Articles from six of these journals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) are included because of their consistent rating in numerous studies as top-tier accounting journals (e.g., see discussions in Glover, Prawitt, and Wood [2006] and Glover, Prawitt, Summers, and Wood [2012]). Coyne et al. (2010) included five additional journals (Auditing, BRIA, JATA, JIS, and JMAR) in topical areas that are underrepresented by the top-tier journals (Bonner et al. 2006).7 Because research in education spans all topical areas of accounting, it is important to have representative coverage from each area, as well as the top accounting education journals; thus, we include education-related articles and cases from these five journals in our index.
. . .
Ranking Methodology
To create the rankings, we index all peer-reviewed, education-related articles and cases published in the aforementioned journals between 1990 and 2012. To be consistent with previous studies, we do not include articles that were not peer-reviewed such as discussion papers, invited articles, and editor’s comments. While significant effort has been put into producing these articles, they have not gone through the same rigorous peer-review process and we therefore do not include them in our rankings.To create our index, one author scanned an online listing of each article in each of the journals during the sample period and copied information about the article such as title, publication date, volume and issue number, and authorship into a database. Each article was then classified as either education research or educational case by two authors (we discuss the distinction between these classifications subsequently). Disagreements were discussed and resolved among all authors.
In previous research studies ( Coyne et al. 2010 ; Stephens et al. 2010; Pickerd et al. 2011 ), the rankings were separated by research methodology, as well as topical area to enrich the resulting data. As introduced earlier, our goal with this study is to highlight institutions and individuals that excel in producing educational research, which inherently covers all topical areas of accounting. Thus, our sample and methodology differ from that of prior research in that no effort is made to distinguish programs or individuals within the combined topical areas of education and AIS, audit, financial, managerial, and tax. Rather, we simply show educational research rankings in aggregate for a particular institution or individual. Essentially, we treat educational research as its own topical area independent of prior classification by other work.
With regards to research methodology, we recognize that education research uses a more diverse set of research methodologies than the methods categorized by Coyne et al. (2010 ) (i.e., archival, analytical, or experimental). Thus, rather than categorize research by the methodology used to produce the research, we categorize the research by the intended use of the research. We categorize research into studies that aim to help facilitate teaching (e.g., educational cases, which are mostly unique to education journals) and those that focus on any of the additional aspects of accounting education previously discussed. We therefore separate articles into two methodological categories: (1) educational cases, and (2) all other education articles, which we simply label ‘‘ other. ’’ This distinction is important because it will provide more relevant information to decision makers about the character of research an individual or institution has produced. For example, a school with a heavier emphasis on creating teaching materials may be interested to know which individuals or institutions have most actively produced materials that facilitate student learning
Jensen Comments on the Holderness, et al. Paper
The Holderness, Myers, Summers and Wood (2014) paper Examines all references in 11 academic accounting research journals and subjectively identifies published papers in accounting education (including learning topics).
The findings of this study that I think are the most important are as follows:
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of the number of education articles in each of the different journals. Not surprising, the vast number of education articles are published in IAE and JAED . Somewhat surprising is the almost complete lack of education articles published in all other journals, with the exception of JIS . Less than 3 percent of articles published in the journals other than IAE , JAED , and JIS are related to education research ( just over 17 percent of the articles published in JIS are education oriented).
The lack of education articles in AAA sponsored journals may be due, in part, to the IAE journal. Authors, reviewers, and journal editors may believe that education research should only be published in IAE and not other AAA journals. While each journal has its particular mission, this practice may be highly problematic for the production of education research if institutions do not consider IAE to be of sufficient quality when making promotion and tenure decisions and other faculty evaluations. Given that Glover et al. (2006 ) and Glover et al.(2012) do not include IAE in the top 15 journal categories (which can be interpreted as the ‘‘ A ’’ and ‘‘ A ’’ journals), but include it in the top 25 journals, it is likely that this is the case at many academic institutions.
The problem is only exacerbated by the relatively low rates of education research published in the non-AAA journals. While we do not know from this data whether journals are not publishing education research because of a lack of submissions or because journals (i.e., editors and reviewers) are unwilling to publish the research ( Kachelmeier 2009 , 2010 , 2011 ), the lack of publications in highly respected journals is likely problematic for future production of education research. If faculty receive no ‘‘ credit ’’ for publishing accounting education research, the quantity, and perhaps also the quality, of accounting education research will likely diminish over time.
Rather than attribute the low interest of accounting education researchers in education research to the top research journal biases against education research issue and the "credit for publishing" issue, I am more inclined to attribute the lack of interest on education research to the lack of commercial accounting education databases that can be purchased. Although there are numerous education research databases that can be purchased or are provided free by the government, these databases are usually more broadly focused and do not have extensive data on the subtopic of accounting education and accounting learning.
Take, for example, The Accounting Review (TAR) which is one of the top choices, if not the foremost choice, for academic accounting researchers. I scanned all six issues of TARpublished in 2013 to detect what public databases were (usually at relatively heavy fees for a system of databases) in the 72 articles published in 2013 in The Accounting Review (TAR). The outcomes were as follows:
|
Databases |
30.8% |
Miscellaneous public databases used infrequently |
|
27 |
29.7% |
Compustat --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compustat |
|
18 |
19.8% |
CRSP --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Research_in_Security_Prices |
|
13 |
14.3% |
Datastream --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomson_Financial |
|
05 |
5.5% |
Audit Analytics --- http://www.auditanalytics.com/ |
|
91 |
100.0% |
Total Purchased Public Databases |
|
8 |
|
Non-public Databases (usually experiments) and mathematical analysis studies with no data |
|
|
0 |
Non-accountics articles that do not feature equations |
Many of these 72 articles by TAR in 2013 used more than one public database, and when the Compustat and CRSP joint database was used I counted one for the Compustat Database and one for the CRSP Database. Most of the non-public databases are behavioral experiments using students as surrogates for real-world decision makers.
