Is European Accounting Research Fairly Reflected in Academic Journals? An Investigation of Possible Non-mainstream and Language Barrier Biases

Abstract

Recent research has revealed that most articles published in top US accounting journals come from institutions based in the USA or a small number of other English-speaking countries (Jones and Roberts, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 32(5/6), pp. 1107–1140, 2005). It has also been shown that the research paradigm favoured by US journals is financial economics, with the result that articles on accounting history or social and behavioural accounting are very scarce. European journals exhibit a more diverse content. Nevertheless, as shown by some studies, British authors are the main contributors to these journals. As a consequence, the assertion has been made that the published literature is not perfectly representative of the diversity of European accounting research. The aim of this study is to test the validity of this assertion by comparing the content of 18 major academic journals in accounting over five years (2000–2004) with the set of papers presented at the EAA congress in 2003, 2004 and 2005. The results give some support to the assertion that the diversity of European accounting research is imperfectly reflected in academic journals. They also are consistent with the idea that non-English-speaking scholars are at a competitive disadvantage in the race for publication in recognised periodicals.

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions provided by Salvador Carmona and two anonymous reviewers. We also thank Melissa May and William Jackson whose editing assistance helped us overcome the ‘language barrier’.

Notes

However, the analogy should not be carried too far since Cole also defines the knowledge core as the ‘fully evaluated and universally accepted ideas which serve as the starting points for graduate education’ (Cole, 1983, p. 111). Only a limited part of the content of academic journals fits this definition.

Among the exceptions are Reeve and Hutchinson (1988) who examined the contribution of non-US institutions to accounting and finance journals in the period 1977–86.

Another analysis of published articles and congress papers was made by Carmona (2004) but it is limited to accounting history.

A comparison between these numbers and those reported by Carmona (2002) for the 1978–2001 period (23 papers in 1978, 408 in 2000) provides evidence of the increasing size of the EAA annual congress.

This assumption does not hold for visiting scholars or foreign students who do not intend to stay in the host country at the end of their visit or studies. Nevertheless, it would be extremely difficult to identify individuals whose presence in a particular country is temporary.

The number of categories used by the organisers of EAA congresses for their classification of abstracts was 19 (in 2003 and 2004) and 16 (in 2005).

Other highly reputable European periodicals were not selected because they are not specifically devoted to accounting (e.g. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting). Journals of national academic associations, such as The British Accounting Review or The Irish Accounting Review, were not considered in order to avoid favouring academics from individual countries.

Based on our selection criteria, journals not specifically devoted to accounting such as JIAAT, JIFMA and ABFH should be excluded from the analysis, with the result that the number of journals in the international and history categories would be one and two, respectively. To avoid such a decline in the sample size, these journals were included despite their double (accounting and finance or accounting and taxation) orientation. Of course, only articles dealing with accounting issues were analysed.

This directory is available online on the EAR website: www.eaa-online.org (access restricted to EAA members).

In 1978–2001, Spain was only the third contributor to EAA congresses with 7.7% of papers presented (Carmona, 2002, p. 22).

In this study, 18 countries meet this condition: Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Fiji Islands, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Kenya, Malta, Nigeria, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, UK, USA and Zimbabwe.

In 2004, the EAA launched another journal Accounting in Europe, whose aim is ‘to occupy a position between the pure research journal and the practitioner journal’ (Accounting in Europe, ‘Notes for Contributors’, each issue). Because of this particular orientation, Accounting in Europe cannot be compared to EAR.

The CNRS ranking is available at http://www.gredeg.cnrs.fr/Section37/Liste-2007-final.pdf

The VHB classification of management journals is available on the website of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration: http://bach.wu-wien.ac.at/fides/res/JournalRatingListe_Endversion.pdf

We thank an anonymous referee for emphasising this point.

At the end of 2004, the editorial board of EAR was composed of individuals from 20 countries, of which 36% were Anglophone. At the same time, the percentage of members from English-speaking countries was 96% for AOS and ABR.