The State of Accounting Education Scholarship in New Zealand

Abstract

This paper examines publishing trends of New Zealand accounting education scholars over the 20-year period 1991–2010. Longitudinal analyses of the annual number of publications, research theme studied, researcher productivity, and institutional productivity, along with cross-sectional analyses of authors' Hirsch h-index scores, the publication timing of authors' accounting education research relative to their total research, and authors' accounting discipline sub-areas of expertise, were undertaken. The paper identifies the late 1990s as New Zealand's most prolific period for accounting education research. Reasons behind this occurrence were explored, with interview findings suggesting the importance of such enabling/constraining factors as research funding opportunities, the presence of institutional champions, and the introduction of Performance-Based Research Funding (PBRF).

Keywords:

• Accounting education
• academic research
• research assessment
• PBRF
• journal quality
• New Zealand

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges Keith Dixon for sharing relevant parts of a New Zealand author database he created. The author also acknowledges the assistance of Peter Adler and Scott Adler in building the data set used for this study. And finally, the author wishes to thank the New Zealand academics who agreed to be interviewed and to share their experiences of working and publishing in the field of accounting education.

Notes

The following countries have introduced or plan to introduce a nationally-driven research assessment exercise: Australia, France, Holland, Hong Kong, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

Prior to 30 May 2011, the ERA operated a journal ratings list. This list, combined with the ABDC list, created the full list of journal titles to be searched. Appendix A provides a complete, alphabetical list of the journal titles searched.

The other accounting education papers came primarily from generalist accounting journals, with Pacific Accounting Review publishing seven of the papers and Accounting and Finance two of the papers. The remaining papers appeared in Critical Perspectives on Accounting (two papers), The Accounting Educators' Journal (one paper), and Asian Review of Accounting (one paper).

The use of a convenience sample may inhibit the generalisability of the study's results. Due to funding restrictions, only the three New Zealand universities located on the south island of New Zealand were included for sampling purposes. From a student enrolment size perspective, one of the visited universities would be considered quite small in comparison to the five other non-visited New Zealand universities, one average, and one average-to-large. Based on the QS World University Rankings 2011/2012, one of the studied universities was unranked (which is similar to one other non-visited New Zealand university), one was 212th (which is an average-to-high New Zealand ranking), and one was 130th (which is a high, but not the highest, New Zealand ranking). Informal conversations with academics at the five non-visited New Zealand universities have suggested that the interview findings are similar to what they perceive to be the state of New Zealand accounting education scholarship. Together these measures of university enrolment size and QS World University Rankings, along with the informally-tapped perceptions of academics at the other five New Zealand universities, suggest the sample is likely to be representative.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ralph Adler

This paper was edited and accepted by Richard M. S. Wilson.