My opinion is that 2013 is a typical year where over 90% of the articles published in TAR used public databases. The good news is that most of these public databases are enormous, thereby allowing for huge samples for which statistical inference is probably superfluous. For very large samples even miniscule differences are significant for hypothesis testing making statistical inference testing superfluous: The bad news is that the research findings are that findings are limited to only the variables that happen to be in the purchased databases that may overlook important causal factor variables not in the data. “Measurement effort abounds” while accountics scientists continue on paths of “comfortable path of sameness.”In my opinion academic accountants would flock to accounting education and learning research if there were public databases available that could do for accounting education research what the above databases popular in TAR research do for financial accounting research. Academic accounting researchers love to study public data surrounding key events such as events of new reporting regulations or tax law changes.
Those same events impact on education, but there are no
public databases collecting data for those impacts.
For example, when the FASB issued a revision of FAS 123 into FAS 123R requiring
the booking of employee stock options as expenses the Compustat database
captured the impact on financial statements and the CRSP database captured the
impact on stock prices. But there was no database that captured the impact on
accounting curricula in colleges and universities. Accounting education
researchers would have to create a new database on this issue.
When the FASB issued a revision of FAS 133 requiring the booking forward contracts and swap derivative financial instruments, the Compustat database captured the impact on financial statements and the CRSP database captured the impact on stock prices. But there was no database that captured the impact of FAS 133 on accounting curricula in colleges and universities. Accounting education researchers would have to create a new database on this issue. I hypothesize that the impact of FAS 133 on accounting curricula (and the CPA Examination) was and still is rather minimal because accounting students do not traditionally have the background in the complexities of derivative financial instruments contracts like interest rate swaps.
Creating new databases from scratch is tedious, costly, and risky in real science, and accountics scientists like to avoid such data collection controversies by purchasing available databases. Of course there are behavioral experiments conducted by a small subset of accountics scientists, and those same behavioralists skilled in experimentation also tend to conduct accounting education as well as financial and managerial experiments. But such research is subject to all sorts of risks regarding data issues that are avoided by archival researchers beating purchased database piñatas with econometrics sticks.
My opinion is that accounting education research, like accounting practice research, is more tedious, costly, and exposes researchers to critical review of the data they collect. Academic accounting researchers have grown accustomed to using publically available data that have many limitations, but the limitations of the data cannot be attributed to the researchers using that data. Limitations in databases available to the public like census data are tend to be overlooked, in my opinion, more that limitations of data collected by researchers and later analyzed. It's just a heck of a lot easier to buy data than to collect data not yet available.
Conclusion
Thus I'm not at all surprised that D. Kip Holderness Jr., Noah M. Myers, Scott
L. Summers and David A. Wood found much less interest among academic accounting
researchers to conduct research in accounting education relative to conducting
research that for which the databases can be purchased.
Another Constraint on Academic Accounting Research is That
Articles Have to be Readable in English
Articles in the leading academic accounting research journals over the past
few decades are written in a lot of mathematical and statistical jargon aimed at
other researchers sufficiently trained in accountics science to understand this
jargon. Accountics scientists avoid communicating their research for more
readible audiences ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
Accountics scientists trying to reach wider audiences of accounting teachers and practitioners must change how they prefer to communicate. Some are just not interested in conducting research and communicating in ways other than mathematical and statistical jargon.
Jensen Comments on the Dunbar and Weber paper
The Dunbar and Weber (2014) is a citations-based study and includes the traditional advantages and limitations of citations. The advantages are that in a given journal the reference lists for each paper make tracking of citations relatively simple, albeit tedious. Oft repeated citations point to papers that researchers should look for for topic inspiration and methodologies. The disadvantages are that reasons for including an article in the reference list can be many and highly varied.
Asymmetric Differences in Academic Accounting Research Citations
What Dunbar and Weber (2014) fail to report is that previous researchers find
little evidence that academic accounting research is often cited by researchers
in other academic disciplines. Using the results of some research by Ed Swanson
in her Presidential Message to the American Accounting Association (AAA) in
August, 2005, Judy Rayburn discussed the issue of the relatively low citation
rate of accounting research compared to citation rates for research in finance,
management, and marketing. Rayburn concluded that the low citation rate for
accounting research was due to a lack of diversity in topics and research
methods.
Accounting research is different
from other business disciplines in the area of citations: Top-tier accounting
journals in total have fewer citations than top-tier journals in finance,
management, and marketing. Our journals are not widely cited
outside our discipline. Our top-tier journals as a group project too
narrow a view of the breadth and diversity of (what should count as) accounting
research.
Rayburn, J.D. (2006) “President’s Message,” Accounting Education News 33
(1): 1-4.
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm
Oft-Cited Papers May Give Rise to Methodologies That Avoid Data Collection
and Varied Research Problems Not Tractable With Mathematics
Although I rant and complain about accountics science takeover of virtually
all of our North American accounting doctoral programs and top academic
accounting journals, I feel an obligation to point out that virtually all the
most frequently cited papers since 1992 are accountics science papers. By
this I mean that they all feature equations such that only only methodologies
using mathematics and statistics models come out on top in terms of the nine
journals examined by Dunbar and Weber:
. . . nine accounting journals during the period 1996 – 2011: Accounting, Organizations, and Society (AOS), Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory (AJPT), Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR), Journal of Accounting and Economics (JAE), Journal of Accounting Research (JAR), Journal of the American Taxation Association (JATA), Journal of Management Accounting Research (JMAR), Review of Accounting Studies (RAST), and The Accounting Review (TAR).
