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Management Accounting Research: 20 years on
Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 278–284
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Management Accounting Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mar
Editorial report
Management Accounting Research: 20 years on
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Keywords: Management accounting Research Methods Theory Paradigms Journal rankings
a b s t r a c t This Editorial Report charts the progress of Management Accounting Research in its second decade. Starting by noting that in 2009 there were almost a quarter of a million downloads of papers from Management Accounting Research, it describes the range and diversity of the papers published in the Journal, their topics, research settings, and the theories and research methods used. It emphasises that the editors strongly encourage the use of a broad range of theories and research methods, and they want such diversity to continue to be a defining feature of the papers published in Management Accounting Research in the future. Finally, they urge management accounting researchers to undertake innovative research and to be both original and creative, thereby avoiding the homogeneity and narrowness which seem to be an increasing feature of accounting research more generally. In this way Management Accounting Research will continue to be the major source of leading edge research in the field of management accounting. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Over 20 years have now passed since the first volume of Management Accounting Research appeared in March 1990. In June 2001 we published our Editorial Report on the Journal’s first decade (see Scapens and Bromwich, 2001). The purpose here is to provide our report on its second decade; comparing the research published in the first two decades, and looking forward to the third decade. A particular feature of the past 10 years has been the increasing use of the Internet for both submissions and access to the papers published in Management Accounting Research. In 2005 we began using the Elsevier Electronic Submission (EES) system. Furthermore, over the decade the number of downloads from Science Direct of papers published in Management Accounting Research increased very rapidly. Fig. 1 shows the trend in downloads since 2001. The 231,074 downloads in 2009 compare very favourably with other major accounting journals. These downloads went to 90 different countries, which reflects the widespread international recognition of the importance of papers published in Management Accounting Research. We have to thank the members of the Editorial Board and the ad hoc reviewers for all their hard work in reviewing papers and ensuring that all papers published in Management Accounting Research make important contributions to the research literature. 1044-5005/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.mar.2010.08.003
This Editorial Report summarises the subjects and themes studied, the research settings and the theories and research methods employed in the papers published in Management Accounting Research. We contrast the papers published in the first decade; Volumes 1–10 (as described in Scapens and Bromwich, 2001); and the papers published in the second decade: Volumes 11–20. As in Scapens and Bromwich (2001), the categories used and the classifications given to each paper are based on our readings of the papers, and are inevitably subjective. However, we believe that they provide a clear indication of the range and diversity of the research which has been published in Management Accounting Research over the last two decades and the differences between the first and the second decade. In this editorial, as the Joint Editors of Management Accounting Research we emphasise and celebrate the breadth of research in the field of management accounting, but at the same time we point to some dangers which the future might hold; especially in view of the performance measurement systems which are increasingly being used by universities in many countries to evaluate research output, and the impact that these systems could have on the research undertaken by individual researchers. We believe there is a danger that the current emphasis on research rankings (including journal rankings) could constrain creativity and innovation in the future, as researchers ‘play
Editorial report / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 278–284
250,000
231,074
200,000
178,223 143,613
150,000 115,750
100,000
123,207
85,621 54,588
50,000
21,034
34,360
0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Fig. 1. Downloads of papers in Management Accounting Research— 2001–2009.
it safe’ and make only marginal contributions to existing research, rather than seeking to undertake research which fundamentally questions existing thinking and develops new knowledge in the area. We will return to this issue later; in the meantime we will summarise the papers which have been published in Management Accounting Research over the past two decades. As seen in Tables 1 and 2, there were 178 published papers in the first decade and 205 in the second. However, the total number of papers in the second decade (205) includes the editorials by the guest editors of special issues/sections. As many of these editorials make a significant contribution to the literature, as well as introducing the contents of the special issue/section, they have been included in the number of papers when analysing the regions of origin and the topics studied. However, it was not appropriate to include them in the analysis of the research settings, theory used and research methods in Tables 3–5 where, consequently, the total number of papers for the second decade is 196. The slight increase in the number of papers is because the early volumes, 1990–1995, included abstracts of papers on management accounting published elsewhere. Apart from this factor, the size of Management Accounting Research and the number of papers in each volume has remained relatively constant over the two decades. However, readers may have noticed that there have been changes in the numbers of pages in individual volumes from time to time. This has been due to the changes which the publishers have made to the format of the journal. By and large, the numbers of papers Table 1 Regions of origin.
Number of papers Asia Australia and New Zealand Europe U.K. U.S. Middle East/Africa
a
1990–1999 178
2000–2009 205a
7% 9% 19% 50% 14% 1%
4% 16% 40% 29% 10% 1%
100%
100%
Including editorials by guest editors.
279
Table 2 Topics studied. 1990–1999 178
Number of papers ABC Other advanced techniques Capital budgeting Budgeting, standard costing and variance analysis Cost accounting systems and techniques Pricing; including transfer pricing EVA and residual income Management accounting practices Management accounting change Management and organisational control Performance measurement Strategic management Risk management Inter-organisational management control Governance Other
a
2000–2009 205a
7% 7% 6% 7%
5% 10% 1% 5%
11%
4%
3%
2%
3% 16%
1% 8%
11%
15%
8%
17%
14% 5% – –
14% 3% 3% 6%
– 2%
3% 3%
100%
100%
Including editorials by guest editors.
Table 3 Research settings.
Number of papers Generic Manufacturing Specific industries Services Public sector Specific countries Multinationals Other
1990–1999 178
2000–2009 196
28% 16% 7% 7% 8% 28% 3% 3%
14% 9% 18% 14% 9% 25% 5% 6%
100%
100%
Table 4 Theory used.
Number of papers Applied Economics Institutional theory Social theory Actor network theory Contingency theory Organisation theory Management control theory Psychology and behavioural science Cultural theories Operations management Strategic management New public management Other
1990–1999 178
2000–2009 196
34% 24% 4% 7% – 6% 9% 2% 3% 3% 3% 2% – 3%
12% 12% 19% 4% 5% 13% 6% 3% 3% – 9% 2% 6% 6%
100%
100%
280
Editorial report / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 278–284
Table 5 Research methods.
