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Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Jose M. Merigo, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester and Departmentof Management Control and Information Systems, University of Chile
Jian-Bo Yang, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester
Bibliometrics is a fundamental field of information science that studies bibliographic material quantitatively.It is very useful for organising available knowledge within a specific scientific discipline. This study presents abibliometric overview of accounting research using the Web of Science database, identifying the most relevantresearch in the field classified by papers, authors, journals, institutions and countries. The results show that themost influential journals are: The Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research,The Accounting Review and Accounting, Organizations and Society. It also shows that US institutionsare the most influential worldwide. However, it is important to note that some very good research in thisarea, including a small number of papers and citations, may not show up in this study due to the specificcharacteristics of different subtopics.
Accounting is a very old discipline. Several cen-turies ago, merchants were already using account-ing techniques in their businesses. While the first
use of accounting is generally attributed to Pacioli inNorthern Italy in the 14th century, it actually emergedin Arabia and was later brought to Venice by Arabiantraders. Accounting grew to much greater prominencein the 20th century as it was widely adopted by multi-national enterprises requiring careful analysis of theirbusiness information. Today, it is the main tool for rep-resenting business information, with many professionalassociations around the world dedicated to it. It canbe divided into many sub-disciplines, including finan-cial accounting, auditing and management accounting.An important consolidation process took place in 1916when the American Association of University Instructorsin Accounting was created. Later, in 1936 it changed toits current name, known worldwide, the American Ac-counting Association (AAA). The AAA is a voluntary as-sociation dedicated to the promotion and developmentof accounting education and research. It comprises sev-eral thousand professionals and academic accountants.
Over the last few decades, many other associationshave been created around the world. Some focus onthe professional sector, others on the academic com-munity. The expansion of accounting research over thelast century has reached maturity with the creation ofgeneral associations such as the European AccountingAssociation in 1977 and others in Asia, including theAsian Academic Accounting Association in 1998 andthe Asia–Pacific Management Accounting Associationin 2004. Moreover, many countries also have their own
accounting associations, usually linked to internationalones, such as the British Accounting Association.
Accounting research has been disseminated throughmany information channels, in particular, scholarly jour-nals. The AAA played a fundamental role during the firsthalf of the 20th century with the creation of The Ac-counting Review (TAR) in 1926. For many years, it wasthe main outlet for accounting researchers to publishnew knowledge about the field. Many other journalswere available in the literature but with less impact onthe academic community. Later, in 1963, the Journal ofAccounting Research (JAR) was created by the Univer-sity of Chicago, Accounting and Finance (AF) in 1961and Abacus (ABA) in 1965. Some others appeared inthe following decades including Accounting and BusinessResearch (ABR) in 1971, Journal of Business Finance & Ac-counting (JBFA) (1974), Accounting, Organizations andSociety (AOS) (1976), Journal of Accounting & Economics(JAE) (1979) and Auditing: A Journal of Practice & The-ory in 1981. Thus, the academic community began tofind many alternatives for publishing research. More re-cently, many other journals have appeared including theJournal of Accounting and Public Policy (JAPP), Contem-porary Accounting Research (CAR), European AccountingReview (EAR) and Review of Accounting Studies (RAS).
Correspondence: Jose M. Merigo, Department of ManagementControl and Information Systems, University of Chile, Av. DiagonalParaguay 257, 8330015 Santiago, Chile. Tel: +56 (2) 29772164;email: [email protected]
Australian Accounting Review No. 80 Vol. 27 Issue 1 2017 doi: 10.1111/auar.12109 71
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Over the years, many authors have provided a widerange of overviews concerning the field of accounting.Some of them used bibliometric indicators to assess thegeneral state of the field (Brown and Gardner 1985a;Brown 1996). Many others have also studied differentfundamental aspects including journal rankings (Bonneret al. 2006; Chan et al. 2009) and regional analysis (Chanet al. 2012b; Qu et al. 2009). Moreover, several papershave developed a cross-disciplinary analysis comparingaccounting with other related disciplines, including mar-keting and finance (Bernardi et al. 2008; Swanson 2004).However, none of them have provided a complete pictureof the current state of the art, considering all the moderntools available for representing a field with bibliometricindicators (Hirsch 2005; Podsakoff et al. 2008).
The aim of this paper is to present a general biblio-metric analysis of accounting research. This will providea complete overview of the main results and trends inthe field. The information is collected from the Web ofScience (WoS) database, usually regarded as the mostinfluential database in academic research because it onlyincludes those journals recognised to have the higheststandards. Most of the results are in accordance withour common knowledge where JAE, JAR, TAR and AOSare the most influential journals and North Americanauthors and institutions are the main leaders of the dis-cipline. This paper’s new approach is that it combinesseveral tools for representing the importance of the bib-liographic material found in WoS. Thus, it assesses theinformation from different perspectives. This is impor-tant because some authors, journals or institutions mayhave a high result according to one set of measures buta different result under another. Basically, the focus ison citation analysis, number of publications and theh-index (Hirsch 2005), which is a modern measure forrepresenting the quality of a set of papers. Note that itis assumed from a general context that the number ofpapers indicates productivity while the number of cita-tions indicates influence in a research area. The h-indexis a combination of both of these.
This study analyses the 300 most influential papersin accounting research of all time. The ranking is classi-fied by journals so all the papers from the same journalappear together. The main reason for this is that it iseasier to see the influence of a journal and the type ofpapers published there that become more relevant. Thepaper also presents a list of the most influential authorsin accounting. In order to focus on only the highest qual-ity, the ranking is established considering the number ofcitations in the top four journals (JAE, JAR, TAR andAOS). In order to be more general in the evaluation ofthese authors, many other factors are considered, amongthem the number of papers published and the h-index.Moreover, all the publications, citations and h-index ob-tained are also taken into account when considering all20 accounting journals currently indexed in the WoS.
The focus is then placed on the most influential insti-tutions. They are assessed with similar criteria to thoseused for assessing authors. It is found that almost all ofthe top 100 institutions are from English-speaking coun-tries. Finally, the study ends with a country analysis of themost productive and influential research in accounting.
Literature Review
Bibliometric analysis studies and classifies bibliographicmaterial quantitatively. In recent years it has becomevery popular to assess the state of the art of a scien-tific discipline, chiefly motivated by the development ofcomputers and the Internet. In the literature, there aremany discussions regarding the definition of bibliomet-ric analysis. Broadus (1987) provided a definition thatconsidered its use in the 1980s and left the concept openfor further development by adding ‘ . . . and surrogates ofeither’. More recently, Bar-Ilan (2008) provided a com-plete overview of the concept from the general perspec-tive of informetrics. The main advantage of bibliomet-rics is that it provides a general picture of a research area,which is very useful in identifying the most influentialresearch and identifying the main trends over time.
Bibliometric studies have been developed in many dis-ciplines, such as the paper by Podsakoff et al. (2008) inmanagement. The authors developed a method that per-mitted the identification of the most influential authorsand institutions in 30 selected management journalsfrom 1981 to 2004, using citation analysis and numberof publications. Moreover, they analysed the results infive-year periods in order to see its evolution over time.Similar studies in management developed by other au-thors are available, including Gomez-Mejia and Balkin(1992), Kirkpatrick and Locke (1992) and Trieschmannet al. (2000).
Wagstaff and Culyer (2012) developed a modern bib-liometric analysis in health economics that provided acomplete picture of the field over 40 years. They con-sidered many fundamental issues, including a list of the300 most cited papers and the most influential authorsand institutions ranked according to the h-index. Thisstudy showed that modern bibliometric techniques canprovide a lot of information regarding a research dis-cipline. A previous paper had already addressed theseissues (Rubin and Chang, 2003) although their resultswere less ambitious and general.
Econometrics is another field that has attracted at-tention from bibliometric researchers. Among others,the papers by Baltagi (1998, 2007) are worth mention-ing. He studied the most productive authors, institutionsand countries in econometrics taking into account themost influential journals in the area. Observe that his2007 paper was an update of the previous research pub-lished in 1998 but of great interest because it provided
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a broader picture of the field. A similar study was un-dertaken by Hall (1990) but his analysis was restrictedto studies developed in the 1980s. Some other papersworth mentioning in this area are Cribari-Neto et al.(1999) and Phillips et al. (1988).
More generally, economics has received a lot of at-tention for its development of bibliometric analysis ina wide range of perspectives. For example, Laband andPiette (1994) studied the influence of economic jour-nals for the period 1970–1990. The results found wereconsistent with common knowledge – the most influ-ential journals included the American Economic Review,Econometrica and the Journal of Political Economy. Re-cently, several similar studies have been developed (Cardand DellaVigna 2013; Laband 2013; Stern 2013). Someother studies have analysed the influence of authorsand institutions (Autor 2012; Kocher and Sutter 2001;Sussmuth et al. 2006). Other researchers have developeda regional approach, the European region in particular(Coupe 2003; Lubrano et al. 2003). This is due to thefact that there is very relevant research in the region thatrarely appears in the higher positions as these are usuallyoccupied by journals from the US. Some other specificregions that have received attention are China (Du andTeixeira 2012), Germany (Sternberg and Litzenberger2005), Spain (Rodrıguez 2006) and Canada (Davies et al.2008).
Entrepreneurship has also been of interest in biblio-metrics. Ratnatunga and Romano (1997) studied themost influential research in contemporary small enter-prise research. Dos Santos et al. (2011) studied the influ-ence of journals in this field in the scientific community.Recently, Landstrom et al. (2012) have provided a com-plete bibliometric overview of the discipline. Some otherauthors have developed similar studies but with a morespecific focus on family business research (Benavides-Velasco et al. 2013; Casillas and Acedo 2007).