Panel A: Accounting works in the top 25 based on citation counts (published since 1994)
1 / 1
Feltham and Xie (1994)
Performance measure congruity and diversity in multi-task principal/agent relations
4 / 8
Kaplan and Norton (1996)
The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action
5 / 9
Banker and Datar (1989)
Sensitivity, precision, and linear aggregation of signals for performance evaluation
7 / 11
Horngren (1962)*
Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis
8 / 13
Kaplan and Norton (1992)
The balanced scorecard - Measures that drive performance
9 / 17
Baiman (1990)
Agency research in managerial accounting: A second look
10 / 3
Ittner and Larcker (2001)
Assessing empirical research in managerial accounting: A value-based management perspective
11 / 20
Simons (1995)
Levers of Control: How Managers Use Innovative Control Systems to Drive Strategic Renewal
12 / 15
Ittner and Larcker (1998)
Innovations in performance measurement: Trends and research implications
13 / 22
Ittner, Larcker, and Rajan (1997)
The choice of performance measures in annual bonus contracts
14 / 24
Simons (1987)
Accounting control systems and business strategy: An empirical analysis
15 / 12
Lambert (2001)
Contracting theory and accounting
16 / 27
Abernethy and Lillis (1995)
The impact of manufacturing flexibility on management control system design
16 / 5
Luft and Shields (2003)
Mapping management accounting: Graphics and guidelines for theory-consistent empirical research
19 / 6
Chenhall (2003)
Management control systems design within its organizational context: Findings from contingency-based research and directions for the future
19 / 29
Govindarajan and Gupta (1985)
Linking control systems to business unit strategy: Impact on performance
19 / 29
Simons (1990)
The role of management control systems in creating competitive advantage: New perspectives
23 / 7
Ittner, Larcker, and Meyer (2003)
Subjectivity and the weighting of performance measures: Evidence from a balanced scorecard
24 / 33
Antle and Eppen (1985)
Capital rationing and organizational slack in capital budgeting
24 / 33
Lambert and Larcker (1987)
An analysis of the use of accounting and market measures of performance in executive compensation contracts
Panel B: Accounting works in the top 25 based on citation rates (only those not already included in Panel A)
27 / 18
Banker, Potter, and Srinivasan (2000)
An empirical investigation of an incentive plan that includes nonfinancial performance measures
27 / 25
Ittner and Larcker (1998)
Are nonfinancial measures leading indicators of financial performance? An analysis of customer satisfaction
32 / 16
Datar, Kulp, and Lambert (2001)
Balancing performance measures
45 / 14
Sprinkle (2003)
Perspectives on experimental research in managerial accounting
77 / 21
Ittner, Larcker, and Randall (2003)
Performance implications of strategic performance measurement in financial services firms
100 / 23
Ahrens and Chapman (2004)
Accounting for flexibility and efficiency: A field study of management control systems in a restaurant chain
The only papers that are not accountics science papers (papers with
complicated equations) are those of Kaplan and Norton and Horngren (1962). In 1987 departing TAR Editor
Gary Sundem mentioned that having equations was quickly becoming a necessary
condition for publication in TAR ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm
It appears to also similar in the other
journals in the Dunbar and Weber (2014) study. If you are familiar with the
papers cited that were authored before 1980 you will note that having equations
in leading cited articles was very, very infrequent. Hence accountics science really
took over our leading accounting research journals in the 1980s and never let
go.
Sometimes oft-cited methodologies become popular for the wrong reasons
The Ball and Brown (1968) is an accountics science study in the sense that it
features econometrics methodology that allows researchers to stir the pot of
purchased databases like Compustat, CRSP, AuditAnalytics, and Datastream.
Researchers thereby can proceed without having to incur the labor, cost, and
risks of collecting their own data and report seemingly "scientific"
econometrics outcomes. They impress with mathematics even though the accounting
conclusions are not especially interesting.
"A Scrapbook on What's Wrong with the Past, Present and Future of Accountics Science"
Bob Jensen
February 19, 2014
SSRN Download: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2398296Abstract
For operational convenience I define accountics science as research that features equations and/or statistical inference. Historically, there was a heated debate in the 1920s as to whether the main research journal of academic accounting, The Accounting Review (TAR) that commenced in 1926, should be an accountics journal with articles that mostly featured equations. Practitioners and teachers of college accounting won that debate.
TAR articles and accountancy doctoral dissertations prior to the 1970s seldom had equations. For reasons summarized below, doctoral programs and TAR evolved to where in the 1990s there where having equations became virtually a necessary condition for a doctoral dissertation and acceptance of a TAR article. Qualitative normative and case method methodologies disappeared from doctoral programs.
What’s really meant by “featured equations” in doctoral programs is merely symbolic of the fact that North American accounting doctoral programs pushed out most of the accounting to make way for econometrics and statistics that are now keys to the kingdom for promotion and tenure in accounting schools ---
The purpose of this paper is to make a case that the accountics science monopoly of our doctoral programs and published research is seriously flawed, especially its lack of concern about replication and focus on simplified artificial worlds that differ too much from reality to creatively discover findings of greater relevance to teachers of accounting and practitioners of accounting. Accountics scientists themselves became a Cargo Cult.
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
One of the many problems of popular citations is that "cults" may form around popular citations that become dysfunctional to research ideas and alternate methodologies. The best known example here is the Ball and Brown (1968) oft-cited accountics science paper. I was at the University of Chicago conference in 1967 when doctoral students Ball and Brown first presented their paper. It was generally concluded, by the authors themselves, that this was not especially great research and failed in an effort to get at what the authors were initially seeking. But it was impressive in the use of econometrics on a public database.
