Search

PurposeThe not-for-profit (NFP) context displays unique characteristics that include stakeholder diversity, multiple stakeholder agendas, and the pervasiveness of philanthropic values and related organisational mission. This study investigated accountants’ perceptions of NFPs’ characteristics that enable and inhibit their communication along with the strategies they adopt to overcome their communication challenges.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative interview-based study is informed by Giddens’ structuration theory. Thirty NFP accountants, from three Australian states, were interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to identify the relationships between NFP organisational characteristics and accountants’ communication strategies, and their interactions with organisational structures.FindingsThe study reveals important relationships between many stakeholders with limited financial acumen, organisational resource constraints, the currency of NFP information technologies, the dominance of operational mission over financial imperatives, and the supply of organisational accountants. Accountants’ structural adaptations emerge in their adopting multiple forms of communications reframing.Research limitations/implicationsThe NFP environment exhibits a mix of characteristics, some of which pose challenges for accountants’ communication while others facilitate their communication.Social implicationsIncreasingly, governments are relying on NFPs for the provision of services once provided by the state. Enhancing NFP accountants’ communication has the potential to improve outcomes for NFPs.Originality/valueThe study broadens prior research on accountants’ communication beyond formal written reporting to recognise and articulate their informal communication strategies.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the issue of research relevance from the frame of reference of university leaders. Its specific aim is to gain insights into how “relevance” is conceptualised, and the underlying assumptions upon which such conceptualizations are based. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an inductive approach, the study collects and analyses data from semi-structured interviews with 31 senior research-related university leaders, and archival sources in five Australian universities. Findings Research relevance is primarily viewed as a means of responding to government and political imperatives, as a pathway to ensuring university legitimacy, and as a means of generating further resources. The authors apply this understanding to develop a framework that adopts a nuanced view of relevance, reflecting what is driving research, and to whom research is principally targeted. Research limitations/implications The evidence-base upon which the study is based represents a relatively small number of university leaders of Australian universities. Moreover, restricting the investigation to a few senior hierarchical levels nonetheless offers insights into high level organisational drivers hitherto neglected in the accounting research literature on university strategy, governance and accountability. While not addressing perceptions across the university population, this study focusses on and unpacks the social construction of relevance of this select group as research policy makers. Originality/value As one of the few empirically informed investigations exploring the issue of research relevance from the perspective of university leaders, this study provides insights rather than “answers”. Its findings therefore serve as a foundational basis for further empirical and theoretical enquiry.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the focus and changing nature of measuring academic accounting research quality. The paper addresses contemporary changes in academic publishing, metrics for determining research quality and the possible impacts on accounting scholars. These are considered in relation to the core values of interdisciplinary accounting research ‒ that is, the pursuit of novel, rigorous, significant and authentic research motivated by a passion for scholarship, curiosity and solving wicked problems. The impact of changing journal rankings and research citation metrics on the traditional and highly valued role of the accounting academic is further considered. In this setting, the paper also provides a summary of the journal’s activities for 2018, and in the future. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on contemporary data sets, the paper illustrates the increasingly diverse and confusing array of “evidence” brought to bear on the question of the relative quality of accounting research. Commercial products used to rate and rank journals, and judge the academic impact of individual scholars and their papers not only offer insight and visibility, but also have the potential to misinform scholars and their assessors. Findings In the move from simple journal ranking lists to big data and citations, and increasingly to concerns with impact and engagement, the authors identify several challenges facing academics and administrators alike. The individual academic and his or her contribution to scholarship are increasingly marginalised in the name of discipline, faculty and institutional performance. A growing university performance management culture within, for example, the UK and Australasia, has reached a stage in the past decade where publication and citation metrics are driving allocations of travel grants, research grants, promotions and appointments. With an expanded range of available metrics and products to judge their worth, or have it judged for them, scholars need to be increasingly informed of the nuanced or not-so-nuanced uses to which these measurement systems will be put. Narrow, restricted and opaque peer-based sources such as journal ranking lists are now being challenged by more transparent citation-based sources. Practical implications The issues addressed in this commentary offer a critical understanding of contemporary metrics and measurement in determining the quality of interdisciplinary accounting research. Scholars are urged to reflect upon the challenges they face in a rapidly moving context. Individuals are increasingly under pressure to seek out preferred publication outlets, developing and curating a personal citation profile. Yet such extrinsic outcomes may come at the cost of the core values that motivate the interdisciplinary scholar and research. Originality/value This paper provides a forward-looking focus on the critical role of academics in interdisciplinary accounting research.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to identify and articulate concepts and approaches to qualitative generalisation that will offer qualitative accounting researchers avenues for enhancing and justifying the general applicability of their research findings and conclusions.Design/methodology/approach– The study and arguments draw from multidisciplinary approaches to this issue. The analysis and theorising is based on published qualitative research literatures from the fields of education, health sciences, sociology, information systems, management and marketing, as well as accounting.Findings– The paper develops two overarching generalisation concepts for application by qualitative accounting researchers. These are built upon a number of qualitative generalisation concepts that have emerged in the multidisciplinary literatures. It also articulates strategies for enhancing the generalisability of qualitative accounting research findings.Research limitations/implications– The paper provides qualitative accounting researchers with understandings, arguments and justifications for the generalisability of their research and the related potential for wider accounting and societal contributions. It also articulates the key factors that impact on the quality of research generalisation that qualitative researchers can offer.Originality/value– This paper presents the most comprehensively sourced and developed approach to the concepts, strategies and unique deliverables of qualitative generalising hitherto available in the accounting research literature.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address and critique the current state and trajectory of the interdisciplinary accounting movement. Design/methodology/approach – An interdisciplinary literature sourced analysis and critique of the movement's positioning and trajectory. Findings – It observes the creeping currency of the financial economics-based accounting research tradition, with its attendant limitations in scope and policy/practice relevance of its subject matter and findings. The paper reveals the persistent growth and development of an interdisciplinary accounting community despite the pressures of careerist research score-based goal displacement produced by government and university performance measurement systems. Originality/value – The interdisciplinary movement is seen as offering issues focused and innovation-driven research that aims to engage with the complexities of the organisational and institutional actors’ worlds. This remit remains essential to the challenge of the accounting academy's pursuit of issues of societal significance.