Production and operations management has beenstudied in several bibliometric papers. Hsieh and Chang(2009) provided a general state of the art of the dis-cipline considering the most productive and influen-tial authors, institutions and countries. Pilkington andMeredith (2009) analysed the most influential papers byusing a citation analysis approach. Some other papershave presented several journal rankings in the field, in-cluding Barman et al. (2001), Holsapple and Lee-Post(2010), Petersen et al. (2011), Stonebraker et al. (2012)and Theoharakis et al. (2007). Many discussions havefocused on determining the significance of productionand operations management as an independent researchfield (Linderman and Chandrasekaran 2010; Pilkingtonand Liston-Hayes 1999).
Several studies have also focused on marketing. Seggieand Griffith (2009) studied the importance of publish-ing in top journals in order to gain academic promotion.Baumgartner and Pieters (2003) analysed the influence
of marketing journals by using a citation analysis ap-proach. Tellis et al. (1999) compared the publicationsfound in the major journals in order to establish a rank-ing between them. Other authors have drawn attentionto the influence of marketing scholars, institutions andcountries (Chan et al. 2012a; Stremersch and Verhoef2005). Specific topics of marketing have also been con-sidered by many papers, including advertising research(Kim and McMillan 2008), public policy (Sprott andMiyazaki 2002) and pricing research (Leone et al. 2012).
Bibliometric studies are also present in financial re-search. Alexander and Mabry (1994) presented somerankings regarding the most influential authors and in-stitutions in finance. Borokhovich et al. (1995) analysedthe most influential institutions in finance while Kimet al. (2009) considered the competitive advantage of thetop institutions and the trends for the future. Some otherpapers have focused on the quality and influence of fi-nancial journals (Borokhovich et al. 2000; Currie andPandher 2011; Olheten et al. 2005).
Focusing on accounting research, several authors haveprovided a wide range of overviews over the years by us-ing bibliometric indicators to assess the general state ofthe art. For example, Brown and Gardner (1985) andBrown (1996) analysed the most influential articles, au-thors and institutions by using a citation analysis. As ex-pected, they found that US authors and institutions werethe most influential. Coyne et al. (2010), Chakrabortyet al. (2014) and Pickerd et al. (2011) developed severalrankings classifying accounting by topics and method-ology. Other studies were also developed to analyse aspecific journal by citation count, including the work ofBrown and Gardner (1985b) focused on CAR, Brownet al. (1987) on AOS and Smith and Krogstad (1984)on AUD. Some other authors analysed the informationby publication count such as the paper by Heck andBremser (1986) focusing on TAR and Watts (1998) onJAE. Other papers have analysed the quality of account-ing journals in order to establish a ranking that per-mits the classification of journals from very high qualityto lower quality (Bonner et al. 2006, 2012). Under thisframework, Lowe and Locke (2005) developed a surveyof British accounting academics in order to establish thequality of the journals. Chan et al. (2009) developed asimilar approach by using a dissertation citation analysisand by using an author affiliation index that indicatesthe percentage of publications in the journal from au-thors affiliated to institutions in the top 100 (Chan et al.2012b).
Another interesting issue is the regional classificationof accounting research. Qu et al. (2009) studied theNorth American region to analyse the influence of USelites in disseminating Canadian accounting research.Chan et al. (2012b) provided an overview of research inaccounting and finance in Australia and New Zealandduring 1991–2010. Some other research has been more
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specific, analysing a particular feature including au-thor analysis (Danielson and Heck 2010), institutions(Reinstein and Calderon 2006) and journals (Jones andRoberts 2005). Moreover, accounting research has alsobeen compared with other related disciplines includ-ing marketing, finance and management (Bernardi et al.2008; Swanson 2004).
Methodology
This paper analyses information through a combinationprocess that considers total number of papers, total ci-tations and the h-index. The main reason for doing sois that there is no fixed methodology for establishingthe value of a set of papers that may include authors,institutions or countries. Therefore, in order to developa complete analysis it is necessary to consider the mainfactors that influence the results. In this paper, it is as-sumed that the three most practical factors that deter-mine the value of a group of papers are the number ofworks published, citations and the h-index (Merigo et al.2015). Much criticism and discussion is found in the lit-erature regarding the search of an optimal approach forclassifying the value of research (Podsakoff et al. 2008).Traditionally, the publication count has received muchattention because it can be considered a measure thatdetermines the productivity of an author, institution orcountry (Borokhovich et al. 1995). However, many lim-itations have been found due to the specific nature ofeach paper as some may have a higher number of pages,others a different number of authors or the size of onepage in one journal is not equivalent to another. Further-more, the type of paper may also influence the impactsince literature reviews usually receive more citationsthan regular papers.
Some studies have partially considered these issuesand some solutions have been found; including adjustingfor the number of papers by dividing each paper by thenumber of authors (Heck and Bremser 1986) and adjust-ing for the number of pages by considering the numberof pages in each article (Baltagi 2007). However, severalother limitations appeared because sometimes it is noteasy to compare the publications of two different jour-nals. For example, one paper in a top journal has a highervalue than a paper in a medium quality journal. There-fore, if one author publishes five papers in a top journal,the value is higher than another one that publishes fivepapers in a medium quality journal. Unfortunately, itis not easy to classify this issue because, generally, oneunit is given to each publication and citation. A possiblesolution for this problem is that each journal has a dif-ferent counting process depending on a pre-establishedvalue using, for example, the impact factor provided byWoS. Thus, if a journal has an impact factor of 3, each pa-per published there should be considered as 3 units while
a journal with an impact factor of 1 should only be given1 unit. Therefore, publishing one paper in the first topjournal would be equivalent to publishing three papersin the medium journal. Although this could be a solutionfor overcoming the limitations mentioned before, therewould still be problems in the evaluation process as it isalso difficult to establish the value of a journal.
The impact factor provided by the WoK is commonlyaccepted as a relevant indicator that could be used in pub-lications and citation counts, but this calculation processis widely criticised. Currently, it considers the citationsgiven by papers published in year n to papers publishedin years n – 1 and n – 2. From this, it makes the ratiocitations in year n – 1 and n – 2 divided by the number ofpapers published in year n – 1 and n – 2. However, due tocriticism received, especially because it seems very easyto manipulate the impact factor of a journal by usinga self-citation policy and related techniques, it is nowbecoming more relevant to use a five-year impact factor.That is, instead of considering the last two years, cita-tions over the last five years are considered. Although it isstill possible to manipulate the impact factor under thisframework, at least it is possible to reduce this limitationby more than 50%. As seen in many fields, the five-yearimpact factor seems to provide a more accurate result.
Similar limitations are also found in the citation count.However, in this case the disequilibrium found at highlevels seems to be lower because the number of citationsis higher than the number of publications and the mostpopular papers tend to be the most cited ones. Usu-ally, the number of citations is used as a measure foridentifying the influence of a paper, author, institutionor country. Although the limitations are less relevant inthis case, it is still necessary to consider them. Moreover,other types of limitations may occur in this context. Avery common one is that some topics may receive morecitations than others because more journals are involvedin this field or because of the interdisciplinary nature of afield that may involve more researchers. Therefore, somevery good but rather specific research may receive fewercitations.
The h-index (Hirsch 2005) is a modern technique thataims to combine publications and citations under thesame framework. Thus, if a set of papers has an h-indexof 30, it means that at least 30 papers have each received30 citations or more. This measure combines the numberof papers with citations, which seems to be very useful.However, for some particular cases it may not correctlyrepresent the information. For example, if a researcherhas published 100 papers with three of them having morethan 1000 citations but the rest having fewer than fourcitations, the h-index will be three. However, it is clearthat the value of this researcher is much higher. In orderto solve this problem, other indexes have been suggestedsuch as the g-index and the hg-index (Alonso et al. 2009;Egghe 2006). Most of these techniques are focused on
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more specific issues that may affect some exceptionalresearchers but from a general perspective, the h-indexseems to be an adequate measure for representing thevalue of a researcher considering both publications andcitations at the same time.
Regarding the selection of database, in this paper WoS,currently owned by Thomson & Reuters, is used. WoSincludes papers published in almost all the known sci-entific disciplines and covers more than 15 000 journalsand 50 000 000 papers. The research published there isclassified into 251 subject categories and 151 more gen-eral research areas. It is assumed that WoS includes onlythose journals that are recognised as high quality by sev-eral criteria including: on time review and publication ofpapers, a rigorous peer review process and a wide dissem-ination through the Internet and related channels. Someother popular databases commonly used are SCOPUS,GoogleScholar and EconLit. However, for the purposesof this paper, only WoS will be used since it provides ob-jective results that can be considered sufficiently neutraland representative of the information.
Focusing on authorship and institutions, one unit isgiven to each author or institution contributing to thepaper. Although this could be seen as a limitation, it isassumed that this will not substantially affect the resultsof the paper. The main reasons are as follows. For author-ship, this research aims to identify both productivity andinfluence. Therefore, with the publication count we aimto detect those authors who publish the highest num-ber of papers independently, whether these papers aresingle authored or not. Thus, the results will show theinvolvement of researchers in the publication of papers.Although sometimes this is unfair because this may notstrictly reflect the productivity of one author, it gives ageneral view of his or her total production that usuallyincludes single authored papers, those co-authored withjunior researchers and collaborations with other seniorresearchers. Similar problems occur with the total num-ber of citations and the h-index, although in this case thedifferences are less relevant because the involvement of aresearcher is closer to the influence than the productivity.