Number of papers Analytic: mathematical Analytical discussion Behavioural experiments Case studies Other field studies Surveys Financial statement analysis Historical analysis Literature review
2. Topics studied 1990–1999 178
2000–2009 196
13% 14% 4% 24% 15% 15% 1% 6% 8%
30% 11% 2% 40% 8% 4% 2% 1% 1%
100%
100%
published has not changed over the years. However, the number of submissions has increased. Whereas the number of submissions was fairly constant during the first decade, it increased substantially (i.e., by 69%) during the second decade, and the increase was particularly marked in the latter part of the decade. Whereas there were 72 submissions in 2000, they had risen to 122 in 2009. As the size of the journal and the number of papers published have been relatively constant, the acceptance rate has inevitably fallen. The average acceptance rate was 17% over the whole of the second decade, and 15% in the second half (2005–2009) which contrasts with the rate of 26% in the second half of the 1990s (1995–1999). Given the growth in the number of papers, one possible explanation for the lower acceptance rate is that an increasing number of papers are being submitted far too early. Such papers are not fully developed. They have probably not been sufficiently discussed at conferences and workshops, and they have clearly not received critical comments from colleagues. It is important that authors do not rely on reviewers to help them to develop their papers. As Editors we want to continue publishing high quality papers in Management Accounting Research, but we do not necessarily want the acceptance rate to decline. On the contrary, we would welcome an increase in the acceptance rate, provided the papers submitted are of a high quality. Table 1 indicates the geographical regions in which the authors are located and consequently the regional origins of the papers published in Management Accounting Research. In the first decade 50% of the papers came from the U.K., with a further 19% from other countries in Europe. In the second decade, however, the number originating from the U.K. declined to 29%, but this was compensated by papers from other European countries. In total, the proportion from Europe remained surprisingly constant at 69%. The small decline in papers from the U.S. and Asia has been compensated by an increase in papers from Australia and New Zealand. The quite low number of papers from the U.S. may be due to the way U.S. universities, especially the top schools, rank journals—see Merchant (2010). On the positive side, one factor which has helped to increase the number of accepted papers originating from countries in continental Europe and Asia, where English is not the first language, is the increasing use of English language editing services and proof reading by colleagues who are native English speakers.
Table 2 summarises the topics and themes which have been studied in the papers published in Management Accounting Research, divided into the first and second decades. This table indicates that there has not been a major shift in the topics studied over this period, although there have been some changes. In particular, there has been a slight decline in the papers studying some of the traditional topics of management accounting: ABC; capital budgeting; budgeting, standard costing and variance analysis; and cost accounting systems and techniques. This has been compensated to some extent by the increase in the papers studying various other (sometimes called ‘leading edge’) techniques—including managing intellectual capital and intangibles; knowledge management; balanced scorecards; benchmarking; lean accounting; and world-class manufacturing. The number of papers studying the broad areas of management accounting and control systems has increased over the two decades—35% in the 1990s to 40% in the 2000s. In the first decade the emphasis was on studying management accounting practices, with papers which tended to describe the management accounting systems and techniques used in practice. During the second decade there was an increase in the number of papers studying management accounting change and a doubling of the proportion of papers dealing with management accounting and organisational control. However, the proportion of papers dealing with performance measurement remains constant, although in the second decade issues of performance management were probably more important than performance measurement per se. There were also several new topics which emerged during the second decade. Inter-organisational management control became important; and there were a number of papers dealing with various aspects of governance. In addition, there were several papers on risk management towards the end of the decade—several in a Special Issue on the topic (see Table 6). These papers were particularly timely in view of the recent financial crisis. 3. Research settings Table 3 indicates the research settings of the papers in the two decades. The generic category, which comprises papers that use a general, abstract or simplified setting, was one of the largest in the first decade. However, the papers in this category declined significantly in the second decade. The papers in the manufacturing category also declined during that period. Both these declines are because papers are increasingly dealing with quite specific research settings. The manufacturing category comprises papers studying manufacturing in general, whereas papers which study specific types of manufacturing are included in the specific industries category. In the second decade this category comprised such diverse settings as agriculture, heath care, electronics, chemicals and steel. The services category was also very diverse comprising, amongst others, aircraft maintenance, highway maintenance, communications, retailing, restaurants
Editorial report / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 278–284 Table 6 Special issues. Special issues/sections Management accounting change (J. Burns and J. Vaivio) 2001. Management accounting in transitional economies (A. Jargua and S. Ho) 2002. Management accounting and knowledge management (A. Bhimani and H. Roberts) 2004. Management accounting in the new public sector (I. Lapsley and P. Clarke) 2004. Towards new forms of control (J. Burns and W. Nixon) 2005. Management control of inter-firm transactional relationships (J. van der Meer-Kooistra and E. Vosselman) 2006. Management accounting change II (C. Busco, P. Quattrone and A. Riccaboni) 2007. Management control systems as a package (T. Malmi and D. Brown) 2008. Risk management, corporate governance and management accounting (A. Bhimani) 2009. 2010 and forthcoming The relationship between theory & practice in management accounting (G. Baldvinsdottir, F. Mitchell and H. Nørreklit) 2010. Paradigms in accounting research (K. Lukka) 2010. Inter-organizational relationships involving public administrations: the role of management control systems (A. Barretta and C. Busco) forthcoming. Strategic management accounting (W. Nixon and J. Burns) forthcoming. Management accounting in government (I. Lapsley, P. Miller and L. Kurunmaki) forthcoming. Emerging issues in performance measurement (M. Bourne, S. Melnyk, U. Bititci, K. Platts, B. Andersen and L. Onsøyen) forthcoming. Challenges for management accounting arising from the sustainable development agenda (J. Bebbington and I. Thomson) forthcoming.