Purpose – This editorial aims to consider the global accounting academic and the environment in which we research and teach, including consideration of the challenges that confront us now and into the future. Design/methodology/approach – Document review, personal reflections and argument. Findings – The paper acknowledges that the accounting academic has an important role to play in a global higher education system. However, challenges include government research performance measurement systems, journal ranking lists, lack of funding for quality teaching and research, life as a “cash cow” for universities, the impact of the virtual university and its impact on professional practice, the profession and society in general. These factors carry direct implications for the current shape and orientation of accounting research and scholarship. Research limitations/implications – The paper offers scope for accounting academics to engage with the profession and society as to the impact of their teaching and research, not only in Australia, but internationally. Originality/value – The paper provides important commentary on the global accounting academic and what counts.

PurposeThis editorial aims to consider the relationship between academic accounting research and professional practice.Design/methodology/approachThe paper takes the form of an editorial review and argument.FindingsThe paper acknowledges that accounting academic research is important to the higher education system, careers and publishers. However, its impact on teaching, professional practice, and the professions and society is a hotly debated issue.Research limitations/implicationsThe editorial offers scope for accounting academics to engage with the profession and society as to the impact of their research, an important issue in higher education, not only in Australia, but internationally.Originality/valueThe paper provides important commentary on the relationship between accounting research and practice as represented in academic journals.

PurposeThis editorial seeks to argue for intellectual pluralism and adventurous enquiry in an era of status badging of publication venues and institutions and to review AAAJ's role, strategies and international recognition in this context.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is an editorial review and argument.FindingsThe paper acknowledges pressures towards a North American inspired unitary neo‐classical economic view of the accounting world and related badging of higher education institutions and research publications globally. It identifies the community of accounting scholars including AAAJ with wider and more pluralist philosophies and research agendas.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper offers scope and associated recognition for researchers prepared to take up and address a wide array of theoretical perspectives and research issues of global significance.Originality/valueThe paper provides important empirical data and research network information to scholars in the interdisciplinary accounting field of research.

PurposeThis paper sets out to investigate and critique the corpus of recent research into gender dimensions of strategic management and accounting processes with a view to establishing the current state of knowledge and offering both future research and policy implications.Design/methodology/approachA literature‐based analysis and critique are employed. This is constructed from a social constructionist perspective, drawing on concepts of the variably gendered identity of discourse and of process, and a theory of absence.FindingsThe study uncovers major gaps in research attention and consequent knowledge concerning gendered characteristics of managers' and accountants' approaches to, and involvement in, strategic management and accounting processes. Evidence suggests that in these processes both feminine and masculine features constitute important but at present inadequately researched and understood modes of operation.Research limitations/implicationsThis research suggests opportunities for androgynous strategic management and accounting processes that draw on characteristics from both feminine and masculine perspectives. Also identified are a significant array of knowledge absences and related further research questions to be addressed.Originality/valueThe study opens up an area of significant research neglect, particularly in accounting. It offers theoretical and methodological paths for moving this research agenda forward.