Concerning institutions, these limitations are lesssignificant because here the concept of involvementbecomes more relevant. The main reason is that aproductive and influential institution is found by notonly the publications of its own researchers but also thecollaboration with researchers from other institutions.Several explanations are available for this. First, an insti-tution is a dynamic entity made up of many researchersthat may enter and leave at any time because the careerof a researcher has several stages and each of them maybe developed at a different place. Second, external re-searchers collaborating with people from the institutionmay also be partly considered as its members due to theexchange of knowledge between researchers. Note that asimilar situation occurs when analysing the productivity
and influence of a country where it is acceptable to giveone unit to each country involved in one paper.
Currently, WoS does not include a specific section foraccounting. It has a subject category of business financethat mainly includes financial and accounting journals.Honing in on this category, 20 journals are found to bemainly dedicated to different topics of accounting. Notethat there are journals that were previously included inthe database such as the Journal of Accountancy. Sincethis journal has a more professional orientation and itscurrent issues are not included in WoS, it has not beenconsidered in the analysis. Moreover, some other jour-nals with close connection to accounting have also beenexcluded in order to specify the area of accounting asmuch as possible. This issue has affected some journalsthat are sometimes considered to be accounting journals(Bonner et al. 2006; Chan et al. 2009) including the Na-tional Tax Journal and the Journal of American TaxationAssociation. Table 1 presents the 20 journals included inthe analysis. In order to evaluate each journal, severalvariables are studied in order to rank them based ontheir value and significance.
JAE, JAR, TAR and AOS are clearly the most influen-tial journals in the field as assessed by all the differentvariables considered in this study. A next group of in-fluential journals is AUD, CAR and RAS. The rest of thejournals, ranked with the h-index, seem to obtain a po-sition more or less in accordance with their influence.Note that in this ranking no significant anomalies arefound because more than half of the journals have beenincluded in WoS during the last six years. Therefore, theydo not have many papers collected in WoS at this time. Inorder to consider the most influential papers publishedin these journals, three columns focusing on the numberof papers with more than 200, 100 and 50 citations areconsidered. Since many journals have been included inWoS for fewer than 10 years but are much older, a man-ual search using the option ‘cited reference search’ hasbeen developed in order to find any highly cited paperin the journal above the 50 citation threshold.
As shown in Table 1, JAE, JAR, TAR and AOS havepublished most of the highly cited papers. It is worthnoting that JAE obtains higher results than the otherthree although it is the youngest journal. A key reasonfor this is that it has strong connections with economics.Therefore, it has broader influence because many re-searchers from economics may also consider this journalan outlet for their research. Another interesting issue isthat TAR is much older than the other three and thisis the reason why it has published the highest numberof papers. However, this issue should not be taken intoaccount when evaluating the ratio of citations/papersbecause old papers did not receive many citations due tothe fact that there were not many journals at that timeand the number of papers and citations in accountingwas very low.
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Table 1 Most influential accounting research journals according to the WoS∗
R Name H TC TP >200 >100 >50 Y Vol. IF 5-IF T300
1 JAE 86 28970 752 25 71 165 1982 4 3.912 4.023 1022 JAR 77 31161 1397 13 51 170 1963 1 2.192 3.368 743 TAR 71 30256 4416 10 36 129 1926 1 2.319 3.204 604 AOS 61 20718 1096 2 18 95 1981 6 1.867 3.143 345 AUD 33 5029 566 0 1 10 1985 5 1.015 1.408 26 CAR 26 3094 365 3 6 18 2002 19 1.564 2.154 97 RAS 24 1958 210 0 2 16 2004 9 1.364 1.899 58 JBFA 17 1747 441 0 0 1 2005 32 1.010 1.061 09 JAPP∗∗ 17 1366 340 0 1 4 2008 27 0.770 – 210 EAR 13 668 178 0 0 0 2006 15 0.654 1.465 011 ABA 12 727 411 0 0 1 1974 10 0.850 1.010 012 MAR 8 340 98 0 2 2 2008 19 1.366 – 213 AF 7 346 259 0 0 0 2007 47 0.875 0.794 014 ABR 7 295 132 0 1 1 2007 37 0.533 0.792 115 AH 7 206 113 2 6 8 2008 22 1.288 – 816 AAR 5 128 153 0 0 0 2008 18 0.833 – 017 AAAJ 5 125 123 0 1 1 2010 23 0.922 – 118 JIFMA 3 25 47 0 0 0 2008 19 0.333 – 019 APJAE 2 22 84 0 0 0 2008 15 0.206 – 020 SJFA 1 15 117 0 0 0 2008 37 0.106 – 0
∗Note that four other accounting journals have entered WoS during the last three years although they still have not received an impactfactor: British Accounting Review; Comptabilite – Control – Audit; Critical Perspectives on Accounting; International Journal of AccountingInformation Systems.∗∗JAPP was included in 2008 but it also appeared between 1982 and 1995 (Vols 1–14).Abbreviations: R = Rank; H = h-index; TC and TP = Total citations and papers; >200, >100, >50 = number of papers with more than200, 100 and 50 citations; Y = Year when the journal was included in WoS; Vol. = First volume included in the WoS; IF = Impact Factor2012; 5-IF = five-year Impact Factor 2012; T300 = Number of papers in the Top 300 list shown in Table 4; JAE = Journal of Accountingand Economics; JAR = Journal of Accounting Research; TAR = The Accounting Review; AOS = Accounting, Organizations and Society;AUD = Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory; CAR = Contemporary Accounting Research; RAS = Review of Accounting Studies;JBFA = Journal of Business Finance & Accounting; JAPP = Journal of Accounting and Public Policy; EAR = European Accounting Review;ABA = Abacus: A Journal of Accounting and Business Studies; MAR = Management Accounting Research; AF = Accounting and Finance;ABR = Accounting and Business Research; AH = Accounting Horizons; AAR = Australian Accounting Review; AAAJ = Accounting,Auditing & Accountability Journal; JIFMA = Journal of International Financial Management & Accounting; APJAE = Asia-Pacific Journal ofAccounting & Economics; SFJA = Revista Espanola de Financiacion y Contabilidad – Spanish Journal of Finance and Accounting.
As at February 2013, there were 17 444 papers pub-lished in the 20 accounting journals listed in WoS. How-ever, in order to exclude short communications, editorialmaterial and book reviews, the analysis is mainly focusedon ‘full articles’ and ‘reviews’. Considering only these twotypes of publications, the number of papers is reducedto 11 423. Furthermore, since it has been defined thatfour journals clearly dominate this discipline, most ofthe different analyses developed in the paper take as apoint of departure the results found only in these topfour journals. The main reason for doing this is to focuson papers with the highest quality.
Accounting is a research field that currently does nothave a significant position in WoS as only 20 journals areincluded. Before 2004 only eight journals were included.This is a very small number for such a large discipline;accounting comprises many thousands of researchersworldwide. Figure 1 shows the number of papers pub-lished in accounting during the last 50 years.
As shown in Figure 1, the number was as low as around100 per year until the last decade when it started to growquickly. Currently the number is close to 700 papers per
year and this seems likely to increase in the future. Notethat the main reason for this is the expansion of WoSduring the last few years, through which it has includedmany more journals. Moreover, regional expansion hasalso given non-English speaking countries the opportu-nity to have more journals included in the database.
The number of citations received in this area is alsovery low compared to related disciplines such as fi-nance and economics, mainly because of the low numberof accounting journals that have been included in thedatabase. In Table 2 the citation structure is presentedin this area for the 11 423 papers considered. Note thatsome additional adjustments made in order to find themost cited papers are also included here. Thus, the totalnumber of papers is increased to 11 454.
The number of citations is very low compared to otherdisciplines where several papers receive more than 1000citations. Furthermore, it is clear that most of the paperscurrently receive fewer than 50 citations. However, it isworth mentioning that in the future these numbers areexpected to increase significantly due to the increase inthe number of accounting journals included in WoS.
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Figure 1 Number of annual publications in accounting in WoS (articlesand reviews) since 1963
Table 2 General citation structure in accounting researchin WoS
All time 2003–2012
Number of Number ofCitations papers % Papers papers % Papers
� 500 citations 4 0.035 0 0� 200 citations 55 0.480 4 0.090� 100 citations 201 1.754 25 0.563� 50 citations 626 5.465 140 3.155� 50 citations 10828 94.535 4296 96.844Total 11454 100.00 4436 100.00
Observe that the global h-index in accounting is 131.That is, from the total of 11 454 papers, 131 have receivedat least 131 citations.
Next, we look into the global impact factor in thisfield as shown in Table 3. Recall that it considers all thecitations of papers published in accounting in year n topapers published in years n – 1 and n – 2. From this itcalculates the ratio citations in these two years dividedby the number of papers in the same period.
During the last 10 years, the global impact factor hasbeen quite stable; between 1 and 1.5. The main reason forthis is the selection process for WoS. Before, there werenot many journals indexed, allowing the top journalsto have a higher influence in the impact factor. Now,with more journals in WoS their influence is lower so the
impact factor is lower than it should be. However, theincrease in journals has also influenced an increase inthe impact factor. Due to this, the variations have beencompensated for so that the final result is stable.
Results
This section presents the main results found in WoSconcerning the most cited papers in accounting research,the most prolific authors, institutions and countries.