and banks, as well as religious organisations, schools and universities. In some papers there was a focus on a specific country—either in a specific company/industry setting, or in that country in general. These countries cover many different parts of the world, from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand to China, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, as well as various European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the U.K.). This regional diversity is very similar to that of the papers in the first decade. 4. Theories and research methods used The theories used are summarised in Table 4. In the first decade about a third of the papers (34%) were classified as “applied”. These papers examined various aspects of management accounting techniques, systems and practices without being grounded in an explicit, or even a clearly discernable implicit, theoretical framework. In classifying the papers in both decades it was sometimes necessary to infer the authors’ underlying theories from the content of the paper. In the papers in the applied category the focus of the research is generally the nature of specific management accounting practices, but it is not possible to identify a specific theoretical framework. However, in the second decade the proportion of such papers declined (to 12%). Furthermore, the numbers of these papers declined as the decade progressed, and there have been very few in recent years. The papers in this category published in the second
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decade make contributions by providing quite specific and new insights into the nature of management accounting practices. Today, papers without explicit, or at least clearly implicit, theoretical underpinnings are unlikely to be published in Management Accounting Research. Even papers which study the nature of management accounting in practice need to be theorised. We now turn to the theories which were used during the second decade of Management Accounting Research. Whereas economics, broadly defined, was the main theory utilised during the first decade (24%), its use declined in the second decade (to 12%). During that decade institutional theory became the most used—19% (this includes 6% employing transaction costs economics). Other social theories declined from 7% to 4% of the papers. However, there were also 5% which used actor network theory (although this is not strictly a social theory per se—it is more of a methodological approach). The other theory used in a notable proportion of papers in the second decade was contingency theory (13%—compared to 6% in the first decade). As can be seen from seen from Table 4, there was no dominating theoretical perspective in the papers published in Management Accounting Research in either decade. This reflects the policy of the journal to publish papers with diverse theoretical perspectives and to encourage theoretical innovation. The latter is reflected to some extent in the papers using theories classified as ‘other’, which comprises theories used in just one or two papers. These theories range from systems theory and life cycle theory to autopoiesis theory and practice-based theory. There were several papers (6%) which were underpinned by the theories which comprise new public management. Possibly, these could be classified as using political economy—or a combination of economics and political theory. But as they represent a distinct and new group of papers in Management Accounting Research, they are classified separately. There has also been considerable diversity in the research methods employed in the papers published in Management Accounting Research. However, as can be seen in Table 5, in the second decade there were two primary research methods—case studies and mathematical/statistical methods. The use of mathematical and statistical methods increased from 13% in the first decade to 30% in the second decade. This was due, in part, to the increased use of statistical methods to analyse surveys of management accounting systems, techniques and practices. In the first decade there were a number of surveys which described various aspects of management accounting practices. This category has declined markedly from 15% in the first decade to 4% in the second. Management Accounting Research no longer publishes purely descriptive surveys. For surveys to be publishable in Management Accounting Research they must be both analytical and theoretically grounded. Similarly, case studies and other types of field studies must also have clear theoretical underpinnings. The number of case studies increased in the second decade—40% compared to 24% in the first decade. However, the distinction between case studies and other field studies is rather arbitrary, and a more appropriate comparison might be of the combination of case studies and other
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Editorial report / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 278–284
Table 7 David Solomons Prize winners. Year
Author(s)
Title
Details
2001
Jan Mouritsen, Allan Hansen and Carsten Ø. Hansen
Vol. 12.2 June 2001 pp. 221–244
2002
Douglass Cagwin and Marinus J. Bouwman
2003
Henri C. Dekker
Inter-organizational controls and organizational competencies: episodes around target cost management/functional analysis and open book accounting The association between activity-based costing and improvement in financial performance Value chain analysis in interfirm relationships: a field study
2004
Annick Bourguignon Véronique Malleret and Hanne Nørreklit
2005
Margaret A. Abernethy, Malcolm Horne, Anne M. Lillis, Mary A. Malina and Frank H. Selto Sally K. Widener
2006
2007
Ralph Kober, Juliana Ng and Byron J. Paul
2008
Andrea Dossi and Lorenzo Patelli
2009
Anette Mikes
field studies—39% in the first decade compared to 48% in the second. This quite perceptible increase compensates for the decline in (descriptive) surveys. Apart from papers in the analytical discussion category, the papers using other research methods are quite small in number. Nevertheless, the use of other research methods is strongly encouraged, whether quantitative or qualitative; but their use must satisfy reviewers who are experts in those research methods. The policy of Management Accounting Research continues to be to encourage papers which use a wide range of research methods, as well as different theories to study various management accounting topics in diverse research settings; but as always subject to review by relevant experts. This broad emphasis is reflected in the special issues/sections which have been published in Management Accounting Research over the past decade. Table 6 sets out these special issues/sections, showing the guest editors and the year of publication. For completeness, Table 6 also shows the special issues/sections published in 2010 and those which are forthcoming—calls for papers having already been issued. As Joint Editors, we are very grateful to all the guest editors for their hard work in bringing together these important and insightful collections of papers. Finally, our report on the second decade of Management Accounting Research would not be complete without recalling the winners of the David Solomons Prize. This prize, which was inaugurated in 2001, was named in recognition of Professor Solomons’ extensive contributions to management accounting research over many years in the
The American balanced scorecard versus the French tableau de bord: the ideological dimension A multi-method approach to building causal performance maps from expert knowledge Associations between strategic resource importance and performance measure use: the impact on firm performance The interrelationship between management control mechanisms and strategy The decision-influencing use of performance measurement systems in relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries Risk management and calculative cultures
Vol. 13.1 March 2002 pp. 1–39 Vol. 14.1 March 2003 pp. 1–23 Vol. 15.2 June 2004 pp. 107–134 Vol. 16.2 June 2005 pp. 135–155 Vol. 17.4 December 2006 pp. 433–457 Vol. 18.4 December 2007 pp. 425–452 Vol. 19.2 June 2008 pp. 126–148 Vol. 20.1 March 2009 pp. 18–40
second half of the twentieth century. The prize (of £1,000) is awarded to the best paper in each annual volume of Management Accounting Research. The prize winning papers are selected by the Editors with advice from the Editorial Board. Table 7 lists all the prize winners and the titles of their papers; including the winner of the 2009 prize who is formally announced at the beginning of the Issue. Notable features of the list in Table 7 are the regional diversity of the prize winners and the mix of younger and more established researchers. Although a pleasant task, it is always difficult to select the best paper, as the quality of all papers published in Management Accounting Research is very high, and the number of potential prize winners and the competition for the prize is great, as there are often several papers which are highly commended by the Editorial Board. 5. The future Earlier this year, in our editorial to mark the beginning of the 20th Anniversary Issue (see Vol. 21.1), we said that we would produce an Editorial Report which, as well as analysing the papers published in Management Accounting Research over the past 20 years, would also review current trends and suggest likely directions for research in management accounting in the Journal’s third decade. However, on reflection, and recognising that we have no special skills in predicting the future, we decided not to suggest directions for the future, as it might appear that we “favour” specific areas and issues. What we want to do is to encourage management accounting researchers to be
Editorial report / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 278–284