PurposeThis editorial seeks to reflect on seven contributions to this AAAJ special issue and on the interdisciplinary accounting, auditing and accountability movement and its future directions. The seven papers were invited plenary contributions to the APIRA 2007 conference, which in part served to celebrate 20 years of AAAJ. The important role of academic researchers is highlighted in not simply observing, but also in engaging in and constructing an enabling accounting. The contribution of scholarly research to knowledgeable debates about an enabling accounting for society and the sustainability of the planet is discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs a literature‐based analysis and critique. The paper is primarily a discussion paper.FindingsThis editorial draws together the themes of papers in this AAAJ special issue, which point to the need for researchers to reflect on their motivation, use of theory and values to ensure that academic work is making a genuine contribution.Research limitations/implicationsThe practical and research issues explored in this, and the other papers, in this special theme section, it is hoped, will invoke more critical perspectives on accountancy, assist scholars in theory development and application, and influence growth in reflective academic studies in this area.Originality/valueThis editorial discusses the contributions to this AAAJ special issue.

PurposeTo investigate, analyse and critique contemporary research in social and environmental accounting.Design/methodology/approachAn analysis and critique of the social and environmental accountability (SEA) research field since the late 1980s. The study revisits two key prior seminal papers on the field, examines the remit for SEA researchers' focus on practice and policy and offers an empirical analysis of the profile of SEA publication.FindingsTheories are identified in two groups: augmentation and heartland theories. These have been more deductively than inductively generated, evidencing limited attention to field‐based engagement. An alternative to the elusive all‐embracing unitary SEA theory is presented. Researchers' concerns with capture of the SEA field is critiqued and an alternative researcher engagement orientation is offered. Environmental research dominates more recent SEA published output, the dominant methodological approach is literature‐based theorising, and national practices/comparisons and regulations are leading topic areas occupying researchers.Research limitations/implicationsAnalysis of publishing patterns including the balance between social and environmental accountability research, research methodologies employed and SEA topics addressed is largely confined to four leading interdisciplinary accounting research journals.Practical implicationsThe paper argues for greater SEA researcher engagement with SEA practice and involvement in SEA policy contributions.Originality/valueThe paper offers a contemporary assemblage and critique of the multiple theoretical perspectives applied to the SEA field and offers insights into the range and predominance of research methods and topics within the published SEA field.

PurposeThe paper explores the rapidly changing environment affecting universities and their research communities. It sets out to explore the effect of university corporatisation on research and teaching, and aims to identify likely coping strategies for researchers. The role of AAAJ in supporting research in this turbulent environment is then considered.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs a literature‐based analysis, critique and argument. The paper's scope includes the teaching and research by academic scholars in a corporate university environment.FindingsUniversities and their research are increasingly becoming revenue‐seeking, market driven corporatised university tools. Researchers are increasingly subject to pressures to accept higher workloads, pursue aggressive revenue targets, and to conduct and publish research that fits management imposed key performance indicators. This leads to a packaging and commodification of research with a short term, status‐seeking and fund‐raising emphasis.Research limitations/implicationsScholars need innovative but disciplined approaches to coping with such pressures in order to maintain pursuit of path‐breaking and significant additions to knowledge.Practical implicationsPersonal values and commitment by individual scholars, as well as scholarly networks and support mechanisms will be the long‐term key to future research of value to the community.Originality/valueThe paper alerts researchers to the impact on their work on current institutional, economic and political forces surrounding universities, and highlights the consequent corporatisation and commercialisation of universities. It offers a realistic assessment of the current research environment and reinforces the need for individual researcher reassessments and strategies.

This study explores academic activities with particular reference to research in the accounting and management disciplines. It explores emerging social constructions of the role of research in academic work and the concept of what is deemed to constitute “quality” research. To this end it presents the results of an exploratory set of interviews with a sample of “gatekeepers”, namely professors and heads of accounting and management departments in British and Australian universities. They offer insights into the factors determining their construction of what constitutes quality in an academic’s research and publishing record, their ranking of various publication types and of publication activity generally, and their assessment of the influence of government policy priorities on the social construction of research quality.