The most influential articles in accounting research ofall time
Over the last few decades, many influential papers havebeen published in accounting research. In order to iden-tify them, this section analyses the most cited papers inaccounting journals. Since many journals have only beenincluded in WoS since last decade, a manual search pro-cess has also been developed. Thus, all the papers thatcould be considered mainstream accounting are consid-ered. Table 4 presents a list with the 300 most cited papersin accounting of all time. Observe that the ranking hasbeen developed by grouping all the papers from the samejournal in order to find them directly in the list. The ap-pearance of journals in the ranking is presented from the
Table 3 Global impact factor in accounting research
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
TP 212 191 272 307 374 560 573 612 644 688TC 6202 5583 5736 4559 3887 4173 2827 1975 807 175TC2 444 511 534 655 765 914 1090 1546 1657 1597TP2 310 390 403 463 579 681 934 1133 1185 1256IF 1.432 1.310 1.325 1.414 1.321 1.342 1.167 1.364 1.398 1.271
Abbreviations: TP = Total number of papers published in year n; TC = Total number of citations received from papers published in year n;TC2 = Total citations received in year n – 1 and n – 2 from year n; TP2 = Total number of papers published in year n – 1 and n – 2; IF =Impact factor of year n.
C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 77
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
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TCTi
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Com
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Earn
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9724
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PMH
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0133
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7Th
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nstit
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nalf
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acco
untin
gea
rnin
gsR
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otha
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Robi
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JAE
1533
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9722
JAE
1932
0A
udito
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dit
qual
ityL
De
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313
Aud
itco
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san
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gsm
anag
emen
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Kle
in20
0231
JAE
2231
2Th
ein
form
atio
nco
nten
tof
loss
esC
Hay
n19
9518
JAE
2330
7Pe
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man
cem
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eddi
scre
tiona
ryac
crua
lmea
sure
sSP
Kot
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AJ
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e,C
EW
asle
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0543
JAE
2430
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iden
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curr
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8511
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2729
9D
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Add
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JJG
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The
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Fina
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78 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Tab
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Co
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JR
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Year
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The
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stan
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Wat
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149
Man
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Acc
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Aud
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Cor
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Deb
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Ass
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The
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Fina
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C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 79
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Tab
le4
Co
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TCTi
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Year
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The
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9D
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An
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9Re
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The
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liter
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stan
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ME
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LDBr
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Grif
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Man
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Lim
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91Ea
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CD
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Intr
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87U
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996
80 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Tab
le4
Co
nti
nu
ed
JR
TCTi
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Year
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JAE
252
87A
ccou
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De
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Do
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The
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Cor
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Post
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The
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Pred
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Estim
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Are
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Self-
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Fund
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82 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
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Co
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Acc
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Earn
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C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 83
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Tab
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Co
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JR
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J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
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Des
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Earn
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hlso
n19
9517
CA
R39
262
The
effe
ctof
audi
tqu
ality
onea
rnin
gsm
anag
emen
tC
LBe
cker
,ML
Def
ond,
JJia
mba
lvo,
KR
Subr
aman
yam
1998
18
CA
R49
217
Valu
atio
nan
dcl
ean
surp
lus
acco
untin
gfo
rop
erat
ing
and
finan
cial
activ
ities
GA
Felth
am,J
AO
hlso
n19
9512
CA
R59
197
Stoc
kpe
rfor
man
cean
din
term
edia
tion
chan
ges
surr
ound
ing
sust
aine
din
crea
ses
indi
sclo
sure
PMH
ealy,
AP
Hut
ton,
KG
Pale
pu19
9915
C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 87
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Tab
le4
Co
nti
nu
ed
JR
TCTi
tleA
utho
r/s
Year
C/Y
CA
R13
013
1Th
eef
fect
ofin
vest
men
tba
nkin
gre
latio
nshi
pson
finan
cial
anal
ysts
earn
ings
fore
cast
san
din
vest
men
tre
com
men
datio
nsA
Dug
ar,S
Nat
han
1995
7
CA
R17
110
9Th
ew
alk-
dow
nto
beat
able
anal
yst
fore
cast
sS
Rich
ards
on,S
HTe
oh,P
DW
ysoc
ki20
0413
CA
R20
299
Dis
clos
ure
polic
y,in
form
atio
nas
ymm
etry
and
liqui
dity
ineq
uity
mar
kets
MW
elke
r19
955
CA
R23
490
Volu
ntar
ydi
sclo
sure
and
equi
tyof
ferin
gs:R
educ
ing
info
rmat
ion
asym
met
ryor
hypi
ngth
est
ock?
MLa
ng,R
JLu
ndho
lm20
007
CA
R24
389
Do
inst
itutio
nali
nves
tors
pref
erne
ar-t
erm
earn
ings
over
long
run
valu
e?BJ
Bush
ee20
018
AH
1832
9A
revi
ewof
the
earn
ings
man
agem
ent
liter
atur
ean
dits
impl
icat
ions
for
stan
dard
sett
ing
PMH
ealy,
JMW
ahle
n19
9925
AH
4622
1C
onse
rvat
ism
inac
coun
ting
part
I:Ex
plan
atio
nsan
dim
plic
atio
nsRL
Wat
ts20
0324
AH
105
147
Earn
ings
man
agem
ent
KSc
hipp
er19
896
AH
113
142
Ana
lyst
s’fo
reca
sts
KSc
hipp
er19
916
AH
121
138
Tran
sfor
min
gth
eba
lanc
edsc
orec
ard
from
perf
orm
ance
mea
sure
men
tto
stra
tegi
cm
anag
emen
t:Pa
rtI
RSK
apla
n20
0112
AH
158
115
Earn
ings
man
agem
ent:
Reco
ncili
ngth
evi
ews
ofac
coun
ting
acad
emic
s,pr
actit
ione
rsan
dre
gula
tors
PMD
echo
w,D
JSk
inne
r20
009
AH
273
84Fr
audu
lent
finan
cial
repo
rtin
g:C
onsi
dera
tion
ofin
dust
rytr
aits
and
corp
orat
ego
vern
ance
mec
hani
sms
MS
Beas
ley,
JVC
arce
llo,
DR
Her
man
son,
etal
.20
007
AH
278
83C
onse
rvat
ism
inac
coun
ting
part
II:Ev
iden
cean
dre
sear
chop
port
uniti
esRL
Wat
ts20
039
RAS
7717
1Ea
rnin
gssu
rpris
es,g
row
thex
pect
atio
nsan
dst
ock
retu
rns
ordo
n’t
let
anea
rnin
gsto
rped
osi
nkyo
urpo
rtfo
lioD
JSk
inne
r,RG
Sloa
n20
0217
RAS
155
116
Ass
essi
ngth
epr
obab
ility
ofba
nkru
ptcy
SAH
illeg
eist
,EK
Kea
ting,
DP
Cra
m,
etal
.20
0414
RAS
219
93W
hyar
eea
rnin
gski
nky?
An
exam
inat
ion
ofth
eea
rnin
gsm
anag
emen
tex
plan
atio
nPM
Dec
how
,SA
Rich
ards
on,I
Tuna
2003
10RA
S26
585
Expe
cted
EPS
and
EPS
grow
thas
dete
rmin
ants
ofva
lue
JAO
hlso
n,BE
Juet
tner
-Nau
roth
2005
12RA
S28
882
Are
accr
uals
durin
gin
itial
publ
icof
ferin
gsop
port
unis
tic?
SHTe
oh19
985
JAPP
161
114
Rese
arch
desi
gnis
sues
inea
rnin
gsm
anag
emen
tst
udie
sM
FM
cNic
hols
2000
9JA
PP28
383
Expo
sure
,leg
itim
acy
and
soci
aldi
sclo
sure
DM
Patt
en19
913
MA
R93
154
Perf
orm
ance
man
agem
ent:
Afr
amew
ork
for
man
agem
ent
cont
rols
yste
ms
rese
arch
DO
tley
1999
11M
AR
107
145
The
bala
nce
onth
eba
lanc
edsc
orec
ard.
Acr
itica
lana
lysi
sof
som
eof
itsas
sum
ptio
nsH
Nor
rekl
it20
0012
AU
D11
714
0Th
ero
leof
Big
6au
dito
rsin
the
cred
ible
repo
rtin
gof
accr
uals
JRFr
anci
s,El
May
dew
,HC
Spar
ks19
9910
AU
D20
498
Aud
itco
mm
ittee
char
acte
ristic
san
dre
stat
emen
tsLJ
Abb
ott,
SPa
rker
,GF
Pete
rs20
0412
AA
AJ
8516
0C
orpo
rate
soci
alan
den
viro
nmen
talr
epor
ting:
Are
view
ofth
elit
erat
ure
and
alo
ngitu
dina
lstu
dyof
UK
disc
losu
reRH
Gra
y,R
Kou
hy,S
Lave
rs19
959
ABR
140
125
Ast
udy
ofth
een
viro
nmen
tald
iscl
osur
epr
actic
esof
Aus
tral
ian
corp
orat
ions
CD
eega
n,B
Gor
don
1996
7
Abb
revi
atio
nsar
eav
aila
ble
inTa
ble
1ex
cept
for:
J=
Jour
naln
ame;
C/Y
=C
itatio
nspe
rye
ar.
