The Research-Publication Complex and the Construct Shift in Accounting Research

Accounting research and publishing, tenure and promotion, elite journals, journal rankings, influential articles, faculty productivity, and academics vs. practitioners have been critically studied for decades. Empirical support is absent in many of the critical studies on accounting research and publishing, however, or lack sufficient support to corroborate all the criticisms. Furthermore, these studies remain isolated for the most part, and lack a unifying theme which diminishes their contribution to understanding the fundamental nature of the accounting research-publication complex.This study reports the results of a recent survey that confirms what many already knew from experience or suspected anecdotally, and which some studies have shown empirically — that there exists a research-publication complex resulting from, and sustained by, a construct-shift in accounting research. Only academic researchers read and publish in academic accounting publications, merely reinforcing each other through mutual citation. This raises questions such as what is the ultimate goal of accounting research and publishing, and if research is intended to contribute to accounting knowledge, whose knowledge does it contribute to?