Researchers thus drawn into accountics science (accounting research featuring complicated equations) may, thereby, go overboard in shutting out all methodologies that do not feature mathematics and statistics. Over three decades later one of the authors, Phil Brown, belatedly warns that their oft-cited Ball and Brown (1968) had too much influence on future generations of accounting researchers.
"How Can We Do Better?" by Phillip R. Brown (of Ball and Brown Fame), Accounting Horizons (Forum on the State of Accounting Scholarship), December 2013 ---
http://aaajournals.org/doi/full/10.2308/acch-10365
Not FreePhilip R. Brown AM is an Honorary Professor at The University of New South Wales and Senior Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Western Australia.
I acknowledge the thoughtful comments of Sudipta Basu, who arranged and chaired this session at the 2012 American Accounting Association (AAA) Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.
The video presentation can be accessed by clicking the link in Appendix A.
Corresponding author: Philip R. Brown AM. Email: philip.brown@uwa. edu. au When Sudipta Basu asked me whether I would join this panel, he was kind enough to share with me the proposal he put to the conference organizers. As background to his proposal, Sudipta had written:
Analytical and empirical researchers generate numerous results about accounting, as do logicians reasoning from conceptual frameworks. However, there are few definitive tests that permit us to negate propositions about good accounting.
This panel aims to identify a few “most wrong” beliefs held by accounting experts—academics, regulators, practitioners—where a “most wrong” belief is one that is widespread and fundamentally misguided about practices and users in any accounting domain.
While Sudipta's proposal resonated with me, I did wonder why he asked me to join the panel, and whether I am seen these days as just another “grumpy old man.” Yes, I am no doubt among the oldest here today, but grumpy? You can make your own mind on that, after you have read what I have to say.
This essay begins with several gripes about editors, reviewers, and authors, along with suggestions for improving the publication process for all concerned. The next section contains observations on financial accounting standard setting. The essay concludes with a discussion of research myopia, namely, the unfortunate tendency of researchers to confine their work to familiar territory, much like the drunk who searches for his keys under the street light because “that is where the light is.”
ON EDITORS AND REVIEWERS, AND AUTHORS I have never been a regular editor, although I have chaired a journal's board of management and been a guest editor, and I appointed Ray Ball to his first editorship (Ray was the inaugural editor of the Australian Journal of Management). I have, however, reviewed many submissions for a whole raft of journals, and written literally hundreds of papers, some of which have been published. As I reflect on my involvement in the publications process over more than 50 years, I do have a few suggestions on how we can do things better. In the spirit of this panel session, I have put my suggestions in the form of gripes about editors, reviewers, and authors.
One-eyed editors—and reviewers—who define the subject matter as outside their journal's interests are my first gripe; and of course I except journals with a mission that is stated clearly and in unequivocal terms for all to see. The best editors and the best reviewers are those who are open-minded who avoid prejudging submissions by reference to some particular set of questions or modes of thinking that have become popular over the last five years or so. Graeme Dean, former editor of Abacus, and Nick Dopuch, former editor of the Journal of Accounting Research, are fine examples, from years gone by, of what it means to be an excellent editor.
Editors who are reluctant to entertain new ways of looking at old questions are a second gripe. Many years ago I was asked to review a paper titled “The Last Word on …” (I will not fill in the dots because the author may still be alive.) But at the time I thought, what a strange title! Can any academic reasonably believe they are about to have the last say on any important accounting issue? We academics thrive on questioning previous works, and editors and their reviewers do well when they nurture this mindset.
My third gripe concerns editors who, perhaps unwittingly, send papers to reviewers with vested interests and the reviewers do not just politely return the paper to the editor and explain their conflict of interest. A fourth concerns editors and reviewers who discourage replications: their actions signal a disciplinary immaturity. I am referring to rejecting a paper that repeats an experiment, perhaps in another country, purely because it has been done before. There can be good reasons for replicating a study, for example if the external validity of the earlier study legitimately can be questioned (perhaps different outcomes are reasonably expected in another institutional setting), or if methodological advances indicate a likely design flaw. Last, there are editors and reviewers who do not entertain papers that fail to reject the null hypothesis. If the alternative is well-reasoned and the study is sound, and they can be big “ifs,” then failure to reject the null can be informative, for it may indicate where our knowledge is deficient and more work can be done.1
It is not only editors and reviewers who test my emotional state. I do get a bit short when I review papers that fail to appreciate that the ideas they are dealing with have long yet uncited histories, sometimes in journals that are not based in North America. I am particularly unimpressed when there is an all-too-transparent and excessive citation of works by editors and potential reviewers, as if the judgments of these folks could possibly be influenced by that behavior. Other papers frustrate me when they are technically correct but demonstrate the trivial or the obvious, and fail to draw out the wider implications of their findings. Then there are authors who rely on unnecessarily coarse “control” variables which, if measured more finely, may well threaten their findings.2 Examples are dummy variables for common law/code law countries, for “high” this and “low” that, for the presence or absence of an audit/nomination/compensation committee, or the use of an industry or sector variable without saying which features of that industry or sector are likely to matter and why a binary representation is best. In a nutshell, I fear there may be altogether too many dummies in financial accounting research!
Finally, there are the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) papers that fit into the category of what I describe as “before and after studies.” They focus on changes following the adoption of IFRS promulgated by the London-based International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). A major concern, and I have been guilty too, is that these papers, by and large, do not deal adequately with the dynamics of what has been for many countries a period of profound change. In particular, there is a trade-off between (1) experimental noise from including too long a “before” and “after” history, and (2) not accommodating the process of change, because the “before” and “after” periods are way too short. Neither do they appear to control convincingly for other time-related changes, such as the introduction of new accounting and auditing standards, amendments to corporations laws and stock exchange listing rules, the adoption of corporate governance codes of conduct, more stringent compliance monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, or changes in, say stock, market liquidity as a result of the introduction of new trading platforms and protocols, amalgamations among market providers, the explosion in algorithmic trading, and the increasing popularity among financial institutions of trading in “dark pools.”
