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Publishing

The British Accounting Review

There is considerable interest both in the publishing activities of academics and in the relevance of research to accounting practitioners. This study introduces a fresh perspective to the debate by examining the publishing performance of British academic institutions in professional journals over the period 1987 to 1996 and the possible influence of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) on this performance. To carry out the research, an analysis was conducted of all articles attributed to academics and appearing in the journals of the five main professional bodies in Great Britain. Two measures of publication performance were used: volume, based on the total number of articles appearing in the period; and regularity, being the number of years in which members of staff of academic institutions appeared in print. The results indicate that a substantial proportion of the 750 articles published in the 10 year period can be attributed to a relatively small number of academic institutions. An examination of the 10 year period reveals that there was reduced publishing activity in professional journals in the year prior to the three RAEs and that activity did not subsequently return to its previous level. When the first five year period is compared to the second there is a decline in productivity and significant changes in the institutions appearing in the analysis. Although the data is fragile, there is no evidence that publishing in professional journals is associated with particularly high or low research ratings. It is noticeable, however, that the names of few of our leading institutions rarely appear in the professional journals.

PUBLISHING IN PROFESSIONAL ACCOUNTING JOURNALS: ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE 1987–96