A pragmatic model to estimate journal quality in accounting

An assessment of accounting journal quality based on departmental lists

“…Additionally, authors may include ceremonial citations in their manuscripts; i.e., citing accomplished or popular authors, studies, or the most prestigious journals in an effort to enhance the perception of their own manuscript and the probability of its publication (Brown 2003;Matherly and Shortridge 2009;Nisonger 2004). Similarly, when authors are targeting a particular journal for publication of their manuscript, they may include many citations of that journal in the manuscript with the hope that such inclusion will increase the likelihood of the article's publication.…”

“…A fourth bias is the assumption in perception surveys that participants are qualified to evaluate an extensive range of journals. Perception studies, correspondingly, may suffer from a familiarity bias; i.e., respondents may ascribe more value to journals with which they are familiar, thereby equating value or quality with familiarity (Brown 2003;Cook et al 2010;Matherly and Shortridge 2009;Reinstein and Calderon 2006). Fifth, many perception studies ask respondents to compare each journal to a presumably familiar anchor journal, and anchor journal selection may introduce an additional bias in these perception studies, as the mission and purposes of accounting journals may be very different from the selected anchors (Hall and Ross 1991;Herron and Hall 2005;Hull and Wright 1990;Jolly et al 1995;Lowensohn and Samelson 2006;Reinstein and Calderon 2006;Smith 1994).…”

“…If the author is an academician, submission of the manuscript to a widely-recognized journal may be advisable, as manuscript acceptance in a top-tier journal may bring prestige to the author, department, and university (Wakefield 2008). Undoubtedly, publishing manuscripts in the most prestigious journals of the profession enhances the career of an academician, with greater likelihood of annual raises, research grants, tenure, and promotion (Matherly and Shortridge 2009). Related to this emphasis on elite journals, the Financial Times maintains a list of 45 business journals that it considers in evaluating business schools, and accounting is the domain of six of those journals: Accounting, Organizations, & Society (AOS); Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR), Journal of Accounting & Economics (JAE), Journal of Accounting Research (JAR), Review of Accounting Studies (RAS), and The Accounting Review (TAR). Businessweek similarly lists 20 premier business journals of which two, JAR and TAR, are from the accounting profession.…”

Developing a Core List of Journals in an Interdisciplinary Area

“…48 Matherly and Shortridge conducted a meta-analysis of journal ranking studies that provides new measures for determine journal quality. 49 Bibliometric analysis of journal literature provides multiple means of assessing and evaluating subject literature in disciplinary or interdisciplinary fields.…”

The incidence of documented standards for research in departments of accounting at US institutions

“…Concurrent with increasing stakeholder pressures for departments of accounting to establish and communicate clear scholarship standards to faculty, there has been a recent added emphasis on academic publishing in top journals at many AACSB-accredited colleges of business (e.g., Chow et al, 2007;Everett et al, 2004;Glover et al, 2006). Accordingly, accounting scholars have responded with a number of literature reviews, journal rankings, and scholarship yardsticks that have considerable consensus overlap in order to identify top journals (Bonner, Hesford, Van der Stede, & Young, 2006;Chan, Chan, Seow, & Tam, 2009;Glover et al, 2006;Herron & Hall, 2005;Lowensohn & Samelson, 2006;Matherly & Shortridge, 2009;Reinstein & Calderon, 2006). Wu, Hao, and Yao (2009, p. 72) assert that ''it is indispensable to have a list of journal rankings as the benchmark for assessing research quality.''…”