88 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Table 5 The most productive and influential authors in accounting research
R Name Country TC4 H4 TP4 HA TCA TPA TP TC H T300
1 RG Sloan US 2158 18 21 19 2373 25 36 2936 21 92 DF Larcker US 2155 23 36 23 2197 40 77 10904 33 83 SP Kothari US 1984 17 23 17 1984 23 52 3251 26 54 RE Verrecchia US 1941 18 33 18 1941 33 56 3434 24 75 R Ball US 1799 14 19 15 1841 22 62 2646 21 46 PM Dechow US 1582 11 14 15 1856 19 25 2355 19 87 WH Beaver US 1482 19 29 22 1593 34 68 2018 24 78 B Lev US 1422 15 27 16 1496 34 68 2807 24 69 M Lang US 1328 15 18 16 1418 19 25 1738 18 510 J Francis US 1282 16 22 18 1339 25 34 1627 20 511 DW Collins US 1279 14 19 14 1336 22 29 1531 15 612 RL Watts US 1245 12 14 14 1550 18 26 2993 18 713 ME Barth US 1182 18 26 19 1252 32 37 1459 21 414 PM Healy US 1179 10 11 12 1705 13 47 2417 19 315 JL Zimmerman US 1079 14 17 14 1079 17 32 1345 16 216 CD Ittner US 1039 10 13 11 1063 17 29 1716 18 617 K Schipper US 1016 10 15 14 1359 22 42 1985 19 518 DJ Skinner US 1000 13 23 15 1301 27 58 1883 22 719 R Libby US 993 21 35 21 1019 38 50 1340 24 220 ML Defond US 990 12 16 16 1430 22 28 1722 19 521 JA Ohlson US 942 11 19 14 1720 26 55 2062 18 422 RA Lambert US 932 11 14 12 962 16 34 1743 19 623 C Leuz US 881 11 11 12 918 15 27 1818 18 224 R Kasznik US 793 11 13 12 816 16 16 816 12 225 L De Angelo US 783 8 9 8 783 9 29 1701 20 526 RJ Lundholm US 757 9 10 11 914 15 20 1186 14 227 D Burgstahler US 740 9 11 11 818 15 15 818 11 128 JR Francis US 738 12 16 19 1164 34 43 1691 23 429 S Rajgopal US 727 11 16 14 854 25 33 1098 16 230 BJ Bushee US 722 10 13 11 811 14 16 955 12 431 T Shevlin US 691 12 20 13 725 23 34 904 15 232 RM Bushman US 680 10 14 10 683 17 24 1000 12 233 GA Feltham CAN 645 12 15 13 877 19 31 1001 16 234 SH Penman US 642 11 15 12 677 21 40 972 16 235 LD Brown US 624 11 14 11 673 20 47 1120 17 136 WR Landsman US 623 12 21 13 684 30 42 967 17 337 RA Dye US 618 14 19 14 630 21 40 1135 20 238 WR Kinney US 607 12 27 14 672 32 61 1047 17 139 JS Demski US 602 13 34 13 614 38 84 1033 17 140 S Baiman US 597 13 19 13 597 19 30 766 15 2
Abbreviations: R = Rank; H4, TC4 and TP4 = Total papers, citations and h-index in the top four accounting journals; HA = h-index in allthe accounting journals; TPA and TCA = Total papers and citations in accounting journals indexed in WoS; TP, TC and H = Total papers,citations and h-index; T300 = Number of papers in the Top 300 list shown in Table 4.
journal with the highest number of papers in the list tothe journal with the lowest number.
JAE has 102 papers on the list, being the journal withthe highest number. JAR comes next with 74 and it hasthe two most cited papers of all time. TAR is found in thethird position with 60 and AOS in the fourth positionwith 34. Far behind is CAR in fifth position with ninepapers and AH in sixth position with eight papers. Notethat most of the papers in CAR and AH did not appear inthe automatic search because most of these papers hadbeen published before the journals entered WoS. Thus,a manual search through the ‘cited reference search’ hasbeen developed in order to find these highly cited articles.
The most cited paper of all time in accountingwas published in 1968 by Ball and Brown, with 651
citations currently. Three other papers have also receivedmore than 500 citations. The second one was written byOhlson, the third by Healy and the fourth by Jones. Notethat the key reason that JAE has received more citationsthan JAR, TAR and AOS is because it has a broaderscope that includes researchers from both accountingand economics. Therefore, many other researchers citethe journal while in the other three journals this happensto a much lower degree.
The most prolific and influential authors
In order to identify the most influential authors in ac-counting research, Table 5 presents the 40 authors thathave received the highest number of citations in the
C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 89
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
top four journals (JAE, JAR, TAR and AOS). Observethat through this measure it is possible to consider themost influential researchers and focus only on the high-est quality journals. However, the disadvantage of thisis that some very influential papers published in otherjournals such as CAR, RAS and AH are not included inthe first list. In order to balance this problem, an ad-ditional column with the total citations received in all20 accounting journals is included. Furthermore, the to-tal number of papers and the h-index are also consideredto obtain a picture that takes into account both the in-fluence and the productivity of each author.
Richard G. Sloan is the author with the highest num-ber of citations in the top four journals and in all thesets of journals. Not far behind him appears David F.Larcker in the second position. Moreover, Larcker is theauthor with the highest number of papers and h-index.S.P. Kothari and Robert Verrecchia are found in the thirdand fourth positions with almost 2000 citations in thetop four each. Note that 18 authors have received at least1000 citations from 22 of all the journals considered. Re-garding the differences found between the top four andthe rest of the journals, these are not significant except forJames A. Ohlson and Paul M. Healy. Ohlson published ahighly cited paper with 460 citations in CAR and Healya paper with 329 citations in AH. Therefore, their totalnumber of citations increases significantly when con-sidering these papers. Another interesting issue is thatalmost all the authors come from the US.
In order to obtain a more complete picture of themost productive authors in the top four journals,Table 6 presents the 30 authors with the highest numberof papers in each of the journals. Note that an addi-tional column with the corresponding citations for eachauthor is also included. Moreover, TAR is studied fromtwo different perspectives: from 1963–2012 in order tobe equivalent to JAR and the entire period since 1926.
JAE, JAR and TAR (1963–2012) have similar resultswith many of these authors included in the top 40 list.TAR (all time) has different results because it is an olderjournal and many authors have published a lot of papersin it since 1926. However, as mentioned in relation toTable 1, the number of citations was very low in theearly period so these authors have a lot of papers but notmany citations. AOS also is significantly different mainlybecause it is a non-US journal with a higher influencefrom European, Canadian and Australian researchers.
The most productive and influential institutions
Institutions from all over the world have made funda-mental contributions in accounting research. However,a great majority are established in the US. In order toidentify and classify the most influential and productiveinstitutions, Table 7 presents a list with the top 100 most
productive institutions ranked according to the numberof papers in the top four journals. Some other additionalvariables are considered including total citations, theh-index, total number in the 20 accounting journalsand the number of papers with more than 200, 100 and50 citations. Thus, it is possible to find the most produc-tive institutions in the top four journals, which reflectshigh-quality publications and also considers each insti-tution’s influence and key contributions in the field.
The University of Chicago is the most productiveand influential institution worldwide according to ourstudy. It has the highest number of papers, citations andh-index. Note that a reason that may explain the hugedifferences between the University of Chicago and thesecond ranked institution is that, apart from having someof the most famous accounting researchers, the Univer-sity of Chicago publishes JAR. According to the numberof papers published in the top four journals, the rest ofthe institutions in the top five are Stanford University,University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas Austinand University of Michigan. If the total number of ci-tations and the h-index are considered, the top five re-mains very similar with the only difference that HarvardUniversity would appear in the fifth position instead ofAustin.
Note that until the 33rd position, all the universitiesare from the US and 78 of the top 100 universities arefrom this country. The first non-US institution is theUniversity of Manchester, which appears in 34th posi-tion. In total, seven UK institutions are included in thetop 100, five Canadian and Australian universities, twofrom Israel, and one each from China, Singapore and theNetherlands. By looking at these results, it is clear that theUS has an extremely strong position in this discipline.
In order to see the most relevant institutions in each ofthe top four journals, Table 8 presents the 30 institutionswith the highest number of papers in these journals.An additional column with their total citations is alsoincluded so it is also possible to observe their influence.
The University of Chicago leads the list in JAE andJAR and obtains the seventh position in TAR. StanfordUniversity also obtains very remarkable results, beingsecond in JAR and TAR and fifth in JAE. Most of thewell-known US institutions appear in the list in JAE,JAR or TAR. Concerning AOS, there is more disper-sion worldwide with less US influence. The University ofManchester takes first position and the London Schoolof Economics second.
Country analysis
In order to create a worldwide picture of account-ing research, in this section the country origin of thepublications is studied. Note that a country relates tothe institution that publishes a paper but it does not
90 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Tab
le6
Au
tho
rsw
ith
the
hig
hes
tn
um
ber
of
pap
ers
inth
eto
pfo
ur
acco
un
tin
gjo
urn
als
JAE
JAR
TAR
(196
3–20
12)
TAR
(All
time)
AO
S
RA
utho
rTP
TCA
utho
rTP
TCA
utho
rTP
TCA
utho
rTP
TCA
utho
rTP
TC
1SP
Kot
hari
1617
45R
Libb
y18
523
JSD
emsk
i14
243
HT
Cha
mbe
rlain
551
MW
Dirs
mith
1936
32
DJ
Skin
ner
1647
2JS
Dem
ski
1732
8H
Bier
man
128
AC
Litt
leto
n50
25M
DSh
ield
s15
362
3RE
Verr
ecch
ia13
959
DF
Larc
ker
1490
3M
EBa
rth
1139
5JH
Cha
mbe
rlain
220
DJ
Coo
per
1239
64
RGSl
oan
1188
5RE
Verr
ecch
ia14
840
WR
Kin
ney
1120
9H
Bier
man
1932
MA
Cov
ales
ki12
300
5D
FLa
rcke
r11
676
BLe
v14
739
JHC
ham
berla
in11
0El
Koh
ler
196
PM
iller
1256
86
ML
Def
ond
1161
6JA
Ohl
son
1380
8B
Lev
1027
5H
GA
very
165
DN
eu12
231
7W
HBe
aver
1143
3W
RK
inne
y13
222
LRe
vsin
e10
21RK
Mau
tz16
5JG
Birn
berg
1111
68
TSh
evlin
1137
8RA
Dye
1242
1R
Libb
y9
222
CT
Zlat
kovi
ch16
0K
Robs
on11
317
9D
WC
ollin
s10
809
SBa
iman
1237
1W
RLa
ndsm
an9
154
JSD
emsk
i15
243
SPW
alke
r11
114
10A
Beat
ty10
122
ND
opuc
h11
161
JSH
ughe
s9
80W
APa
ton
156
WF
Chu
a10
317
11TZ
Lys
930
5R
Ball
1088
1G
AFe
ltham
840
9M
EM
urph
y15
2C
WC
how
923
912
DA
Shac
kelfo
rd9
172
WH
Beav
er10
740
MW
Nel
son
833
5H
DK
errig
an14
5M
Ezza
mel
912
613
RWH
olth
ause
n8
566
JFr
anci
s10
653
GJ
Stau
bus
813
WB
Mei
gs14
0K
AM
erch
ant
930
114
SRa
jgop
al8
564
HT
Tan
1022
3JR
Fran
cis
731
1G
JSt
aubu
s13
18A
MPr
esto
n9
184
15J
Fran
cis
837
9N
JG
oned
es10
165
SEBo
nner
727
4H
CG
reer
137
KT
Trot
man
921
116
ME
Bart
h8
355
CK
anod
ia10
151
KSc
hipp
er7
261
PM
ason
135
SMYo
ung
918
817
JLZi
mm
erm
an8
347
YIji
ri10
74RD
Bank
er7
226
GR
Hus
band
134
PJA
rnol
d8
8718
RBa
ll7
846
SHPe
nman
941
8M
VRa
jan
721
1C
TH
orhg
ren
1215
RHC
henh
all
846
819
AJ
Leon
e7
451
GW
aym
ire9
198
WH
Beav
er7
200
SD
avid
son
1211
AJ
Rich
ards
on8
9920
SH
udda
rt7
335
JCM
cKeo
wn
912
5RS
Kap
lan
716
4A
NLo
rig12
5J
Robe
rts
822
321
WR
Land
sman
728
8M
VRa
jan
911
5H
TTa
n7
102
HF
Tagg
art
123
PFW
illia
ms
872
22K
Lo7
158
SSu
nder
910
5Y
Ijiri
734
FPSm
ith12
1H
Will
mot
t8
226
23K
Ram
esh
712
4M
Lang
855
9RC
Sans
ing
716
ME
Bart
h11
395
JJYo
ung
810
224
CLe
nnox
710
4R
Ant
le8
410
SAZe
ff7
14W
RK
inne
y11
209
MA
Abe
rnet
hy7
350
25PM
Hea
ly6
986
LDBr
own
833
1W
BM
eigs
70
MM
ooni
tz11
13RJ
Bola
nd7
115
26K
JM
urph
y6
825
RMBu
shm
an8
278
JLZi
mm
erm
ann
664
0N
MBe
dfor
d11
9Y
Gen
dron
773
27PM
Dec
how
669
8S
Reic
hels
tein
813
4K
KN
elso
n6
379
JLD
ohr
113
TH
oppe
r7
191
28B
True
man
631
6W
SH
opw
ood
892
DF
Larc
ker
637
4W
JG
raha
m11
3A
GH
opw
ood
741
029
JABr
ickl
ey6
295
JRo
nen
884
LAM
aine
s6
215
WL
Cam
pfiel
d11
1R
Libb
y7
246
308
auth
ors
6–
AR
Abd
elkh
alik
867
30au
thor
s6
–2
auth
ors
11–
5au
thor
s7
–
Abb
revi
atio
nsar
esh
own
inTa
ble
1.
C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 91
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Table 7 The most productive and influential institutions
R Institution Country TP4 TC4 H4 >200 >100 >50 TP TC H
1 U Chicago US 278 9690 50 6 20 53 295 9829 502 Stanford U US 194 6672 45 4 14 41 226 6999 463 U Pennsylvania US 186 8185 47 7 25 49 211 8645 494 U Texas Austin US 179 2703 28 0 4 11 230 3066 295 U Michigan US 175 6312 43 6 13 37 204 6731 446 U Washington Seattle US 144 4024 35 3 4 19 170 4314 367 U Illinois Urbana US 135 1883 23 1 3 7 171 1993 238 Penn State U US 130 2021 26 0 0 9 152 2183 279 Northwestern U US 125 3237 34 0 4 20 134 3448 3510 Cornell U US 123 3009 31 0 6 16 142 3243 3111 New York U US 119 2997 29 1 5 21 170 3458 3012 U Southern California US 117 3592 35 2 6 27 147 3997 3713 U Iowa US 115 2628 26 1 3 19 139 2902 2914 Michigan State U US 109 2014 23 1 2 13 130 2133 2415 Harvard U US 103 5131 40 6 13 32 119 5324 4116 UC Berkeley US 102 3293 28 2 10 18 116 3429 2917 UNC Chapel Hill US 99 3255 32 1 7 22 122 3482 3218 U Arizona US 99 1602 22 0 1 8 132 1783 2219 Ohio State U US 98 1195 18 0 2 6 136 1492 1920 Indiana U US 96 2217 26 0 1 14 127 2339 2621 Columbia U US 91 2404 24 2 4 13 124 2697 2622 MIT US 87 4334 33 5 12 20 100 4567 3423 Duke U US 86 2907 26 3 5 14 117 3115 2624 U Rochester US 83 4883 38 5 14 29 88 4906 3825 U Pittsburgh US 82 1239 19 0 2 5 92 1324 2026 U Minnesota US 80 1387 20 0 1 9 91 1517 2127 U Florida US 78 1774 22 0 2 11 116 2010 2228 UCLA US 75 2190 25 0 7 12 88 2262 2529 Washington U US 74 1427 21 1 1 5 92 1622 2330 U Wisconsin Madison US 73 2133 23 1 5 13 112 2436 2631 Carnegie Mellon U US 72 1622 18 0 5 7 85 1694 1932 Arizona State U US 72 547 14 0 0 1 122 942 1733 U Georgia US 68 1132 18 1 1 5 108 1413 2034 U Manchester UK 66 1536 25 0 0 5 109 1680 2535 HK U Sci Tech CHN 64 1319 20 0 1 7 81 1491 2136 U British Columbia CAN 61 2108 25 2 5 14 81 2335 2637 London Sch Econ UK 61 1618 20 1 2 7 95 1775 2238 U Alberta CAN 60 1450 21 1 1 9 82 1605 2239 Emory U US 58 970 18 0 0 5 79 1148 1940 U Colorado Boulder US 57 944 19 0 0 7 70 1037 1941 Purdue U US 57 781 14 0 1 5 65 822 1542 U New South Wales AUS 56 1285 21 0 1 8 170 1630 2443 U Notre Dame US 56 961 18 0 0 5 68 1025 1844 U Missouri Columbia US 48 1011 14 2 5 14 85 1555 2045 Texas AM U Coll Station US 48 701 15 0 1 3 107 1043 1746 CUNY Baruch Coll US 46 970 15 1 2 2 66 1072 1647 Florida State U US 46 486 14 0 0 2 68 582 1548 Yale U US 44 775 15 0 1 3 57 808 1649 U Oklahoma US 44 659 14 0 1 3 66 749 1550 U Kansas US 43 660 12 0 1 4 74 773 1351 U Oregon US 41 799 15 0 0 5 54 903 1752 U Texas Dallas US 40 653 13 0 2 5 57 735 1353 Brigham Young U US 39 725 13 0 2 5 68 879 1554 U Massachusetts Amherst US 39 291 10 0 0 0 49 345 1155 U Toronto CAN 38 480 11 0 0 3 83 639 1356 SUNY Buffalo US 37 830 14 0 1 6 50 865 1457 Rice U US 37 315 12 0 0 0 52 397 1458 U Utah US 36 1210 18 0 4 11 55 1401 2059 U Maryland Coll Park US 35 812 13 0 1 6 54 874 1460 U South Carolina US 34 359 11 0 0 1 62 457 1261 Georgia State U US 33 516 11 0 1 3 68 841 1462 Nanyang Tech U SGP 33 490 14 0 0 0 79 704 14
92 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Table 7 Continued
R Institution Country TP4 TC4 H4 >200 >100 >50 TP TC H
63 U Connecticut US 32 535 15 0 0 2 50 720 1764 Boston Coll US 32 477 13 0 0 2 63 796 1665 London Business Sch UK 31 1226 17 0 3 11 50 1283 1766 Southern Methodist U US 31 604 14 0 0 5 40 645 1567 Queens U CAN 31 502 12 0 0 2 45 640 1468 U Houston US 31 441 10 0 0 2 60 581 1469 Virginia Polytech Inst US 31 386 10 0 1 2 48 477 1170 Rutgers State U US 31 310 12 0 0 0 61 500 1271 U Melbourne AUS 30 881 15 0 0 7 89 1070 1772 Tel Aviv U ISR 30 687 13 0 1 5 41 714 1373 Ben Gurion U ISR 28 626 13 0 1 4 40 654 1374 U Illinois Chicago US 28 461 10 0 1 3 51 554 1275 Dartmouth Coll US 28 258 7 0 0 2 35 324 876 MacQuarie U AUS 27 778 16 0 1 4 58 854 1677 Boston U US 27 481 11 0 1 4 37 622 1378 Cardiff U UK 25 277 10 0 0 1 57 363 1179 U Oxford UK 24 570 13 0 0 3 30 669 1480 Louisiana State U US 24 457 13 0 1 3 35 588 1481 U New Mexico US 24 224 10 0 0 0 28 225 1082 Tilburg U NET 24 159 7 0 0 0 42 209 783 Monash U AUS 23 769 11 0 2 4 84 930 1584 George Washington U US 23 395 8 0 1 2 29 422 985 U Queensland AUS 23 315 9 0 0 2 79 490 1286 U Calgary CAN 22 613 11 0 2 4 32 727 1387 Temple U US 22 441 10 0 1 5 56 664 1288 U Edinburgh UK 22 321 12 0 0 1 51 437 1389 Syracuse U US 22 252 8 0 0 1 37 307 990 UC Irvine US 21 1135 14 1 4 6 30 1156 1491 San Diego State U US 21 368 13 0 0 0 29 390 1392 U Virginia US 21 324 10 0 0 2 31 380 1293 U Warwick UK 20 444 10 0 1 3 35 479 1094 U Kentucky US 20 396 12 0 0 3 42 544 1395 Georgetown U US 20 364 8 0 0 3 30 436 1196 U Miami US 20 286 9 0 0 2 31 348 1197 North Carolina State U US 19 621 10 1 1 2 32 690 1298 Case Western Reserve U US 19 352 12 0 0 1 32 420 1399 Tulane U US 19 182 8 0 0 1 25 220 8100 U Arkansas Fayetteville US 19 139 8 0 0 1 47 350 9
Abbreviations: TP4, TC4 and H4 = Total papers, citations and h-index in the top four accounting journals; >200, >100, >50 = numberof papers with more than 200, 100 and 50 citations; TP, TC and H = Total papers, citations and h-index in accounting journals indexed inWoS.
consider the nationality of the researchers who write thepaper. This may create a substantial gap as many goodresearchers have moved to other countries, especially theUS and the UK. It seems more reasonable to develop theanalysis in this way because the focus is on finding keyplaces around the world where high-quality accountingresearch is published. Table 9 presents a ranking of the 30most productive countries in the top four journals. Hereagain the objective is to see the volume of publicationsin the most influential journals because this reflects theimportance of a country in the field. In order to give acomplete picture, the total number of citations and theh-index are also considered.
It is clear that the US is the most productive and influ-ential country in this area, obtaining the best results in allthe variables and with huge differences from the second-ranked country. The UK is ranked second, Canada third
and Australia fourth. At a lower level China is in fifthposition and the Netherlands in sixth. Although smallcountries, Israel and Singapore obtain remarkable re-sults being in seventh and eighth positions respectively.The rest of the countries do not seem to have a stronginfluence in this field having published only few papersin the top four journals.
Next, in order to see the specific influence and pro-ductivity of each country, Table 10 shows the numberof papers that each country has published in each of the20 journals indexed in WoS. Note that the same rankingis used as in Table 9.
The US is the most influential country in almost allthe accounting journals. The only exceptions are JBFA,EAR, MAR, ABR and AAAJ that are led by the UK, AARby Australia and SJFA by Spain. Concerning the top four,the differences are very significant between the US and
C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 93
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Tab
le8
Inst
itu
tio
ns
wit
hth
eh
igh
est
nu
mb
ero
fp
aper
sin
the
top
fou
rac
cou
nti
ng
jou
rnal
s
JAE
JAR
TAR
AO
S
RA
utho
rTP
TCA
utho
rTP
TCA
utho
rTP
TCA
utho
rTP
TC
1U
Chi
cago
6527
14U
Chi
cago
149
5900
UTe
xas
Aus
tin96
1000
UM
anch
este
r55
1389
2U
Penn
sylv
ania
6132
51St
anfo
rdU
7126
59St
anfo
rdU
7116
76Lo
ndon
Sch
Econ
omic
s44
1506
3U
Roch
este
r47
3366
UPe
nnsy
lvan
ia66
2611
UM
ichi
gan
6916
37U
Alb
erta
3062
94
UM
ichi
gan
4321
25U
Texa
sA
ustin
5411
58U
Illin
ois
Urb
ana
6687
9U
New
Sout
hW
ales
2964
85
Stan
ford
U43
2078
UM
ichi
gan
5123
15U
Was
hing
ton
Seat
tle62
1245
Penn
Stat
eU
2641
36
MIT
4026
67U
Illin
ois
Urb
ana
5157
1M
ichi
gan
Stat
eU
6192
4C
ardi
ffU
2427
47
Nor
thw
este
rnU
3813
33C
orne
llU
5014
53U
Chi
cago
5792
6U
Oxf
ord
2353
38
USo
uthe
rnC
alifo
rnia
3616
91N
ewYo
rkU
4274
3In
dian
aU
5411
47U
Sout
hern
Cal
iforn
ia22
509
9U
Was
hing
ton
Seat
tle34
1972
UC
Berk
eley
4116
56N
ewYo
rkU
5411
19U
New
Mex
ico
2220
910
UN
CC
hape
lHill
2810
69C
olum
bia
U38
1043
UIo
wa
5269
9U
Pitt
sbur
gh22
208
11H
arva
rdU
2721
68U
Iow
a38
827
UPe
nnsy
lvan
ia51
2011
UW
arw
ick
2044
312
Penn
Stat
eU
2544
7U
Was
hing
ton
Seat
tle38
703
Cor
nell
U50
952
UEd
inbu
rgh
2031
713
Ohi
oSt
ate
U25
387
Nor
thw
este
rnU
3695
3N
orth
wes
tern
U45
822
Que
ens
UC
anad
a20
282
14H
KU
Sci.
Tech
.23
615
Penn
Stat
eU
3563
4U
Ariz
ona
4565
8U
Cal
gary
1835
115
Duk
eU
2012
64U
Min
neso
ta34
584
Penn
Stat
eU
4452
0M
acQ
uarie
U16
449
16U
Texa
sA
ustin
2042
1H
arva
rdU
3394
3U
CBe
rkel
ey44
833
UW
isco
nsin
Mad
ison
1633
117
New
York
U19
999
Duk
eU
3168
5U
NC
Cha
pelH
ill40
1034
Cas
eW
este
rnRe
serv
eU
1632
418
UBr
itish
Col
umbi
a18
442
Car
negi
eM
ello
nU
3061
6U
Sout
hern
Cal
iforn
ia40
713
Mic
higa
nSt
ate
U15
503
19Em
ory
U18
282
UN
CC
hape
lHill
2810
89U
Geo
rgia
3947
1U
Sout
hC
arol
ina
1518
320
UC
LA17
1081
UA
rizon
a27
517
UFl
orid
a38
631
Ariz
ona
Stat
eU
1597
21U
Iow
a17
976
UFl
orid
a26
804
Ariz
ona
Stat
eU
3621
2M
onas
hU
1471
522
Col
umbi
aU
1778
5W
ashi
ngto
nU
2638
7O
hio
Stat
eU
3625
2U
Mel
bour
ne14
502
23U
CBe
rkel
ey16
789
MIT
2472
1C
olum
bia
U34
558
Cop
enha
gen
Bus
Sch
1428
124
Was
hing
ton
U16
198
Ohi
oSt
ate
U24
333
Texa
sA
MU
Col
lSta
tion
3441
8U
Illin
ois
Urb
ana
1415
825
UA
rizon
a15
214
UC
LA23
508
UW
isco
nsin
Mad
ison
3380
7Yo
rkU
Can
ada
1413
826
Mic
higa
nSt
ate
U14
349
Yale
U22
510
Har
vard
U32
1486
Cor
nell
U13
296
27Pu
rdue
U14
310
UC
olor
ado
Boul
der
2136
2D
uke
U31
831
San
Die
goSt
ate
U13
281
28U
Pitt
sbur
gh13
324
UBr
itish
Col
umbi
a20
999
UM
isso
uriC
olum
bia
3041
7In
dian
aU
1222
229
UC
Irvin
e11
902
Indi
ana
U19
698
UPi
ttsb
urgh
3035
8O
hio
Stat
eU
1221
730
7in
stitu
tions
11–
USo
uthe
rnC
alifo
rnia
1866
3U
Not
reD
ame
2954
7U
Ariz
ona
1221
0
Abb
revi
atio
nsar
eav
aila
ble
inTa
ble
1.
94 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Tab
le9
The
mo
stp
rod
uct
ive
cou
ntr
ies
inac
cou
nti
ng
rese
arch
Rank
Nam
eTP
4TC
4TP
TC>
200
>10
0>
50P1
0YC
10Y
H
1U
S42
8192
910
6083
103
870
4917
049
224
1326
108
118
2U
K37
779
4290
697
612
943
620
3849
483
Can
ada
315
6153
551
7379
28
3729
124
2942
4A
ustr
alia
222
5660
838
7124
17
3056
625
1243
5C
hina
146
2502
371
3351
02
1230
816
4729
6N
ethe
rland
s79
1043
179
1377
01
315
894
719
7Is
rael
5179
075
839
01
523
103
148
Sing
apor
e49
558
119
853
00
092
469
169
Swed
en33
426
7650
40
01
5528
914
10N
.Zea
land
3039
014
371
80
02
112
512
1411
Den
mar
k29
509
5458
20
02
4229
214
12Fr
ance
2843
987
624
01
376
448
1213
SK
orea
2728
587
530
00
175
381
1314
Ger
man
y27
432
9871
60
02
9059
814
15Sp
ain
2030
720
357
50
02
197
428
1316
Finl
and
1623
456
382
00
044
199
1117
Belg
ium
1518
161
295
00
057
201
918
Irela
nd13
437
2848
81
12
1780
919
Japa
n11
111
4313
00
00
3335
520
Aus
tria
819
621
223
00
117
656
21N
orw
ay8
150
2518
50
02
2210
06
22Ita
ly6
110
5526
90
01
5225
28
23Eg
ypt
413
520
00
01
33
24G
reec
e4
4918
101
00
017
975
25In
dia
494
710
20
01
635
526
Indo
nesi
a4
526
550
00
421
427
Switz
erla
nd4
3717
770
00
1648
528
UA
E4
397
430
00
58
329
Port
ugal
34
2769
00
027
694
30S
Ara
bia
210
62
106
01
12
106
2
Abb
revi
atio
ns:
TP4
and
TC4
=To
talp
aper
san
dci
tatio
nsin
the
top
four
acco
untin
gjo
urna
ls;
TPan
dTC
=To
talp
aper
san
dci
tatio
nsin
acco
untin
gjo
urna
lsin
dexe
din
WoS
;>
200,
>10
0,>
50=
num
ber
ofpa
pers
with
mor
eth
an20
0,10
0an
d50
cita
tions
;P1
0Yan
dC
10Y
=N
umbe
rof
pape
rsan
dth
eir
cita
tions
inth
ela
st10
year
s;H
=h-
inde
x.N
ote
that
Chi
nain
clud
esH
ong
Kon
gan
dTa
iwan
.
C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 95
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Tab
le10
Co
un
trie
scl
assi
fied
by
the
20ac
cou
nti
ng
jou
rnal
sin
dex
edin
Wo
S
JAE
JAR
TAR
AO
SC
AR
RAS
AU
DJB
FJA
PEA
RA
BAM
AR
AF
ABR
AH
AA
RA
AA
IFM
AA
PJSJ
FTo
tal
1U
S69
612
0718
6851
027
118
148
214
727
624
112
739
3010
211
622
341
6026
2U
K15
4929
284
1014
515
118
3986
3320
683
1255
54
390
33
Can
ada
3073
9411
866
1047
2616
1316
38
23
211
14
054
34
Aus
tral
ia15
2768
112
160
3135
108
159
917
019
510
539
73
083
85
Chi
na42
2652
2632
2322
2935
85
221
52
33
1223
037
16
Net
herla
nds
87
2539
92
1321
115
611
57
22
21
01
177
7Is
rael
517
263
16
04
12
90
00
01
00
00
758
Sing
apor
e7
1420
815
712
72
18
110
24
00
10
011
99
Swed
en2
11
291
00
40
143
120
20
05
10
176
10N
.Zea
land
47
109
40
1011
83
211
214
317
91
00
143
11D
enm
ark
25
517
10
04
07
13
21
00
60
00
5412
Fran
ce6
45
133
40
104
112
61
10
16
35
085
13S
Kor
ea7
415
18
59
177
10
02
03
00
35
087
14G
erm
any
33
516
33
116
514
69
44
12
10
20
9815
Spai
n1
11
171
52
143
247
17
61
01
10
110
203
16Fi
nlan
d2
00
142
00
60
140
102
20
04
00
056
17Be
lgiu
m1
24
80
06
161
63
12
80
00
02
161
18Ire
land
01
012
00
27
03
00
02
00
10
00
2819
Japa
n0
24
50
01
21
23
01
01
11
316
043
20A
ustr
ia3
12
21
10
10
42
30
10
00
00
021
21N
orw
ay0
32
30
01
40
50
40
20
10
00
025
22Ita
ly0
00
61
01
60
123
71
11
18
34
055
23Eg
ypt
01
21
00
00
10
00
00
00
00
00
524
Gre
ece
10
03
12
05
02
10
11
00
01
00
1825
Indi
a2
11
00
00
01
01
10
00
00
00
07
26In
done
sia
20
02
00
00
00
00
01
00
10
00
627
Switz
erla
nd1
02
10
20
21
50
20
00
01
00
017
28U
AE
02
11
00
01
01
00
00
00
10
00
729
Port
ugal
00
03
01
03
06
12
12
02
01
05
2730
SA
rabi
a0
10
10
00
00
00
00
00
00
00
02
Abb
revi
atio
nsar
eav
aila
ble
inTa
ble
1.
96 Australian Accounting Review C© 2016 CPA Australia
J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
the rest of countries for JAE, JAR and TAR while AOShas the widest range in relation to the country of originof publications.
Conclusion
This paper presented a general updated picture of ac-counting research in the last decades by using biblio-metric indicators. The results were generated by usingWoS, a general database widely regarded as the mostinfluential in scientific research. The main contributionof this paper is the use of modern bibliometric toolsfor producing the results and taking into account thedifferent indicators that are currently used in the liter-ature. JAE, JAR, TAR and AOS are the most influentialjournals in the field, where the majority of the mostcited papers are published. CAR, AH and more recentlyRAS, are also very influential journals but not in thetop four. Inside this selective group, JAE gets the best re-sults. It has the advantage of being more interdisciplinarywith a strong connection between accounting and eco-nomics. Another important issue found when analysingthe journals is that WoS does not include many account-ing journals. An advantage of this in the search processis that it is very selective, focusing only on the highestquality research. This issue leads to other implications,such as the very low citation level of accounting paperscompared to other fields. Only four papers have receivedmore than 500 citations while in related disciplines usu-ally several papers have more than 1000 citations andmany are above the 500-citation threshold.
The US is the most dominant country in the fieldwith a very strong position in all the top journals. Ithas a long tradition of accounting research, especiallysince the creation of the AAA in 1916. More than 75%of the institutions in the top 100 worldwide come fromthe US and they control JAE, JAR, TAR and many otherinfluential journals. Almost all the top 40 authors shownin Table 5 are from the US and they have publishedmost of the highly cited papers in accounting. All theseauthors represent an important part of the main leadersin this field and they currently hold relevant editorialpositions in the most important journals. By looking atthe results, the conclusion is that the US almost has somekind of monopoly in this area with the exception of theUK, Canada and Australia, which also have significantpositions in this field.
The UK has shown a strong position in accountingrelative to its size. It is the most influential country inAOS and several of its institutions are found in the top100 although none are in the top 20. It has publishedmany highly cited papers and also holds a long traditionof accounting research. Furthermore, it controls otherinfluential journals including JBFA, MAR and ABR. Cur-rently, it is ranked the second most productive and in-fluential country in the world.
Canada, ranked third, is also very influential in ac-counting research. It controls CAR and has five institu-tions in the top 100, although the first one appears in the36th position. Many highly cited papers come from thiscountry. Australia has also shown remarkable results,given its size. Currently, it is the fourth most influentialcountry, very close to Canada. It controls ABA, AF, AARand AAAJ.
Other countries are far behind the first four countries.China is beginning to get some remarkable results andis currently ranked fifth. From the sixth to the eleventhposition, small developed countries appear with resultsthat could be considered appropriate according to theirsizes, including the Netherlands, Israel, Singapore,Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark. Large non-Englishspeaking countries, including France, South Korea,Germany, Spain, Japan and Italy, have only publisheda small number of papers in the best accountingjournals, probably due to their different languages.Many developing countries have only published afew papers in JAE, JAR, TAR and AOS. For example,Egypt, India and Indonesia have each publishedfour papers in the top four, and only 10 developingcountries have published at least one paper in the topfour.
The main findings of this paper are useful for obtain-ing a general overview of the state of the art in accountingresearch according to bibliometric information. Thus, itis possible to find the most remarkable research in thisarea according to some key indicators, including numberof papers, citations and the h-index. However, it is worthnoting that there are several limitations that should beconsidered. First, the analysis presented in the paper aimsto be informative so that it is possible to identify somevery relevant research in the field. However, since thisstudy is based on WoS, other influential research that isnot collected in WoS is not included in this study. Forinstance, some influential authors do not publish manypapers or they do not receive many citations due to theirspecific topics. Another example of this could be non-English speaking countries that have shown very weakresults but have perhaps published excellent researchresults in their own languages.
Second, it was necessary to classify the information,so several rankings were presented. However, they arenot an official result. They are simply aimed at being in-formative based on the bibliometric data found in WoS.Furthermore, many important issues in the evaluation ofresearch are very difficult to quantify, including involve-ment in journals, conferences, promotion of researchworldwide and many other related issues. Therefore,this paper only provides general information that maybe useful to help understand the field of accounting,but many other issues should be taken into accountin order to get a complete picture of the state of theart.
C© 2016 CPA Australia Australian Accounting Review 97
Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis J.M. Merigo & J.-B. Yang
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank John Harry Evans III(University of Pittsburgh), Elisabeth Gutierrez (Univer-sity of Chile), David F. Larcker (Stanford University),Christian Leuz (University of Chicago), Harold Lopez(University of Chile), James A. Ohlson (New York Uni-versity), and Martin Walker (University of Manchester)for the valuable comments that have improved the qual-ity of this paper. Support from the European Commis-sion through project PIEF-GA-2011-300062 is gratefullyacknowledged.
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