ON FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARD SETTING I count a number of highly experienced financial accounting standard setters among my friends and professional acquaintances, and I have great regard for the difficulties they face in what they do. Nonetheless, I do wonder
. . .
ON RESEARCH MYOPIA A not uncommon belief among academics is that we have been or can be a help to accounting standard setters. We may believe we can help by saying something important about whether a new financial accounting standard, or set of standards, is an improvement. Perhaps we feel this way because we have chosen some predictive criterion and been able to demonstrate a statistically reliable association between accounting information contained in some database and outcomes that are consistent with that criterion. Ball and Brown (1968, 160) explained the choice of criterion this way: “An empirical evaluation of accounting income numbers requires agreement as to what real-world outcome constitutes an appropriate test of usefulness.” Note their reference to a requirement to agree on the test. They were referring to the choice of criterion being important to the persuasiveness of their tests, which were fundamental and related to the “usefulness” of U.S. GAAP income numbers to stock market investors 50 years ago. As time went by and the financial accounting literature grew accordingly, financial accounting researchers have looked in many directions for capital market outcomes in their quest for publishable results.
Research on IFRS can be used to illustrate my point. Those who have looked at the consequences of IFRS adoption have mostly studied outcomes they believed would interest participants in equity markets and to a less extent parties to debt contracts. Many beneficial outcomes have now been claimed,4 consistent with benefits asserted by advocates of IFRS. Examples are more comparable accounting numbers; earnings that are higher “quality” and less subject to managers' discretion; lower barriers to international capital flows; improved analysts' forecasts; deeper and more liquid equity markets; and a lower cost of capital. But the evidence is typically coarse in nature; and so often the results are inconsistent because of the different outcomes selected as tests of “usefulness,” or differences in the samples studied (time periods, countries, industries, firms, etc.) and in research methods (how models are specified and variables measured, which estimators are used, etc.). The upshot is that it can be difficult if not impossible to reconcile the many inconsistencies, and for standard setters to relate reported findings to the judgments they must make.
Despite the many largely capital market outcomes that have been studied, some observers of our efforts must be disappointed that other potentially beneficial outcomes of adopting IFRS have largely been overlooked. Among them are the wider benefits to an economy that flow from EU membership (IFRS are required),5 or access to funds provided by international agencies such as the World Bank, or less time spent by CFOs of international companies when comparing the financial performance of divisions operating in different countries and on consolidating the financial statements of foreign subsidiaries, or labor market benefits from more flexibility in the supply of professionally qualified accountants, or “better” accounting standards from pooling the skills of standard setters in different jurisdictions, or less costly and more consistent professional advice when accounting firms do not have to deal with as much cross-country variation in standards and can concentrate their high-level technical skills, or more effective compliance monitoring and enforcement as regulators share their knowledge and experience, or the usage of IFRS by “millions (of small and medium enterprises) in more than 80 countries” (Pacter 2012), or in some cases better education of tomorrow's accounting professionals.6 I am sure you could easily add to this list if you wished.
In sum, we can help standard setters, yes, but only in quite limited ways.7 Standard setting is inherently political in nature and will remain that way as long as there are winners and losers when standards change. That is one issue. Another is that the results of capital markets studies are typically too coarse to be definitive when it comes to the detailed issues that standard setters must consider. A third is that accounting standards have ramifications extending far beyond public financial markets and a much more expansive view needs to be taken before we can even hope to understand the full range of benefits (and costs) of adopting IFRS.
Let me end my remarks with a question: Have Ball and Brown (1968)—and Beaver (1968) for that matter, if I can bring Bill Beaver into it—have we had too much influence on the research agenda to the point where other questions and methods are being overlooked?
February 27, 2014 Reply from Paul Williams
Bob,
If you read that last Horizon's section provided by "thought leaders" you realize the old guys are not saying anything they could not have realized 30 years ago. That they didn't realize it then (or did but was not in their interest to say so), which led them to run journals whose singular purpose seemed to be to enable they and their cohorts to create politically correct academic reputations, is not something to ask forgiveness for at the end of your career.Like the sinner on his deathbed asking for God's forgiveness , now is a hell of a time to suddenly get religion. If you heard these fellows speak when they were young they certainly didn't speak with voices that adumbrated any doubt that what they were doing was rigorous research and anyone doing anything else was the intellectual hoi polloi.
Oops, sorry we created an academy that all of us now regret, but, hey, we got ours. It's our mess, but now we are telling you its a mess you have to clean up. It isn't like no one was saying these things 30 years ago (you were as well as others including yours truly) and we have intimate knowledge of how we were treated by these geniuses
Oft-Cited Papers Can Lead to "Intertemporal Sameness" of Research
Accountics scientists mostly communicate with each other through their
citations. Thus
they are mostly gaming in Plato's Cave and having little impact on the
outside world, which is a major criticism raised by then AAA President Judy
Rayburn and Roger Hermanson and others
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm
Also see
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
"Some Thoughts About Accounting Scholarship," by Joel Demski, AAA President's Message, Accounting Education News, Fall 2001
http://aaahq.org/pubs/AEN/2001/Fall2001.pdf (Emphasis added). . .
A second indicator is our journals. They have proliferated in number. But we struggle with an intertemporal sameness, with incremental as opposed to discontinuous attempts to move our thinking forward, and with referee intrusion and voyeurism. Value relevance is a currently fashionable approach to identifying statistical regularities in the financial market arena, just as a focus on readily observable components of compensation is a currently fashionable dependent variable in the compensation arena. Yet we know measurement error abounds, that other sources of information are both present and hardly unimportant, that compensation is broad-based and intertemporally managed, and that compensating wage differentials are part of the stew. Yet we continue on the comfortable path of sameness.