creative and to produce innovative papers. What we would really like to see is research that we do not anticipate – the surprising and the unexpected – which takes the subject in new directions. However, undoubtedly, the majority of the papers published in Management Accounting Research will continue to address the current areas of interest. In the above sections we emphasised the diversity of the research which has been published in Management Accounting Research, and the broad range of topics, settings, theories and research methods in the papers published over the past two decades. In the future we would like to see such diverse research continuing to be published in Management Accounting Research. We believe this is particularly important for research in management accounting, especially at the present time when it seems that there is a tendency towards homogenisation in accounting research, which seems to be increasingly oriented towards financial accounting and capital market related topics. In the June 2010 issue of Management Accounting Research (Vol. 21.2) there was a Special Section on Paradigms in Accounting Research. This brought together a number of contributions from a plenary session at the 2009 Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, organised and chaired by Kari Lukka. That plenary session, and the Special Section in the June issue of Management Accounting Research which he also edited, were motivated by what Lukka (2010) describes as the increasing narrowness (particularly in North America, but also elsewhere) of so-called ‘mainstream’ accounting research; dominated as it is by economics-based empirical financial accounting research using large databases. He argued that this increasing narrowness is leading to the homogenisation of accounting research, the bulk of which “today pursue only marginal contributions within one, a largely programmed, theoretical and methodological framework and applies taken-for-granted research methods” (2010: 110). Lukka went on to claim that the dominance of the functionalist paradigm in mainstream accounting research is leading to increasing uniformity which has serious implications for future research. He pointed out that there is seemingly little acceptance of other paradigms in North America, although in his view multi-paradigm accounting research is appreciated, “or at least tolerated”, in Europe (2010: 113). The subsequent contributions in that Special Section provided evidence of the serious implications to which Lukka (2010) was referring. Malmi (2010) highlighted the problems which can occur when research does not fit within established paradigmatic boundaries. He recounted his story of the difficulties of publishing papers which fall in the sort of “no man’s land” between established paradigms. Modell (2010), however, while recognising the difficulties of crossing paradigmatic boundaries, advanced the case for mixed methods research. But Merchant’s (2010) View from North America provided what are probably the most worrying implications. Merchant argues that the emphasis on the ‘mainstream’ in the U.S. is “essentially closing the door on many potentially important research undertakings [that use] paradigms considered outside the norm. They are squeezing out topic, discipline, and research method diversity,
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at great cost to the schools themselves, the academy and, indeed, society.” (2010: 116). He went on to demonstrate that research outside the mainstream is being increasingly marginalised in the top North American journals. He argued that a consequence of the marginalisation of non-mainstream research is a further decline in the number of researchers working outside the mainstream, which inevitably reinforces the dominance of mainstream research and creates the tendency towards homogenisation in (North American) accounting research. He claims that this is driving out creativity and innovation, as all the top U.S. business schools seek to encourage the same type of mainstream accounting research. An important implication is that some major research traditions, including survey and field research, which are extensively used in management accounting research, “are being starved out of the accounting academy” (Merchant, 2010: 119). Although Merchant is “sanguine about the future of accounting research in Europe and other areas outside the United States” he sees “a dark cloud . . . on the horizon, in the form of rankings and ‘league tables’.” (2010: 119) We believe it is imperative for the future of management accounting research internationally that lessons are learnt from the experience in North America. Moreover, as Merchant pointed out, there may be very real dangers in the increasing spread of research assessments and league tables, and especially in the use of journal rankings which privilege what are perceived as the A (or even A*) journals. In the accounting field, journal rankings tend to favour those journals, particularly North American journals, which publish predominantly mainstream research. This can be a particular problem for ‘specialist’ journals, such as Management Accounting Research, which encourage paradigm diversity and publish papers which use a broad range of research methods. Mainstream researchers and the Deans of business schools, particularly in the U.S. are probably unfamiliar with the papers published in such journals. This suggests that researchers in specialist areas, such as management accounting, need to be vocal and to actively campaign for what they regard as the “best” journals in their respective fields. We take some reassurance, however, from an exercise undertaken by Rosenstreich and Wooliscroft (2009), who constructed a hierarchy of accounting journals based on several different indices, using the widely based Google Scholar citations, and this placed Management Accounting Research in the top ten accounting journals. Although we have some very real concerns about the international proliferation of journal rankings, we were nevertheless pleased when Management Accounting Research was included in the ISI, as many universities are increasingly encouraging their academic staff to publish in journals which have an ISI impact factor. The lack of ISI recognition could have actively prevented researchers from submitting their papers to us. Management Accounting Research was included in the ISI in the latter part of 2008 and, as 2 years data are required, we will be able to report impact factors from 2011. Although the problems of assessing research performance through journal rankings are becoming more widely recognised (for example, see Rosenstreich and Wooliscroft,
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2009), their simplicity and apparent objectivity can make them very appealing to both policymakers and university administrators. In a number of countries this appeal is leading to a greater use of journal rankings in the assessment of universities, departments and individuals. This means that individual researchers have to consider very carefully where to publish their research. Some may decide to ‘play it safe’ and work in the mainstream. Such a tendency could contribute to the narrowness and homogenisation which Lukka was describing. Another problem is that some researchers may attempt to divide up their research in ways which maximise their performance in terms of the research ratings, but ultimately reduces the real contribution of their work. Along with other journals, we have had occasional examples of such problems, as some authors try “salami slicing” their databases or their case/field studies, sometimes without reference to related papers, thereby sacrificing quality for quantity. The increasing use of research assessments and journal rankings could also contribute to the general tendency for accounting departments (and worryingly for business schools more generally) to follow the mainstream, and consequently for them to tend towards the norm and to discourage research which deviates from that norm. This can place severe constraints on creativity and innovation if all accounting departments/business schools pursue similar ‘mainstream’ research agendas. This is rather ironic as much of the strategy literature, which is usually a central feature of courses within business schools, emphasises the importance of product differentiation; something which many business schools seem to want to avoid, at least in their research. As editors of Management Accounting Research, we will to continue to welcome a broad range of management accounting research, and we encourage researchers to be creative and innovative. This does not mean that we do not want to publish mainstream management accounting research. We certainly do. A majority of the research published in Management Accounting Research could probably be classified as mainstream management accounting research. But at the same time, we do not want to exclude research which is different; research which questions the mainstream; and research which adopts alternative paradigms. This has been the particular strength of Man-
agement Accounting Research over the past 20 years, and we would like to see it continue in the future. We would also like to see ‘conversations’ across the paradigms, and the use of mixed methods research. The emphasis of North American mainstream accounting research on financial accounting and the associated difficulties facing management accounting researchers in the U.S. offers real opportunities for researchers in Europe and elsewhere in the world to take the lead in management accounting research. Management Accounting Research stands ready to help in this process. To summarise, we would like to see further developments in current research, both in the mainstream and non-mainstream paradigms, but more particularly we would like to see developments which are creative and innovative—possibly in directions that we cannot anticipate at the present time. It is only in this way that we will be able to avoid the homogenisation and narrowness which is claimed to be an increasing feature of mainstream accounting research. When we get to the 30th anniversary of Management Accounting Research, we hope the editors (who are unlikely to be us) will be able to look back at the third decade and to report on the diversity and innovativeness of the high quality research published during the Journal’s third decade. References Lukka, K., 2010. Introduction: the roles and effects of paradigms in accounting research. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 110–115. Malmi, T., 2010. Reflections on paradigms in action in accounting research. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 121–123. Merchant, K.A., 2010. Paradigms in accounting research: a view from North America. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 116–120. Modell, S., 2010. Bridging the paradigms divide in management accounting research: the role of mixed methods approaches. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 124–129. Rosenstreich, D.A., Wooliscroft, B., 2009. Measuring the impact of accounting journals using Google Scholar and the g-index. British Accounting Review 41 (4), 227–239. Scapens, R.W., Bromwich, M., 2001. Editorial Report—Management Accounting Research: the first decade. Management Accounting Research 12 (2), 245–254.
