Profiling interdisciplinary accounting research: an analysis of publication descriptors in three leading journals

Purpose The aim of this study is to profile interdisciplinary accounting research and the facilitating role played by researchers by probing the characteristics of published articles in three leading interdisciplinary accounting research journals, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal ( AAAJ ); Accounting, Organizations and Society ( AOS ); and Critical Perspectives on Accounting ( CPA ). Design/methodology/approach Profiling analysis is undertaken with a broad scan of publication descriptors in AAAJ, AOS and CPA between 2005 and 2016. Profiling stems from identifying and quantifying the characteristics of interdisciplinary research, and with further analysis, infer generalisations about its content and the community of interdisciplinary researchers. Findings The published output of 1,462 articles is produced by 1,688 authors affiliated with 660 institutions in 52 countries. The two most high-ranking topics are social and environmental accounting and management accounting. The highest-ranked authors are Stephen Walker, Rob Bryer, Lee Parker and Yves Gendron. The most productive universities are the University of London, Cardiff University and the University of Manchester. The countries highly involved in interdisciplinary accounting research are the UK, USA, Australia and Canada. Research limitations/implications The data is restricted by the sample of manuscripts based on three interdisciplinary accounting research journals for the period 2005–2016 and does not consider manuscripts published in other accounting and non-accounting journals. Additionally, the process of analysing publication descriptors to generate categorised lists was a complex process that may not be replicated precisely by other researchers. Practical implications The results reported in this study can assist researchers interested in interdisciplinary research on what they may expect to read and understand. Originality/value The present study profiles interdisciplinary research in accounting to gain a picture of the elements that comprise interdisciplinarity, which, at present, is without empirical investigation.