Continued in article
Probably the worst casualty in terms of "sameness" is the entire set North American accountancy doctoral programs
The Pathways Commission Implementing Recommendations for the Future of Accounting Education: The First Year Update
American Accounting Association
August 2013
http://commons.aaahq.org/files/3026eae0b3/Pathways_Update_FIN.pdf
Page 109 (emphasis added)Promote accessibility of doctoral education by allowing for flexible content and structure in doctoral programs and developing multiple pathways for degrees. The current path to an accounting Ph.D. includes lengthy, full-time residential programs and research training that is for the most part confined to quantitative rather than qualitative methods. More flexible programs -- that might be part-time, focus on applied research and emphasize training in teaching methods and curriculum development -- would appeal to graduate students with professional experience and candidates with families,
Accountics Scientists Became a Cargo Cult Citing One Another but Seldom Are Rarely Cited Outside Their Cult
George Ellis, for instance, reviewing Leonard Susskind’s book the Cosmic Landscape, concluded that “heavyweight physicists” are claiming to prove the existence of parallel universes “even though there is no chance of observing them.” Along similar lines, Michael Atiyah, commenting on another book about theoretical physics, Lawrence Krauss’s Hiding in the Mirror, observed that there is no danger of a “”mathematical take-over” of physics, leading o speculations that, while mathematically elegant, are “far removed, or even alien to, physical reality.”
Pigliucci (2010, P. 25)How Can Accounting Researchers Become More Innovative? by Sudipta Basu, Accounting Horizons, December 2012, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 851-87 ---
http://aaajournals.org/doi/full/10.2308/acch-10311In a commencement address at Caltech titled Cargo Cult Science, Richard Feynman (1974) discussed science, pseudoscience, and learning how not to fool yourself. He argued that despite great efforts at scientific research, little progress was apparent in school education. Reading and mathematics scores kept declining, despite schools adopting the recommendations of experts. Feynman (1974, 11) dubbed fields like these Cargo Cult Sciences, explaining the term as follows:
In the South Seas there is a Cargo Cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same things to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas he's the controller and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
Feynman (1974) argued that the key distinction between a science and a Cargo Cult Science is scientific integrity: [T]he idea is to give all of the information to help others judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another. In other words, papers should not be written to provide evidence for one's hypothesis, but rather to report everything that you think might make it invalid. Furthermore, you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist.
Even though more and more detailed rules are constantly being written by the SEC, FASB, IASB, PCAOB, AICPA, and other accounting experts (e.g., Benston et al. 2006), the number and severity of accounting scandals are not declining, which is Feynman's (1969) hallmark of a pseudoscience. Because accounting standards often reflect standard-setters' ideology more than research into the effectiveness of different alternatives, it is hardly surprising that accounting quality has not improved. Even preliminary research findings can be transformed journalistically into irrefutable scientific results by the political process of accounting standard-setting. For example, the working paper results of Frankel et al. (2002) were used to justify the SEC's longstanding desire to ban non-audit services in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, even though the majority of contemporary and subsequent studies found different results (Romano 2005). Unfortunately, the ability to bestow status by invitation to select conferences and citation in official documents (e.g., White 2005) may let standard-setters set our research and teaching agendas (Zeff 1989). Academic Accounting and the Cult of Statistical Significance.
Ziliak and McCloskey (2008) argue that, in trying to mimic physicists, many biologists and social scientists have become devotees of statistical significance, even though most articles in physics journals do not report statistical significance. They argue that statistical tests are typically used to infer whether a particular effect exists, rather than to measure the magnitude of the effect, which usually has more practical import. While early empirical accounting researchers such as Ball and Brown (1968) and Beaver (1968) went to great lengths to estimate how much extra information reached the stock market in the earnings announcement month or week, subsequent researchers limited themselves to answering whether other factors moderated these effects. Because accounting theories rarely provide quantitative predictions (e.g., Kinney 1986), accounting researchers perform nil hypothesis significance testing rituals, i.e., test unrealistic and a theoretical null hypotheses that a particular coefficient is exactly zero.15 While physicists devise experiments to measure the mass of an electron to the accuracy of tens of decimal places, accounting researchers are still testing the equivalent of whether electrons have mass. Indeed, McCloskey (2002) argues that the secret sins of economics are that economics researchers use quantitative methods to produce qualitative research outcomes such as (non-)existence theorems and statistically significant signs, rather than to predict and measure quantitative (how much) outcomes.
Practitioners are more interested in magnitudes than existence proofs, because the former are more relevant in decision making. Paradoxically, accounting research became less useful in the real world by trying to become more scientific (Granof and Zeff 2008). Although every empirical article in accounting journals touts the statistical significance of the results, practical significance is rarely considered or discussed (e.g., Lev 1989). Empirical articles do not often discuss the meaning of a regression coefficient with respect to real-world decision variables and their outcomes. Thus, accounting research results rarely have practical implications, and this tendency is likely worst in fields with the strongest reliance on statistical significance such as financial reporting research.
Ziliak and McCloskey (2008) highlight a deeper concern about over-reliance on statistical significance that it does not even provide evidence about whether a hypothesis is true or false. Carver (1978) provides a memorable example of drawing the wrong inference from statistical significance:
What is the probability of obtaining a dead person (label this part D) given that the person was hanged (label this part H); this is, in symbol form, what is P(D|H)? Obviously, it will be very high, perhaps 0.97 or higher. Now, let us reverse the question. What is the probability that a person has been hanged (H), given that the person is dead (D); that is, what is P(H|D)? This time the probability will undoubtedly be very low, perhaps 0.01 or lower. No one would be likely to make the mistake of substituting the first estimate (0.97) for the second (0.01); that is, to accept 0.97 as the probability that a person has been hanged given that the person is dead. Even though this seems to be an unlikely mistake, it is exactly the kind of mistake that is made with interpretations of statistical significance testing by analogy, calculated estimates of P(D|H) are interpreted as if they were estimates of P(H|D), when they clearly are not the same.