Restates the case for accounting and management research from a grounded theory perspective, and advocates its informed and more frequent application. Examines the intellectual foundations and key tenets of grounded theory in the context of researchers’ theoretical assumptions and methodological characteristics, discussed in relation to Laughlin’s (1995) classification schema. Pays particular attention to grounded theory assumptions and methods in relation to other interpretive paradigms such as symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and hermeneutics. Describes the basic principles and methods of grounded theory research, and presents potential applications to the accounting and management research arenas. Argues that rigorous grounded theory research can offer the accounting and management literatures unique understandings that provide additional perspectives to those already being offered by major schools of thought, and discusses implications of grounded theory for informing contemporary professional practice.

PurposeA satirical reflection on the perils of conference paper presentations.Design/methodology/approachPoetic exposition.FindingsHighlights the traps into which conference paper presenters can sometimes unwittingly fall.Research limitations/implicationsFor effective presenting within strict time limits, a speaker can never be too prepared.Originality/valuePresents a visual picture of the dilemma and final crash that occurs when presenters fail to impose self‐discipline in structuring and delivering to the audience they desperately want to reach.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a satirical critique on the dominant role of e‐mail communications in business and professional life.Design/methodology/approachPoetic exposition.FindingsTakes the reader through a declining list of positive e‐mail attributes which metamorphose into increasingly dysfunctional attributes and personally stressful experiences. Highlights the addictive appeal and tensions in e‐mail usage.Research limitations/implicationsRaising awareness and pointing to issues regarding the commonly experienced advantages and disadvantages of the electronic business age.Originality/valueOpens up the dysfunctional personal and working consequences of e‐mail communications in the world of work.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to consider the career changing roles of university professors.Design/methodology/approachPoetic exposition.FindingsObserves the common trend of research and teaching professors to become elevated to university management positions, thereby abandoning their teaching and research roles.Research limitations/implicationsImplies the loss of scholarly potential and productivity to managerialism in the university sector and calls for the recovery of a cadre of professorial researchers.Originality/valueCritiques the increasingly administrative role of senior university academics in the world of increasingly corporatised universities.

Purpose – A satire on conference paper presentations.Design/methodology/approach – A poetic critique of conference presenters and their occasional failure to engage with their audience.Findings – What may be fascinating and of assumed and obvious importance to a research presenter may be quite obscure to their audience, who nonetheless participate in the ritual of conference attendance and polite “listening”.Research limitations/implications – The reader may discover even more meaning in this poem than its original author envisaged.Originality/value – A poignant reminder of the perils of many conference presentations.

Purpose – A satire on academic school board meetings.Design/methodology/approach – A poetic reflection on the proclivity of academics for lengthy meeting debates on matters of no importance.Findings – Meetings tend to attract and sustain lengthy speeches and debates that often produce little beyond the self‐amusement of participants who enjoy debate and the boredom of those who feel obliged to attend.Research limitations/implications – The reader is invited to identify with any of the participants in such occasions.Originality/value – A satirical reflection on the actors, motivations and consequences of time‐consuming academic meetings.

Purpose – The paper aims to present a satirical critique of corporate greenspin.Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a poetic exposition.Findings – The paper illustrates the reconstitution of traditional corporate marketing and financial agendas into social and environmental responsibility language.Research limitations/implications – The paper raises awareness and points to the challenge of moving corporations beyond lip service to growing community concerns about corporate social and environmental impact.Originality/value – The paper brings into sharp relief the potential for insincerity in corporates climbing onto the social and environmental bandwagon.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflect on the role and value of conferences.Design/methodology/approachThe paper takes the form of a poetic exposition.FindingsThe poem identifies the common features and participants' experiences of conferences. It offers a satirical reflection on the value of speakers and their presentations and the promise of re‐energised, up‐skilled participants.Research limitations/implicationsThe poem raises awareness and pointing to issues regarding the pervasiveness and value of today's business, professional and research conferences.Originality/valueThe poem offers a unique and reflective, personalised interpretation of experiences in the pervasive world of contemporary business and research conferences.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to warn against organisations failing to value their intellectual capital in pursuit of elusive outside human resources.Design/methodology/approachSatirical poem.FindingsOrganisations can be better served by valuing and cultivating their existing human resources.Originality/valuePoints to the risk of non‐replacement of departed key management staff.