Robert W. Scapens Michael Bromwich
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Management Accounting Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mar
Editorial report
Management Accounting Research: 20 years on
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Keywords: Management accounting Research Methods Theory Paradigms Journal rankings
a b s t r a c t This Editorial Report charts the progress of Management Accounting Research in its second decade. Starting by noting that in 2009 there were almost a quarter of a million downloads of papers from Management Accounting Research, it describes the range and diversity of the papers published in the Journal, their topics, research settings, and the theories and research methods used. It emphasises that the editors strongly encourage the use of a broad range of theories and research methods, and they want such diversity to continue to be a defining feature of the papers published in Management Accounting Research in the future. Finally, they urge management accounting researchers to undertake innovative research and to be both original and creative, thereby avoiding the homogeneity and narrowness which seem to be an increasing feature of accounting research more generally. In this way Management Accounting Research will continue to be the major source of leading edge research in the field of management accounting. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Over 20 years have now passed since the first volume of Management Accounting Research appeared in March 1990. In June 2001 we published our Editorial Report on the Journal’s first decade (see Scapens and Bromwich, 2001). The purpose here is to provide our report on its second decade; comparing the research published in the first two decades, and looking forward to the third decade. A particular feature of the past 10 years has been the increasing use of the Internet for both submissions and access to the papers published in Management Accounting Research. In 2005 we began using the Elsevier Electronic Submission (EES) system. Furthermore, over the decade the number of downloads from Science Direct of papers published in Management Accounting Research increased very rapidly. Fig. 1 shows the trend in downloads since 2001. The 231,074 downloads in 2009 compare very favourably with other major accounting journals. These downloads went to 90 different countries, which reflects the widespread international recognition of the importance of papers published in Management Accounting Research. We have to thank the members of the Editorial Board and the ad hoc reviewers for all their hard work in reviewing papers and ensuring that all papers published in Management Accounting Research make important contributions to the research literature. 1044-5005/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.mar.2010.08.003
This Editorial Report summarises the subjects and themes studied, the research settings and the theories and research methods employed in the papers published in Management Accounting Research. We contrast the papers published in the first decade; Volumes 1–10 (as described in Scapens and Bromwich, 2001); and the papers published in the second decade: Volumes 11–20. As in Scapens and Bromwich (2001), the categories used and the classifications given to each paper are based on our readings of the papers, and are inevitably subjective. However, we believe that they provide a clear indication of the range and diversity of the research which has been published in Management Accounting Research over the last two decades and the differences between the first and the second decade. In this editorial, as the Joint Editors of Management Accounting Research we emphasise and celebrate the breadth of research in the field of management accounting, but at the same time we point to some dangers which the future might hold; especially in view of the performance measurement systems which are increasingly being used by universities in many countries to evaluate research output, and the impact that these systems could have on the research undertaken by individual researchers. We believe there is a danger that the current emphasis on research rankings (including journal rankings) could constrain creativity and innovation in the future, as researchers ‘play
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250,000
231,074
200,000
178,223 143,613
150,000 115,750
100,000
123,207
85,621 54,588
50,000
21,034
34,360
0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Fig. 1. Downloads of papers in Management Accounting Research— 2001–2009.
it safe’ and make only marginal contributions to existing research, rather than seeking to undertake research which fundamentally questions existing thinking and develops new knowledge in the area. We will return to this issue later; in the meantime we will summarise the papers which have been published in Management Accounting Research over the past two decades. As seen in Tables 1 and 2, there were 178 published papers in the first decade and 205 in the second. However, the total number of papers in the second decade (205) includes the editorials by the guest editors of special issues/sections. As many of these editorials make a significant contribution to the literature, as well as introducing the contents of the special issue/section, they have been included in the number of papers when analysing the regions of origin and the topics studied. However, it was not appropriate to include them in the analysis of the research settings, theory used and research methods in Tables 3–5 where, consequently, the total number of papers for the second decade is 196. The slight increase in the number of papers is because the early volumes, 1990–1995, included abstracts of papers on management accounting published elsewhere. Apart from this factor, the size of Management Accounting Research and the number of papers in each volume has remained relatively constant over the two decades. However, readers may have noticed that there have been changes in the numbers of pages in individual volumes from time to time. This has been due to the changes which the publishers have made to the format of the journal. By and large, the numbers of papers Table 1 Regions of origin.
Number of papers Asia Australia and New Zealand Europe U.K. U.S. Middle East/Africa
a
1990–1999 178
2000–2009 205a
7% 9% 19% 50% 14% 1%
4% 16% 40% 29% 10% 1%
100%
100%
Including editorials by guest editors.
279
Table 2 Topics studied. 1990–1999 178
Number of papers ABC Other advanced techniques Capital budgeting Budgeting, standard costing and variance analysis Cost accounting systems and techniques Pricing; including transfer pricing EVA and residual income Management accounting practices Management accounting change Management and organisational control Performance measurement Strategic management Risk management Inter-organisational management control Governance Other
a
2000–2009 205a
7% 7% 6% 7%
5% 10% 1% 5%
11%
4%
3%
2%
3% 16%
1% 8%
11%
15%
8%
17%
14% 5% – –
14% 3% 3% 6%
– 2%
3% 3%
100%
100%
Including editorials by guest editors.
Table 3 Research settings.
Number of papers Generic Manufacturing Specific industries Services Public sector Specific countries Multinationals Other
1990–1999 178
2000–2009 196
28% 16% 7% 7% 8% 28% 3% 3%
14% 9% 18% 14% 9% 25% 5% 6%
100%
100%
Table 4 Theory used.
Number of papers Applied Economics Institutional theory Social theory Actor network theory Contingency theory Organisation theory Management control theory Psychology and behavioural science Cultural theories Operations management Strategic management New public management Other
1990–1999 178
2000–2009 196
34% 24% 4% 7% – 6% 9% 2% 3% 3% 3% 2% – 3%
12% 12% 19% 4% 5% 13% 6% 3% 3% – 9% 2% 6% 6%
100%
100%
280
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Table 5 Research methods.
Number of papers Analytic: mathematical Analytical discussion Behavioural experiments Case studies Other field studies Surveys Financial statement analysis Historical analysis Literature review
2. Topics studied 1990–1999 178
2000–2009 196
13% 14% 4% 24% 15% 15% 1% 6% 8%
30% 11% 2% 40% 8% 4% 2% 1% 1%
100%
100%
published has not changed over the years. However, the number of submissions has increased. Whereas the number of submissions was fairly constant during the first decade, it increased substantially (i.e., by 69%) during the second decade, and the increase was particularly marked in the latter part of the decade. Whereas there were 72 submissions in 2000, they had risen to 122 in 2009. As the size of the journal and the number of papers published have been relatively constant, the acceptance rate has inevitably fallen. The average acceptance rate was 17% over the whole of the second decade, and 15% in the second half (2005–2009) which contrasts with the rate of 26% in the second half of the 1990s (1995–1999). Given the growth in the number of papers, one possible explanation for the lower acceptance rate is that an increasing number of papers are being submitted far too early. Such papers are not fully developed. They have probably not been sufficiently discussed at conferences and workshops, and they have clearly not received critical comments from colleagues. It is important that authors do not rely on reviewers to help them to develop their papers. As Editors we want to continue publishing high quality papers in Management Accounting Research, but we do not necessarily want the acceptance rate to decline. On the contrary, we would welcome an increase in the acceptance rate, provided the papers submitted are of a high quality. Table 1 indicates the geographical regions in which the authors are located and consequently the regional origins of the papers published in Management Accounting Research. In the first decade 50% of the papers came from the U.K., with a further 19% from other countries in Europe. In the second decade, however, the number originating from the U.K. declined to 29%, but this was compensated by papers from other European countries. In total, the proportion from Europe remained surprisingly constant at 69%. The small decline in papers from the U.S. and Asia has been compensated by an increase in papers from Australia and New Zealand. The quite low number of papers from the U.S. may be due to the way U.S. universities, especially the top schools, rank journals—see Merchant (2010). On the positive side, one factor which has helped to increase the number of accepted papers originating from countries in continental Europe and Asia, where English is not the first language, is the increasing use of English language editing services and proof reading by colleagues who are native English speakers.
Table 2 summarises the topics and themes which have been studied in the papers published in Management Accounting Research, divided into the first and second decades. This table indicates that there has not been a major shift in the topics studied over this period, although there have been some changes. In particular, there has been a slight decline in the papers studying some of the traditional topics of management accounting: ABC; capital budgeting; budgeting, standard costing and variance analysis; and cost accounting systems and techniques. This has been compensated to some extent by the increase in the papers studying various other (sometimes called ‘leading edge’) techniques—including managing intellectual capital and intangibles; knowledge management; balanced scorecards; benchmarking; lean accounting; and world-class manufacturing. The number of papers studying the broad areas of management accounting and control systems has increased over the two decades—35% in the 1990s to 40% in the 2000s. In the first decade the emphasis was on studying management accounting practices, with papers which tended to describe the management accounting systems and techniques used in practice. During the second decade there was an increase in the number of papers studying management accounting change and a doubling of the proportion of papers dealing with management accounting and organisational control. However, the proportion of papers dealing with performance measurement remains constant, although in the second decade issues of performance management were probably more important than performance measurement per se. There were also several new topics which emerged during the second decade. Inter-organisational management control became important; and there were a number of papers dealing with various aspects of governance. In addition, there were several papers on risk management towards the end of the decade—several in a Special Issue on the topic (see Table 6). These papers were particularly timely in view of the recent financial crisis. 3. Research settings Table 3 indicates the research settings of the papers in the two decades. The generic category, which comprises papers that use a general, abstract or simplified setting, was one of the largest in the first decade. However, the papers in this category declined significantly in the second decade. The papers in the manufacturing category also declined during that period. Both these declines are because papers are increasingly dealing with quite specific research settings. The manufacturing category comprises papers studying manufacturing in general, whereas papers which study specific types of manufacturing are included in the specific industries category. In the second decade this category comprised such diverse settings as agriculture, heath care, electronics, chemicals and steel. The services category was also very diverse comprising, amongst others, aircraft maintenance, highway maintenance, communications, retailing, restaurants
Editorial report / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 278–284 Table 6 Special issues. Special issues/sections Management accounting change (J. Burns and J. Vaivio) 2001. Management accounting in transitional economies (A. Jargua and S. Ho) 2002. Management accounting and knowledge management (A. Bhimani and H. Roberts) 2004. Management accounting in the new public sector (I. Lapsley and P. Clarke) 2004. Towards new forms of control (J. Burns and W. Nixon) 2005. Management control of inter-firm transactional relationships (J. van der Meer-Kooistra and E. Vosselman) 2006. Management accounting change II (C. Busco, P. Quattrone and A. Riccaboni) 2007. Management control systems as a package (T. Malmi and D. Brown) 2008. Risk management, corporate governance and management accounting (A. Bhimani) 2009. 2010 and forthcoming The relationship between theory & practice in management accounting (G. Baldvinsdottir, F. Mitchell and H. Nørreklit) 2010. Paradigms in accounting research (K. Lukka) 2010. Inter-organizational relationships involving public administrations: the role of management control systems (A. Barretta and C. Busco) forthcoming. Strategic management accounting (W. Nixon and J. Burns) forthcoming. Management accounting in government (I. Lapsley, P. Miller and L. Kurunmaki) forthcoming. Emerging issues in performance measurement (M. Bourne, S. Melnyk, U. Bititci, K. Platts, B. Andersen and L. Onsøyen) forthcoming. Challenges for management accounting arising from the sustainable development agenda (J. Bebbington and I. Thomson) forthcoming.
and banks, as well as religious organisations, schools and universities. In some papers there was a focus on a specific country—either in a specific company/industry setting, or in that country in general. These countries cover many different parts of the world, from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand to China, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, as well as various European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the U.K.). This regional diversity is very similar to that of the papers in the first decade. 4. Theories and research methods used The theories used are summarised in Table 4. In the first decade about a third of the papers (34%) were classified as “applied”. These papers examined various aspects of management accounting techniques, systems and practices without being grounded in an explicit, or even a clearly discernable implicit, theoretical framework. In classifying the papers in both decades it was sometimes necessary to infer the authors’ underlying theories from the content of the paper. In the papers in the applied category the focus of the research is generally the nature of specific management accounting practices, but it is not possible to identify a specific theoretical framework. However, in the second decade the proportion of such papers declined (to 12%). Furthermore, the numbers of these papers declined as the decade progressed, and there have been very few in recent years. The papers in this category published in the second
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decade make contributions by providing quite specific and new insights into the nature of management accounting practices. Today, papers without explicit, or at least clearly implicit, theoretical underpinnings are unlikely to be published in Management Accounting Research. Even papers which study the nature of management accounting in practice need to be theorised. We now turn to the theories which were used during the second decade of Management Accounting Research. Whereas economics, broadly defined, was the main theory utilised during the first decade (24%), its use declined in the second decade (to 12%). During that decade institutional theory became the most used—19% (this includes 6% employing transaction costs economics). Other social theories declined from 7% to 4% of the papers. However, there were also 5% which used actor network theory (although this is not strictly a social theory per se—it is more of a methodological approach). The other theory used in a notable proportion of papers in the second decade was contingency theory (13%—compared to 6% in the first decade). As can be seen from seen from Table 4, there was no dominating theoretical perspective in the papers published in Management Accounting Research in either decade. This reflects the policy of the journal to publish papers with diverse theoretical perspectives and to encourage theoretical innovation. The latter is reflected to some extent in the papers using theories classified as ‘other’, which comprises theories used in just one or two papers. These theories range from systems theory and life cycle theory to autopoiesis theory and practice-based theory. There were several papers (6%) which were underpinned by the theories which comprise new public management. Possibly, these could be classified as using political economy—or a combination of economics and political theory. But as they represent a distinct and new group of papers in Management Accounting Research, they are classified separately. There has also been considerable diversity in the research methods employed in the papers published in Management Accounting Research. However, as can be seen in Table 5, in the second decade there were two primary research methods—case studies and mathematical/statistical methods. The use of mathematical and statistical methods increased from 13% in the first decade to 30% in the second decade. This was due, in part, to the increased use of statistical methods to analyse surveys of management accounting systems, techniques and practices. In the first decade there were a number of surveys which described various aspects of management accounting practices. This category has declined markedly from 15% in the first decade to 4% in the second. Management Accounting Research no longer publishes purely descriptive surveys. For surveys to be publishable in Management Accounting Research they must be both analytical and theoretically grounded. Similarly, case studies and other types of field studies must also have clear theoretical underpinnings. The number of case studies increased in the second decade—40% compared to 24% in the first decade. However, the distinction between case studies and other field studies is rather arbitrary, and a more appropriate comparison might be of the combination of case studies and other
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Table 7 David Solomons Prize winners. Year
Author(s)
Title
Details
2001
Jan Mouritsen, Allan Hansen and Carsten Ø. Hansen
Vol. 12.2 June 2001 pp. 221–244
2002
Douglass Cagwin and Marinus J. Bouwman
2003
Henri C. Dekker
Inter-organizational controls and organizational competencies: episodes around target cost management/functional analysis and open book accounting The association between activity-based costing and improvement in financial performance Value chain analysis in interfirm relationships: a field study
2004
Annick Bourguignon Véronique Malleret and Hanne Nørreklit
2005
Margaret A. Abernethy, Malcolm Horne, Anne M. Lillis, Mary A. Malina and Frank H. Selto Sally K. Widener
2006
2007
Ralph Kober, Juliana Ng and Byron J. Paul
2008
Andrea Dossi and Lorenzo Patelli
2009
Anette Mikes
field studies—39% in the first decade compared to 48% in the second. This quite perceptible increase compensates for the decline in (descriptive) surveys. Apart from papers in the analytical discussion category, the papers using other research methods are quite small in number. Nevertheless, the use of other research methods is strongly encouraged, whether quantitative or qualitative; but their use must satisfy reviewers who are experts in those research methods. The policy of Management Accounting Research continues to be to encourage papers which use a wide range of research methods, as well as different theories to study various management accounting topics in diverse research settings; but as always subject to review by relevant experts. This broad emphasis is reflected in the special issues/sections which have been published in Management Accounting Research over the past decade. Table 6 sets out these special issues/sections, showing the guest editors and the year of publication. For completeness, Table 6 also shows the special issues/sections published in 2010 and those which are forthcoming—calls for papers having already been issued. As Joint Editors, we are very grateful to all the guest editors for their hard work in bringing together these important and insightful collections of papers. Finally, our report on the second decade of Management Accounting Research would not be complete without recalling the winners of the David Solomons Prize. This prize, which was inaugurated in 2001, was named in recognition of Professor Solomons’ extensive contributions to management accounting research over many years in the
The American balanced scorecard versus the French tableau de bord: the ideological dimension A multi-method approach to building causal performance maps from expert knowledge Associations between strategic resource importance and performance measure use: the impact on firm performance The interrelationship between management control mechanisms and strategy The decision-influencing use of performance measurement systems in relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries Risk management and calculative cultures
Vol. 13.1 March 2002 pp. 1–39 Vol. 14.1 March 2003 pp. 1–23 Vol. 15.2 June 2004 pp. 107–134 Vol. 16.2 June 2005 pp. 135–155 Vol. 17.4 December 2006 pp. 433–457 Vol. 18.4 December 2007 pp. 425–452 Vol. 19.2 June 2008 pp. 126–148 Vol. 20.1 March 2009 pp. 18–40
second half of the twentieth century. The prize (of £1,000) is awarded to the best paper in each annual volume of Management Accounting Research. The prize winning papers are selected by the Editors with advice from the Editorial Board. Table 7 lists all the prize winners and the titles of their papers; including the winner of the 2009 prize who is formally announced at the beginning of the Issue. Notable features of the list in Table 7 are the regional diversity of the prize winners and the mix of younger and more established researchers. Although a pleasant task, it is always difficult to select the best paper, as the quality of all papers published in Management Accounting Research is very high, and the number of potential prize winners and the competition for the prize is great, as there are often several papers which are highly commended by the Editorial Board. 5. The future Earlier this year, in our editorial to mark the beginning of the 20th Anniversary Issue (see Vol. 21.1), we said that we would produce an Editorial Report which, as well as analysing the papers published in Management Accounting Research over the past 20 years, would also review current trends and suggest likely directions for research in management accounting in the Journal’s third decade. However, on reflection, and recognising that we have no special skills in predicting the future, we decided not to suggest directions for the future, as it might appear that we “favour” specific areas and issues. What we want to do is to encourage management accounting researchers to be
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creative and to produce innovative papers. What we would really like to see is research that we do not anticipate – the surprising and the unexpected – which takes the subject in new directions. However, undoubtedly, the majority of the papers published in Management Accounting Research will continue to address the current areas of interest. In the above sections we emphasised the diversity of the research which has been published in Management Accounting Research, and the broad range of topics, settings, theories and research methods in the papers published over the past two decades. In the future we would like to see such diverse research continuing to be published in Management Accounting Research. We believe this is particularly important for research in management accounting, especially at the present time when it seems that there is a tendency towards homogenisation in accounting research, which seems to be increasingly oriented towards financial accounting and capital market related topics. In the June 2010 issue of Management Accounting Research (Vol. 21.2) there was a Special Section on Paradigms in Accounting Research. This brought together a number of contributions from a plenary session at the 2009 Annual Congress of the European Accounting Association, organised and chaired by Kari Lukka. That plenary session, and the Special Section in the June issue of Management Accounting Research which he also edited, were motivated by what Lukka (2010) describes as the increasing narrowness (particularly in North America, but also elsewhere) of so-called ‘mainstream’ accounting research; dominated as it is by economics-based empirical financial accounting research using large databases. He argued that this increasing narrowness is leading to the homogenisation of accounting research, the bulk of which “today pursue only marginal contributions within one, a largely programmed, theoretical and methodological framework and applies taken-for-granted research methods” (2010: 110). Lukka went on to claim that the dominance of the functionalist paradigm in mainstream accounting research is leading to increasing uniformity which has serious implications for future research. He pointed out that there is seemingly little acceptance of other paradigms in North America, although in his view multi-paradigm accounting research is appreciated, “or at least tolerated”, in Europe (2010: 113). The subsequent contributions in that Special Section provided evidence of the serious implications to which Lukka (2010) was referring. Malmi (2010) highlighted the problems which can occur when research does not fit within established paradigmatic boundaries. He recounted his story of the difficulties of publishing papers which fall in the sort of “no man’s land” between established paradigms. Modell (2010), however, while recognising the difficulties of crossing paradigmatic boundaries, advanced the case for mixed methods research. But Merchant’s (2010) View from North America provided what are probably the most worrying implications. Merchant argues that the emphasis on the ‘mainstream’ in the U.S. is “essentially closing the door on many potentially important research undertakings [that use] paradigms considered outside the norm. They are squeezing out topic, discipline, and research method diversity,
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at great cost to the schools themselves, the academy and, indeed, society.” (2010: 116). He went on to demonstrate that research outside the mainstream is being increasingly marginalised in the top North American journals. He argued that a consequence of the marginalisation of non-mainstream research is a further decline in the number of researchers working outside the mainstream, which inevitably reinforces the dominance of mainstream research and creates the tendency towards homogenisation in (North American) accounting research. He claims that this is driving out creativity and innovation, as all the top U.S. business schools seek to encourage the same type of mainstream accounting research. An important implication is that some major research traditions, including survey and field research, which are extensively used in management accounting research, “are being starved out of the accounting academy” (Merchant, 2010: 119). Although Merchant is “sanguine about the future of accounting research in Europe and other areas outside the United States” he sees “a dark cloud . . . on the horizon, in the form of rankings and ‘league tables’.” (2010: 119) We believe it is imperative for the future of management accounting research internationally that lessons are learnt from the experience in North America. Moreover, as Merchant pointed out, there may be very real dangers in the increasing spread of research assessments and league tables, and especially in the use of journal rankings which privilege what are perceived as the A (or even A*) journals. In the accounting field, journal rankings tend to favour those journals, particularly North American journals, which publish predominantly mainstream research. This can be a particular problem for ‘specialist’ journals, such as Management Accounting Research, which encourage paradigm diversity and publish papers which use a broad range of research methods. Mainstream researchers and the Deans of business schools, particularly in the U.S. are probably unfamiliar with the papers published in such journals. This suggests that researchers in specialist areas, such as management accounting, need to be vocal and to actively campaign for what they regard as the “best” journals in their respective fields. We take some reassurance, however, from an exercise undertaken by Rosenstreich and Wooliscroft (2009), who constructed a hierarchy of accounting journals based on several different indices, using the widely based Google Scholar citations, and this placed Management Accounting Research in the top ten accounting journals. Although we have some very real concerns about the international proliferation of journal rankings, we were nevertheless pleased when Management Accounting Research was included in the ISI, as many universities are increasingly encouraging their academic staff to publish in journals which have an ISI impact factor. The lack of ISI recognition could have actively prevented researchers from submitting their papers to us. Management Accounting Research was included in the ISI in the latter part of 2008 and, as 2 years data are required, we will be able to report impact factors from 2011. Although the problems of assessing research performance through journal rankings are becoming more widely recognised (for example, see Rosenstreich and Wooliscroft,
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2009), their simplicity and apparent objectivity can make them very appealing to both policymakers and university administrators. In a number of countries this appeal is leading to a greater use of journal rankings in the assessment of universities, departments and individuals. This means that individual researchers have to consider very carefully where to publish their research. Some may decide to ‘play it safe’ and work in the mainstream. Such a tendency could contribute to the narrowness and homogenisation which Lukka was describing. Another problem is that some researchers may attempt to divide up their research in ways which maximise their performance in terms of the research ratings, but ultimately reduces the real contribution of their work. Along with other journals, we have had occasional examples of such problems, as some authors try “salami slicing” their databases or their case/field studies, sometimes without reference to related papers, thereby sacrificing quality for quantity. The increasing use of research assessments and journal rankings could also contribute to the general tendency for accounting departments (and worryingly for business schools more generally) to follow the mainstream, and consequently for them to tend towards the norm and to discourage research which deviates from that norm. This can place severe constraints on creativity and innovation if all accounting departments/business schools pursue similar ‘mainstream’ research agendas. This is rather ironic as much of the strategy literature, which is usually a central feature of courses within business schools, emphasises the importance of product differentiation; something which many business schools seem to want to avoid, at least in their research. As editors of Management Accounting Research, we will to continue to welcome a broad range of management accounting research, and we encourage researchers to be creative and innovative. This does not mean that we do not want to publish mainstream management accounting research. We certainly do. A majority of the research published in Management Accounting Research could probably be classified as mainstream management accounting research. But at the same time, we do not want to exclude research which is different; research which questions the mainstream; and research which adopts alternative paradigms. This has been the particular strength of Man-
agement Accounting Research over the past 20 years, and we would like to see it continue in the future. We would also like to see ‘conversations’ across the paradigms, and the use of mixed methods research. The emphasis of North American mainstream accounting research on financial accounting and the associated difficulties facing management accounting researchers in the U.S. offers real opportunities for researchers in Europe and elsewhere in the world to take the lead in management accounting research. Management Accounting Research stands ready to help in this process. To summarise, we would like to see further developments in current research, both in the mainstream and non-mainstream paradigms, but more particularly we would like to see developments which are creative and innovative—possibly in directions that we cannot anticipate at the present time. It is only in this way that we will be able to avoid the homogenisation and narrowness which is claimed to be an increasing feature of mainstream accounting research. When we get to the 30th anniversary of Management Accounting Research, we hope the editors (who are unlikely to be us) will be able to look back at the third decade and to report on the diversity and innovativeness of the high quality research published during the Journal’s third decade. References Lukka, K., 2010. Introduction: the roles and effects of paradigms in accounting research. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 110–115. Malmi, T., 2010. Reflections on paradigms in action in accounting research. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 121–123. Merchant, K.A., 2010. Paradigms in accounting research: a view from North America. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 116–120. Modell, S., 2010. Bridging the paradigms divide in management accounting research: the role of mixed methods approaches. Management Accounting Research 21 (2), 124–129. Rosenstreich, D.A., Wooliscroft, B., 2009. Measuring the impact of accounting journals using Google Scholar and the g-index. British Accounting Review 41 (4), 227–239. Scapens, R.W., Bromwich, M., 2001. Editorial Report—Management Accounting Research: the first decade. Management Accounting Research 12 (2), 245–254.
Robert W. Scapens Michael Bromwich