As Cohen (1994) succinctly explains, statistical tests assess the probability of observing a sample moment as extreme as observed conditional on the null hypothesis being true, or P(D|H0), where D represents data and H0 represents the null hypothesis. However, researchers want to know whether the null hypothesis is true, conditional on the sample, or P(H0|D). We can calculate P(H0|D) from P(D|H0) by applying Bayes' theorem, but that requires knowledge of P(H0), which is what researchers want to discover in the first place. Although Ziliak and McCloskey (2008) quote many eminent statisticians who have repeatedly pointed out this basic logic, the essential point has not entered the published accounting literature.
In my view, restoring relevance to mathematically guided accounting research requires changing our role model from applied science to engineering (Colander 2011).16 While science aims at finding truth through application of institutionalized best practices with little regard for time or cost, engineering seeks to solve a specific problem using available resources, and the engineering method is the strategy for causing the best change in a poorly understood or uncertain situation within the available resources (Koen 2003). We should move to an experimental approach that simulates real-world applications or field tests new accounting methods in particular countries or industries, as would likely happen by default if accounting were not monopolized by the IASB (Dye and Sunder 2001). The inductive approach to standard-setting advocated by Littleton (1953) is likely to provide workable solutions to existing problems and be more useful than an axiomatic approach that starts from overly simplistic first principles.
To reduce the gap between academe and practice and stimulate new inquiry, AAA should partner with the FEI or Business Roundtable to create summer, semester, or annual research internships for accounting professors and Ph.D. students at corporations and audit firms.17 Accounting professors who have served as visiting scholars at the SEC and FASB have reported positively about their experience (e.g., Jorgensen et al. 2007), and I believe that such practice internships would provide opportunities for valuable fieldwork that supplements our experimental and archival analyses. Practice internships could be an especially fruitful way for accounting researchers to spend their sabbaticals.
Another useful initiative would be to revive the tradition of The Accounting Review publishing papers that do not rely on statistical significance or mathematical notation, such as case studies, field studies, and historical studies, similar to the Journal of Financial Economics (Jensen et al. 1989).18 A separate editor, similar to the book reviews editor, could ensure that appropriate criteria are used to evaluate qualitative research submissions (Chapman 2012). A co-editor from practice could help ensure that the topics covered are current and relevant, and help reverse the steep decline in AAA professional membership. Encouraging diversity in research methods and topics is more likely to attract new scholars who are passionate and intrinsically care about their research, rather than attracting only those who imitate current research fads for purely instrumental career reasons.
Continued in article
Oft-Cited Papers Become Accepted as Truth Without Regard Validity Testing
This is the major theme of Bob Jensen, Paul Williams, Joni Young and
others
574 Shields Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
Oft-Cited Papers Elbow Out Other Methodologies
I have pointed out elsewhere how having complicated equations became a
necessary condition for publication in The Accounting Review since the
1980s ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htmOne But
how about AOS? Under the long-time editorship of Anthony Hopwood AOS prided
itself in publishing research papers having more varied methodologies and papers
that did not require mathematical equations.
Note how Table 6 in the Dunbar and Weber (2014) study is dominated by AOS:
TABLE 6
Works Most Cited by Other (Topic) Papers
|
Other topic rank (by count / rate) |
Author(s) and year |
Title |
Source |
Cites from other (topic) papers |
Proportion of other (topic) papers |
Cites from other (topic) papers per year |
Total cites from all topical areas |
|
|
Panel A: Accounting works in the top 25 based on citation counts* |
||||||||
|
1 / 1 |
Miller and O'Leary (1987) |
Accounting and the construction of the governable person |
AOS |
44 |
19.2% |
2.8 |
71 |
|
|
2 / 2 |
Burchell, Clubb, Hopwood, Hughes, and Nahapiet (1980) |
The roles of accounting in organizations and society |
AOS |
36 |
15.7% |
2.3 |
71 |
|
|
2 / 2 |
Hopwood (1987) |
The archaeology of accounting systems |
AOS |
36 |
15.7% |
2.3 |
65 |
|
|
6 / 7 |
Hoskin and Macve (1986) |
Accounting and the examination: A genealogy of disciplinary power |
AOS |
25 |
10.9% |
1.6 |
35 |
|
|
6 / 8 |
Miller and Rose (1990) |
Governing economic life |
ES |
25 |
10.9% |
1.6 |
42 |
|
|
9 / 11 |
Miller and Napier (1993) |
Genealogies of calculation |
AOS |
22 |
9.6% |
1.4 |
27 |
|
|
9 / 11 |
Willmott (1986) |
Organising the profession: A theoretical and historical examination of the development of the major accountancy bodies in the U.K. |
AOS |
22 |
9.6% |
1.4 |
29 |
|
|
12 / 10 |
Chua and Poullaos (1998) |
The dynamics of "closure" amidst the construction of market, profession, empire and nationhood: An historical analysis of an Australian accounting association, 1886-1903 |
AOS |
20 |
8.7% |
1.4 |
22 |
|
|
12 / 14 |
Kirkham and Loft (1993) |
Gender and the construction of the professional accountant |
AOS |
20 |
8.7% |
1.3 |
24 |
|
|
14 / 15 |
Burchell, Clubb, and Hopwood (1985) |
Accounting in its social context: Towards a history of value added in the United Kingdom |
AOS |
19 |
8.3% |
1.2 |
40 |
|
|
15 / 16 |
Chua and Poullaos (1993) |
Rethinking the profession-state dynamic: The case of the Victorian charter attempt, 1885-1906 |
AOS |
18 |
7.9% |
1.1 |
21 |
|
|
17 / 19 |
Hopwood (1983) |
On trying to study accounting in the contexts in which it operates |
AOS |
16 |
7.0% |
1.0 |
34 |
|
|
17 / 19 |
Robson (1992) |
Accounting numbers as "inscription": Action at a distance and the development of accounting |
AOS |
16 |
7.0% |
1.0 |
37 |
|
|
17 / 19 |
Tinker, Merino, and Neimark (1982) |
The normative origins of positive theories: Ideology and accounting thought |
AOS |
16 |
7.0% |
1.0 |
29 |
|
|
20 / 19 |
Covaleski, Dirsmith, Heian, and Samuel (1998) |
The calculated and the avowed: Techniques of discipline and struggles over identity in Big Six public accounting firms |
ASQ |
14 |
6.1% |
1.0 |
29 |
|
|
21 / 18 |
Bryer (2000) |
The history of accounting and the transition to capitalism in England - Part one: Theory |
AOS |
13 |
5.7% |
1.1 |
17 |
|
|
22 / 5 |
Cooper and Robson (2006) |
Accounting, professions and regulation: Locating the sites of professionalization |
AOS |
11 |
4.8% |
1.8 |
21 |
|
|
22 / 19 |
Miller (2001) |
Governing by numbers: Why calculative practices matter |
SR |
11 |
4.8% |
1.0 |
16 |
|
Even among "Other (Topic) Papers" interest in papers without complicated equations waned over the past 20 years since 2003. Only three papers in AOS are frequently cited in the nine journals of the Dunbar and Weber (2014) study and no AOS papers are frequently cited since 2007.
Ahrens, T., and C. S. Chapman. 2004. Accounting for flexibility and efficiency: A field study of management control systems in a restaurant chain. Accounting, Organizations and Society 21: 271-301.
Bonner, S., J. Hesford, W. Van der Stede, and S. M. Young. 2006. The most influential journals in academic accounting. Accounting, Organizations and Society 31: 663-685.
Bame-Aldred, C. W., and T. Kida. 2007. A comparison of auditor and client initial negotiation positions and tactics. Accounting, Organizations and Society 32: 497-511.
I think this is because accounting doctoral student researchers and other accounting researchers have become so bound up in accountics science that interest in non-quantitative methodologies and topics that cannot be effectively researched with mathematics and statistics are simply being overlooked in academic research. Accountics science elbowed out everything els
Conclusion
The Dunbar and Weber (2014) findings lend further support to the narrowing of
academic accounting research to accountics science where a necessary condition
is that the research feature complicated mathematical and statistical equations.
This prevents current academic accounting researchers from investigating a
broader range of more relevant research problems in an innovative way if they
could and would not restrict themselves to mathematical and statistical
modeling.
"Research on Accounting Should Learn From the Past" by Michael H. Granof and Stephen A. Zeff, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 21, 2008
The unintended consequence has been that interesting and researchable questions in accounting are essentially being ignored. By confining the major thrust in research to phenomena that can be mathematically modeled or derived from electronic databases, academic accountants have failed to advance the profession in ways that are expected of them and of which they are capable.
Academic research has unquestionably broadened the views of standards setters as to the role of accounting information and how it affects the decisions of individual investors as well as the capital markets. Nevertheless, it has had scant influence on the standards themselves.Continued in article
There are some other issues regarding citations research not mentioned above.
See the following:
"Can you trust
the numbers? – counting forward citations could give you misleading results"
-
http://www.ambercite.com/index.php/amber/entry/can-you-trust-the-numbers-counting-forward-citations-could-give-you-misleading-results
******************************
David Johnstone asked me to write a paper on the following:
"A Scrapbook on What's Wrong with the Past, Present and Future of Accountics
Science"
Bob Jensen
February 19, 2014
SSRN Download:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2398296
Abstract
For operational convenience I define accountics science as research that features equations and/or statistical inference. Historically, there was a heated debate in the 1920s as to whether the main research journal of academic accounting, The Accounting Review (TAR) that commenced in 1926, should be an accountics journal with articles that mostly featured equations. Practitioners and teachers of college accounting won that debate.
TAR articles and accountancy doctoral dissertations prior to the 1970s seldom had equations. For reasons summarized below, doctoral programs and TAR evolved to where in the 1990s there where having equations became virtually a necessary condition for a doctoral dissertation and acceptance of a TAR article. Qualitative normative and case method methodologies disappeared from doctoral programs.
What’s really meant by “featured equations” in doctoral programs is merely symbolic of the fact that North American accounting doctoral programs pushed out most of the accounting to make way for econometrics and statistics that are now keys to the kingdom for promotion and tenure in accounting schools ---
The purpose of this paper is to make a case that the accountics science monopoly of our doctoral programs and published research is seriously flawed, especially its lack of concern about replication and focus on simplified artificial worlds that differ too much from reality to creatively discover findings of greater relevance to teachers of accounting and practitioners of accounting. Accountics scientists themselves became a Cargo Cult.
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
Shielding Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
Common Accountics Science and Econometric Science Statistical Mistakes ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsScienceStatisticalMistakes.htm
The Cult of Statistical Significance:
How Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/DeirdreMcCloskey/StatisticalSignificance01.htm
How Accountics Scientists Should Change:
"Frankly, Scarlett, after I get a hit for my resume in The Accounting Review
I just don't give a damn"
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
One more mission in what's left
of my life will be to try to change this
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/AccounticsDamn.htm
What went wrong in accounting/accountics research? ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral
Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms