Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars

Transcription

1 ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION Vol. 29, No pp American Accounting Association DOI: /iace Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars D. Kip Holderness, Jr., Noah M. Myers, Scott L. Summers, and David A. Wood ABSTRACT: Previous rankings of accounting literature have largely ignored the subtopic of accounting education research. Given the important role that rankings play in creating incentives and benchmarks, ranking education research may improve both the quality and quantity of research in this subtopic. This paper ranks academic institutions and individual accounting researchers based on their production of accounting education research. We show that the correlation between education research rankings and singular, noneducation research rankings is very low (i.e., ranges from 0.20 to 0.31), emphasizing the importance of considering education rankings separately from other topical areas in accounting research. We also provide evidence of the institutional factors that contribute to producing accounting education research and when professors produce this type of research in their careers. These findings will likely be of interest to current faculty, administrators, and industry leaders as they make decisions based on accounting education research. Keywords: accounting education; accounting research rankings; accounting research topical areas. JEL Classifications: M4; M40; M41; M49. Data Availability: Requests for data may be made to the authors. INTRODUCTION The accounting academic community has demonstrated sustained interest in measuring the production of accounting research by individual faculty, accounting doctoral programs, and academic units. 1 Research production is also an important component of popular business D. Kip Holderness, Jr. is an Assistant Professor at West Virginia University, Noah M. Myers is a Graduate Student, Scott L. Summers is a Professor, and David A. Wood is an Assistant Professor, all at Brigham Young University. We express our thanks to Jeffrey Pickerd, Matt Starliper, and Brady Williams for their helpful comments and suggestions on the manuscript. We are very grateful to Kyle Shields for his research assistance. Editor s note: Accepted by William R. Pasewark Published Online: August Relevant examples include Bazley and Nikolai (1975); Andrews and McKenzie (1978); Windal (1981); Bublitz and Kee (1984); Jacobs, Hartgraves, and Beard (1986); Zivney, Bertin, and Gavin (1995); Reinstein and Hasselback (1997); Hasselback, Reinstein, and Schwann (2000);K.C.Chan,K.C.Chan,Seow,andTam (2009); Coyne, Summers, Williams, and Wood (2010); Stephens, Summers, Williams, and Wood (2010); Pickerd, Stephens, Summers, and Wood (2011); and Hasselback, Reinstein, and Abdolmohammadi (2012). 87

2 88 Holderness, Myers, Summers, and Wood school rankings, such as the Bloomberg Businessweek M.B.A. and Financial Times M.B.A. rankings (Bonner, Hesford, Van der Stede, and Young. 2006). However, there appear to be distinct classes of published research. Top accounting journals tend to publish finance- and economicsbased studies (Lee and Williams 1999), while research of other accounting topics is often found in journals that are considered less prestigious. Among these other accounting topics, accounting education research may be at the bottom of the pecking order. For instance, accounting education journals are not included in previous studies that examine research production by topical area (Coyne et al. 2010; Stephens et al. 2010; Pickerd et al. 2011), and they are not included in M.B.A. rankings (Bonner et al. 2006). The perception of education-based research as being low in quality is not unique to accounting. 2 Nevertheless, given the importance of providing a high-quality educational experience, recognizing research that studies accounting education is valuable to all accounting educators. Thus, in this paper we present measures of accounting education research productivity of accounting programs and individual faculty members. By measuring and reporting the productivity of various constituencies in accounting education research, high-performing programs and individuals will be able to receive recognition for their demonstrated excellence. Such recognition creates incentives to initiate studies in accounting education and creates benchmarks with which to measure progress and development in this topical area. Additionally, this recognition will allow others who desire to increase their exposure to accounting education research to more easily identify and draw upon the expertise of knowledge leaders. Recognizing the sources of high-quality accounting education research may produce four additional benefits. First, the recognition may motivate individuals and programs to specialize in accounting education research, which may increase both the quality and volume of accounting education research produced. Second, an increase in both the quality and volume of accounting education research may address recommendations of the Pathways Commission (2012) to improve accounting education, benefitting both students and the accounting profession. 3 Third, if research quality does improve, the acceptability of accounting education research in premier accounting journals may increase, or alternatively, journals focused exclusively on accounting education research may increase in perceived quality. Fourth, recognition of accounting education research excellence could increase the weight given to this research in decisions regarding promotions and performance reviews, tenure decisions, and allocation of funds for both research and salaries. Given these potential benefits to individuals, programs, and the accounting community, these research rankings should prove highly valuable. In addition to producing rankings, a secondary purpose of this research is to understand institutional factors that are associated with the production of accounting education research. Furthermore, we examine the stage in faculty careers at which education research is produced. Understanding these factors can shed light on how accounting researchers, at different institutions and at different points in their careers, value accounting education research. We give a brief overview of the methodology used to create the rankings as well as our findings. We categorize articles in the Coyne et al. (2010) study that were educational in nature and add articles published in and Journal of Accounting Education 2 Borde, Cheney, and Madura (1999) report that finance education journals are perceived as having relatively low quality. In addition, Hult, Reimann, and Schilke (2009) find that marketing education journals receive low ratings of popularity and importance. 3 One of the key recommendations of the Pathways Commission is to reform accounting education so that teaching is more valued and respected. In order to accomplish this goal, the Pathways Commission suggests that universities increase reward, recognition, and support for high-quality teaching (Pathways Commission 2012, 12). Higher-quality education research informs the accounting profession as to improved teaching methods and curriculum. In addition, the case materials produced in connection with accounting education research improve the educational experience of students.

3 Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars 89 since 1990 to this index. We separate rankings by research methodology (educational cases versus research about the educational process), break down the rankings by time window, and separately rank institutions and individual scholars. These perspectives should provide useful information to multiple constituencies. We examine the degree to which accounting education research rankings correlate with a singular overall ranking of research performance. We find that the correlation between institutions disaggregated education ranking and a singular overall ranking is quite low (0.20 to 0.29). 4 The low correlation provides additional evidence of the importance of independently recognizing research expertise in accounting education. Without these independent rankings, identifying institutions and individuals who excel in producing accounting education research would be much more difficult. The rankings also provide evidence that U.S. public institutions are more likely to produce education research while institutions with a Ph.D. program produce less education research. In contrast, other types of research (e.g., research in the Coyne et al. [2010] database) are more likely to be produced by institutions that have a Ph.D. program and that are private, suggesting different types of programs produce education research than the research published in the Coyne et al. (2010) database. In addition, we find that the distribution of education research production, over time, is very similar to that of other types of research. It does not appear that most faculty wait to start producing education research once they have received tenure. The results of this study significantly increase the amount of information available to at least three interested parties: faculty members, research institutions, and industry. First, individual faculty members who have spent significant amounts of time researching accounting education issues will be able to provide an objective measure of their productivity in accounting education research. This objective measure can be used in annual evaluations, promotion and tenure decisions, merit raises, and other situations where faculty need to justify their expertise and/or research productivity. Second, research institutions can use these rankings for accreditation reports and for establishing both internal and external credibility. This increase in credibility can be used to attract funding from both internal and external sources and to attract scholars interested in this line of research. Third, industry could benefit from these rankings by identifying experts in accounting education for consulting projects and allocation of funds. This paper continues as follows. First, we discuss our sample and methodology. Next, we present the rankings and comment on how the rankings might be used. Additional analyses are presented in the next section. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the limitations and implications of our study. We note that we omit a formal discussion of prior research, as we were unable to find prior research that explicitly ranked accounting programs or individuals based on the production of accounting education research. For general discussion of accounting ranking research see Reinstein and Hasselback (1997). We also note that, similar to previous ranking studies, we create a website property that provides additional data to enhance the usefulness of the study. We describe the website property in the Appendix A. Sample Description METHODOLOGY AND SAMPLE To collect articles that are education-related, we first define what we consider as education research. We turn to the editorial policies of (IAE), which define 4 These correlations are quite low compared to even those found in Stephens et al. (2010). For example, Stephens et al. (2010) show that Ph.D. rankings of specific topical areas (e.g., AIS and tax) have low correlations with singular overall Ph.D. rankings (correlations of 0.42 and 0.55, respectively).

4 90 Holderness, Myers, Summers, and Wood education research as articles that consist of topics such as the learning process, curriculum development, professional certification, assessment, career training, employment, and instruction. Also included within this category are studies of student characteristics that affect learning, facultyrelated issues (e.g., promotion and tenure, ranking of programs), and historical, social, or institutional conditions and trends that affect accounting education. 5 We also categorize instructional resources (e.g., cases, simulations) as educational research. To create the education rankings we start by using an index of 11 major academic accounting journals first created by Coyne et al. (2010). Coyne et al. (2010) examine all articles published since 1990 in the following journals: Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS); Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory (Auditing); Behavioral Research in Accounting (BRIA); Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR); Journal of Accounting & Economics (JAE); Journal of Accounting Information Systems (JIS); Journal of Accounting Research (JAR); Journal of Management Accounting Research (JMAR); The Journal of the American Taxation Association (JATA); Review of Accounting Studies (RAST); and The Accounting Review (TAR). 6 From these journals, we include all peer-reviewed, education-related articles for examination in this study. In addition to these journals, we add the education journals (IAE) and Journal of Accounting Education (JAED). Articles from six of these journals (AOS, CAR, JAE, JAR, RAST, and TAR) are included because of their consistent rating in numerous studies as top-tier accounting journals (e.g., see discussions in Glover, Prawitt, and Wood [2006] and Glover, Prawitt, Summers, and Wood [2012]). Coyne et al. (2010) included five additional journals (Auditing, BRIA, JATA, JIS, and JMAR) in topical areas that are underrepresented by the top-tier journals (Bonner et al. 2006). 7 Because research in education spans all topical areas of accounting, it is important to have representative coverage from each area, as well as the top accounting education journals; thus, we include education-related articles and cases from these five journals in our index. We include IAE because it has consistently been reported as the highest-rated accounting education publication. Brown and Huefner (1994) show that IAE is ranked by members at major business schools as better than other accounting education journals in terms of both quality and familiarity. Furthermore, IAE is highly recognized, as it was one of only eight journals, and the only education journal, in the Brown and Huefner (1994) study to rank consistently familiar to faculty across topical areas (i.e., AIS, audit, financial). 8 Ballas and Theoharakis (2003) similarly find that IAE is one of only a handful of journals that enjoy significant levels of readership, with 21 percent of participants responding that they were familiar with and regularly read IAE. 9 In more recent work, Chan et al. (2009) find similar evidence using a citation approach. They show that IAE is cited in dissertations much more than any other accounting education journal. We include JAED because it is generally considered the second-most respected accounting education journal after IAE. Using a sample of tenure-track faculty at AACSB-accredited colleges, 5 The editorial policies of IAE can be found online at: pdf 6 This includes all instructional resources and education articles from each of these journals that were not originally included in the Coyne et al. (2010) index. 7 A survey of academics from the American Accounting Association by Lowensohn and Samelson (2006) indicated that these journals are perceived to be the top-rated journal in their respective methodology (experimental) and topical areas (AIS, audit, managerial, and tax). An additional journal for financial accounting was omitted by Coyne et al. (2010) because financial accounting research is highly represented in the six journals already included. 8 Fewer than 30 percent of respondents chose Not Familiar when ranking IAE. 9 IAE s readership score (21.5 percent) put it just behind AOS and JAE in terms of readership and ahead of CAR, RAST, Auditing, andbria.

5 Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars 91 Herron and Hall (2004) find that JAED is rated as the second-highest accounting education journal. Locke and Lowe (2008) find that among accounting education journals, Australian academics perceive JAED as having the second-highest level of quality, while British academics perceive JAED to be of slightly higher quality than IAE. Finally, Chan et al. s (2009) citation approach provides additional evidence that JAED is the second-most respected accounting education journal. Ranking Methodology To create the rankings, we index all peer-reviewed, education-related articles and cases published in the aforementioned journals between 1990 and To be consistent with previous studies, we do not include articles that were not peer-reviewed such as discussion papers, invited articles, and editor s comments. While significant effort has been put into producing these articles, they have not gone through the same rigorous peer-review process and we therefore do not include them in our rankings. 10 To create our index, one author scanned an online listing of each article in each of the journals during the sample period and copied information about the article such as title, publication date, volume and issue number, and authorship into a database. Each article was then classified as either education research or educational case by two authors (we discuss the distinction between these classifications subsequently). Disagreements were discussed and resolved among all authors. In previous research studies (Coyne et al. 2010; Stephens et al. 2010; Pickerd et al. 2011), the rankings were separated by research methodology, as well as topical area to enrich the resulting data. As introduced earlier, our goal with this study is to highlight institutions and individuals that excel in producing educational research, which inherently covers all topical areas of accounting. Thus, our sample and methodology differ from that of prior research in that no effort is made to distinguish programs or individuals within the combined topical areas of education and AIS, audit, financial, managerial, and tax. Rather, we simply show educational research rankings in aggregate for a particular institution or individual. Essentially, we treat educational research as its own topical area independent of prior classification by other work. 11 With regards to research methodology, we recognize that education research uses a more diverse set of research methodologies than the methods categorized by Coyne et al. (2010) (i.e., archival, analytical, or experimental). Thus, rather than categorize research by the methodology used to produce the research, we categorize the research by the intended use of the research. We categorize research into studies that aim to help facilitate teaching (e.g., educational cases, which are mostly unique to education journals) and those that focus on any of the additional aspects of accounting education previously discussed. We therefore separate articles into two methodological categories: (1) educational cases, and (2) all other education articles, which we simply label other. This distinction is important because it will provide more relevant information to decision makers about the character of research an individual or institution has produced. For example, a school with a heavier emphasis on creating teaching materials may be interested to know which individuals or institutions have most actively produced materials that facilitate student learning. To create the rankings, we rely on counts of articles. Although there are other methodologies for creating rankings, most notably surveys and citation counts, each has costs and benefits (see the excellent discussion in Reinstein and Hasselback [1997]). We chose to utilize counts because they are 10 For similar reasons, we do not include case studies that are published by institutions (e.g., Harvard or Stanford). Although we recognize these cases are of high quality and use, they did not undergo a formal, blind review process. 11 We note from a practical perspective that the amount of research in the educational topical area by methodology cross results in very few publications in some areas. Also, many studies are applicable to multiple areas and are not topic area specific, making classification of these articles problematic.

6 92 Holderness, Myers, Summers, and Wood straightforward, are not influenced by perceptions (such as surveys), and do not suffer from citation problems (e.g., bad articles can be cited to expose their weakness not because they are of high quality). Future research that triangulates our results using alternative ranking methodologies would be useful. From the data collected, we analyze and present the results in two different dimensions: articles by faculty associated with an accounting program as of the end of 2012, and articles by individual authors. Previously, these dimensions were analyzed in separate research studies (Coyne et al. 2010; Pickerd et al. 2011); however, because this paper has a narrower scope (one topical area), we include both dimensions in a single paper. These dimensions correlate with our intentions to make information about accounting education research available to applicable parties. The ranking methods used in each dimension differ slightly and are discussed below. Accounting Program Rankings In order to create rankings of accounting programs, we aggregate individual research records to institutions. To do this, we must decide which institution gets credit for an individual s research the two choices being the institution where the individual was working when the work was produced or the institution where the individual currently resides. In this study, we chose the latter. We justify this decision by noting that an author carries his or her intellectual capital when they change schools; therefore, this methodology best identifies institutions that currently have faculty who excel in educational research rather than institutions that may have had faculty who excelled but are no longer associated with the institutions. To identify an author s university affiliation as of the end of 2012, we use an internet search to identify institutions where the author is listed in the faculty directory. If authors are not listed as a current faculty member in the online directory, they are excluded from the study. 12 If professors are listed as holding joint appointments or were listed as visiting scholars, we credited the home school for those publications. When searching for individuals, we also tried to find addresses. In order to ensure that the data were as accurate as possible, we ed all the published authors for whom we could find addresses and asked them to review their data online. Furthermore, we temporarily made the data available online via a popular ranking website. We requested visitors to review the data and provide correction of errors. We present two rankings by institution. In the first ranking, we give each author listed on an indexed article full credit for that article. Thus, for coauthored papers, all institutions of the authors received credit for the publication, and if multiple authors were from the same institution, the institution received credit for each author. We also provide a second ranking in which we scale each article by the number of authors (e.g., for a three-authored paper, each author gets one-third credit). We note that in both rankings, we include all professors regardless of whether they are in an accounting department, business school, or other department at the university. We do not attempt to scale our rankings by the number of professors per institution because of the inherent difficulty and subjective nature of such a process. Coyne et al. (2010) note several problems with scaling: (1) many schools do not have a separate accounting department or combine it with another department, (2) nonaccounting faculty often publish articles and the decision of whether to include them in scaling is arbitrary, and (3) many accounting faculty work in administrative positions, making it a subjective choice of whether to include or exclude these faculty. Furthermore, we note that accounting education research is one of several niche research areas in accounting. It is unlikely that an entire faculty, large or small, focuses exclusively on this niche, so scaling by faculty 12 We note that there were 1,747 unique authors in the database. Of those, we were able to find current information for 1,585 or approximately 91 percent. Of those found, 1,274 worked for an educational institution, 105 worked in practice, 171 had retired, and 35 were deceased.

7 Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars 93 size is arbitrary. For these reasons we do not scale any of the rankings by number of individuals publishing from a particular institution and simply show the results in aggregate. Finally, to make the rankings as useful as possible, we present articles published within various time windows. This is designed to account for the time value of an article and help the reader infer various trends in publication rates among institutions. We report rankings based on three different time windows the full extent of our study (articles published between 1990 and 2012, inclusive), the most recent 12 years, and the most recent six years. This breakdown gives users more detailed information than simply spanning the entire time window. For example, if an institution has a very high ranking in the full window but has a much lower ranking in the most recent six years, this suggests a decline in the research output and productivity of the institution in producing accounting education research. Individual Faculty Rankings Creating individual faculty rankings is more straightforward than the accounting program rankings, as there are no aggregation issues. We follow Pickerd et al. (2011) and give full credit to each author for each article published. We also report a ranking if author contribution is scaled by the number of coauthors on each article. Similar to the institution rankings, we report rankings based on three different time windows the full extent of our study (articles published between 1990 and 2012, inclusive), the most recent 12 years, and the most recent six years. RANKING RESULTS Table 1 presents descriptive statistics of the number of education articles in each of the different journals. Not surprising, the vast number of education articles are published in IAE and JAED. Somewhat surprising is the almost complete lack of education articles published in all other journals, with the exception of JIS. Less than 3 percent of articles published in the journals other than IAE, JAED, and JIS are related to education research ( just over 17 percent of the articles published in JIS are education oriented). The lack of education articles in AAA sponsored journals may be due, in part, to the IAE journal. Authors, reviewers, and journal editors may believe that education research should only be published in IAE and not other AAA journals. While each journal has its particular mission, this practice may be highly problematic for the production of education research if institutions do not consider IAE to be of sufficient quality when making promotion and tenure decisions and other faculty evaluations. Given that Glover et al. (2006) and Glover et al.(2012) do not include IAE in the top 15 journal categories (which can be interpreted as the A and A journals), but include it in the top 25 journals, it is likely that this is the case at many academic institutions. The problem is only exacerbated by the relatively low rates of education research published in the non-aaa journals. While we do not know from this data whether journals are not publishing education research because of a lack of submissions or because journals (i.e., editors and reviewers) are unwilling to publish the research (Kachelmeier 2009, 2010, 2011), the lack of publications in highly respected journals is likely problematic for future production of education research. If faculty receive no credit for publishing accounting education research, the quantity, and perhaps also the quality, of accounting education research will likely diminish over time. Table 1 does present some encouraging and fascinating data about the number of authors who have published accounting education research. Examining all articles published, Table 1 shows that IAE has published work from 1,114 unique authors since More faculty publish in IAE than any journal, excepting TAR. Part of the reason for this greater number of articles may be that IAE has produced the third-most articles in this time period; nevertheless, it suggests that many authors across the world are interested in producing accounting education research. Data from JAED are

8 94 Holderness, Myers, Summers, and Wood TABLE 1 Total Articles (Total Authors) [Percentage of Total Articles] Statistics by Journal Total Education Articles Education Case Articles Other Education Articles Total Articles 760 (1,114) [100] 297 (475) [39.1] 464 (717) [61.1] 760 (1,114) Journal of Accounting Education 487 (757) [100] 117 (210) [24.0] 370 (597) [76.0] 487 (767) Journal of Information Systems 44 (64) [17.4] 29 (45) [11.5] 15 (30) [5.9] 253 (357) Contemporary Accounting Research 14 (30) [2.1] 1 (5) [0.2] 13 (25) [2.0] 656 (957) Accounting, Organizations and Society 8 (14) [1.0] 0 (0) [0] 8 (14) [1.0] 803 (869) The Journal of the American Taxation Association 8 (16) [2.8] 0 (0) [0] 8 (16) [2.8] 284 (349) Behavioral Research in Accounting 3 (6) [1.0] 0 (0) [0] 3 (6) [1.0] 292 (435) Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory 1 (2) [0.2] 0 (0) [0] 1 (2) [0.2] 520 (672) Journal of Accounting & Economics 1 (3) [0.2] 0 (0) [0] 1 (3) [0.2] 574 (697) Journal of Accounting Research 1 (2) [0.2] 0 (0) [0] 1 (2) [0.2] 664 (824) Journal of Management Accounting Research 1 (1) [0.5] 0 (0) [0] 1 (1) [0.5] 215 (336) The Accounting Review 1 (4) [0.1] 0 (0) [0] 1 (4) [0.1] 981 (1,186) Review of Accounting Studies 0 (0) [0] 0 (0) [0] 0 (0) [0] 303 (483) Total 1, ,792 We note that the sum of education case articles and other education articles does not always equal the total education article sum because some articles can be dual classified as case and other (the articles are not double counted in the total education article column).

9 Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars 95 also interesting in that the number of total articles is more modest than IAE, yet a very high number of authors publish in JAED relative to the other journals. The results for the institutional rankings and individual faculty rankings are presented in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. For each table, we present the rankings for the overall ranking, other education research, and case research in the same table. We present the rankings sorted by the overall ranking in the six-year time window for each table and we present approximately the top-50 ranked institutions or individuals. While the rankings are largely self-explanatory, we note several observations about each set of rankings. The institutional ratings show relative stability over time in the institutions that are producing the most significant amounts of accounting education research. The top-five institutions, Bentley University, Brigham Young University, University of Saskatchewan, Miami University, and James Madison University are ranked in the top five in each of the different time periods. Also of note in the institutional rankings is that there are a number of institutions that, while they have done well in accounting education research, are not high producers of more traditional accounting research. To verify this empirically, we compute the correlation between accounting education rankings and a single overall ranking based on publishing in the Coyne et al. (2010) set of 11 high-quality accounting journals (overall ranking does not consider topical area or methodology). The overall correlation between the singular, overall ranking and the accounting education rankings is 0.20, 0.31, and 0.29 for the six-, twelve-, and all-window periods. This low correlation suggests that the schools that produce accounting education research are significantly different from the schools that produce high quantities of research published in 11 high-quality accounting journals. This analysis underscores the importance of creating separate rankings that recognize the production of accounting education research. Without these separate rankings, past studies are unable to provide decision makers with high-quality information of institutions that produce accounting education research. An additional interesting observation we glean from Table 2 is that some institutions once produced a high amount of accounting education research, but have recently produced no or very little research. For example, Indiana University and The University of Texas at Austin were rated 14th and 22nd, respectively in the All window and, yet, in the last six years each school has only produced a single education article for a ranking of 170th. In spite of being large programs with many faculty, these schools are not producing accounting education research in the recent past as they have since Additional research that shows why these programs do not produce accounting education research would be very useful. Research producing educational cases shows that Bentley University is the largest producer of educational cases in the last six years, with Miami University, University of Saskatchewan, and Baylor University producing the next-highest amounts. In terms of noncase research, Brigham Young University, James Madison University, and West Virginia University are the highest producers in the last six years. Table 3 presents the individual faculty education research productivity rankings. The rankings show that Fred Phillips of the University of Saskatchewan has produced more accounting education research in the six- and twelve-year windows and David E. Stout of Youngstown State University has produced the most research in the All window. David E. Stout and Fred Phillips are both highly prolific in producing education-oriented other research, ranking one or two in the three windows; whereas, education cases are most produced by Mahendra Gujarathi of Bentley 13 We note this is not just a two-school phenomenon. Other schools such as The University of Kansas, The University of Alabama, University of Wisconsin Madison, and to a lesser extent, Villanova University, University of Central Florida, University of Missouri, Western Michigan University, University of Richmond, and Boston College show a similar trend.

10 96 Holderness, Myers, Summers, and Wood Panel A: Overall Ranking TABLE 2 Institutional Education Research Rankings University 6 Year 12 Year All Bentley University 1 (23) #10 [1] 2 (28) #13 [2] 3 (32) #16 [2] Brigham Young University 2 (22) #11 [6] 3 (26) #13 [6] 1 (36) #16 [7] University of Saskatchewan 3 (18) #7 [2] 1 (29) #7 [1] 2 (33) #8 [1] Miami University 3 (18) #10 [5] 3 (26) #10 [3] 5 (30) #10 [4] James Madison University 5 (16) #12 [3] 5 (21) #12 [4] 3 (32) #14 [3] Virginia Commonwealth University 6 (14) #8 [9] 6 (18) #8 [11] 7 (22) #9 [23] Baylor University 6 (14) #8 [4] 6 (18) #11 [5] 9 (20) #11 [6] Youngstown State University 8 (11) #4 [12] 8 (17) #4 [7] 6 (28) #4 [5] Northern Illinois University 8 (11) #9 [12] 14 (13) #10 [18] 16 (17) #12 [16] Florida Atlantic University 8 (11) #6 [7] 14 (13) #7 [9] 27 (14) #7 [22] Georgia State University 11 (10) #2 [8] 9 (16) #3 [8] 9 (20) #5 [13] West Virginia University 11 (10) #5 [22] 17 (12) #5 [42] 22 (15) #5 [49] Auburn University 13 (9) #5 [15] 11 (14) #7 [13] 27 (14) #7 [37] Appalachian State University 13 (9) #8 [12] 24 (9) #8 [30] 37 (11) #10 [49] Arizona State University 15 (8) #5 [11] 17 (12) #8 [17] 9 (20) #12 [11] University of Houston Clear Lake 15 (8) #5 [18] 24 (9) #5 [38] 44 (10) #5 [64] Kansas State University 17 (7) #5 [29] 14 (13) #8 [11] 14 (18) #8 [17] Rider University 17 (7) #4 [22] 19 (10) #5 [30] 44 (10) #5 [68] Case Western Reserve University 17 (7) #3 [20] 24 (9) #3 [34] 34 (12) #3 [46] The University of Alabama 17 (7) #4 [17] 31 (8) #5 [33] 44 (10) #6 [48] at Birmingham Texas Tech University 21 (6) #6 [26] 11 (14) #7 [14] 9 (20) #10 [17] Northeastern University 21 (6) #5 [41] 19 (10) #6 [26] 30 (13) #8 [41] Texas A&M University 21 (6) #6 [44] 19 (10) #9 [29] 30 (13) #11 [40] North Carolina State University 21 (6) #3 [22] 24 (9) #3 [23] 16 (17) #7 [28] DePaul University 21 (6) #5 [31] 31 (8) #6 [28] 16 (17) #6 [20] San Diego State University 21 (6) #5 [18] 36 (7) #5 [34] 37 (11) #9 [33] University of Illinois at 21 (6) #6 [10] 50 (6) #6 [25] 44 (10) #8 [43] Urbana Champaign Robert Morris University 21 (6) #3 [31] 50 (6) #3 [66] 57 (9) #3 [92] Xavier University 21 (6) #5 [26] 50 (6) #5 [57] 66 (8) #7 [75] University of Waterloo 21 (6) #4 [30] 50 (6) #4 [62] 78 (7) #5 [78] Wake Forest University 21 (6) #5 [15] 50 (6) #5 [34] 78 (7) #6 [59] The Ohio State University 32 (5) #4 [39] 10 (15) #8 [16] 9 (20) #8 [27] Kennesaw State University 32 (5) #4 [21] 24 (9) #8 [22] 16 (17) #9 [14] Iowa State University 32 (5) #4 [37] 24 (9) #4 [21] 20 (16) #5 [12] University at Albany, SUNY 32 (5) #4 [44] 24 (9) #4 [23] 57 (9) #4 [59] University of Connecticut 32 (5) #4 [37] 31 (8) #7 [26] 44 (10) #8 [45] East Carolina University 32 (5) #3 [44] 36 (7) #3 [53] 37 (11) #5 [44] Indiana University 32 (5) #2 [68] 36 (7) #2 [84] 44 (10) #2 [109] Purdue University Indianapolis The University of Mississippi 32 (5) #5 [60] 50 (6) #5 [84] 37 (11) #7 [34] University of Wisconsin Milwaukee 32 (5) #3 [41] 61 (5) #3 [80] 30 (13) #5 [30] California Polytechnic State 32 (5) #4 [26] 61 (5) #4 [57] 37 (11) #5 [14] University San Luis Obispo (continued on next page)

11 Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars 97 TABLE 2 (continued) University 6 Year 12 Year All Virginia Polytechnic Institute 32 (5) #5 [56] 61 (5) #5 [100] 78 (7) #6 [87] and State University The University of Western Australia 32 (5) #4 [68] 61 (5) #4 [117] 101 (5) #4 [181] Michigan State University 44 (4) #3 [44] 19 (10) #9 [14] 37 (11) #9 [34] Wayne State University 44 (4) #1 [96] 31 (8) #2 [51] 44 (10) #2 [67] University of Delaware 44 (4) #4 [33] 36 (7) #4 [38] 44 (10) #6 [42] Missouri State University 44 (4) #2 [57] 36 (7) #2 [38] 66 (8) #3 [68] The University of Memphis 44 (4) #2 [83] 36 (7) #2 [50] 78 (7) #2 [93] University of Notre Dame 44 (4) #4 [44] 36 (7) #5 [42] 78 (7) #5 [84] University of North Texas 44 (4) #4 [33] 50 (6) #5 [42] 34 (12) #8 [37] The University of North Carolina 44 (4) #4 [68] 50 (6) #6 [71] 66 (8) #7 [96] Wilmington Baruch College CUNY 44 (4) #3 [60] 61 (5) #3 [84] 78 (7) #4 [68] Clemson University 44 (4) #4 [33] 61 (5) #5 [42] 78 (7) #7 [49] Rutgers, The State University 44 (4) #4 [41] 61 (5) #4 [62] 101 (5) #4 [109] of New Jersey University of Lethbridge 44 (4) #3 [39] 61 (5) #4 [61] 101 (5) #4 [106] Western New England University 44 (4) #2 [57] 61 (5) #3 [71] 101 (5) #3 [120] Wright State University 44 (4) #2 [60] 61 (5) #2 [84] 101 (5) #2 [134] Belmont University 44 (4) #2 [44] 85 (4) #2 [84] 101 (5) #3 [96] Fordham University 44 (4) #2 [60] 85 (4) #2 [108] 101 (5) #3 [160] Illinois State University 44 (4) #3 [96] 85 (4) #3 [146] 101 (5) #3 [128] Middlesex University 44 (4) #4 [83] 85 (4) #4 [136] 101 (5) #4 [164] Suffolk University 44 (4) #4 [68] 85 (4) #4 [117] 101 (5) #5 [164] Ghent University 44 (4) #3 [60] 85 (4) #3 [108] 129 (4) #3 [172] SUNY, Geneseo 44 (4) #2 [44] 85 (4) #2 [84] 129 (4) #2 [134] University of Arkansas at Little Rock 44 (4) #1 [33] 85 (4) #1 [68] 129 (4) #1 [112] Panel B: Other Research University 6 Year 12 Year All Brigham Young University 1 (14) #7 [1] 1 (16) #8 [4] 1 (26) #13 [5] James Madison University 2 (10) #9 [2] 4 (13) #9 [3] 3 (21) #9 [4] West Virginia University 2 (10) #5 [7] 6 (12) #5 [19] 8 (15) #5 [22] Virginia Commonwealth University 4 (9) #7 [10] 6 (12) #8 [12] 8 (15) #9 [21] Youngstown State University 5 (8) #4 [9] 2 (14) #4 [2] 2 (25) #4 [1] University of Saskatchewan 5 (8) #2 [3] 2 (14) #3 [1] 6 (16) #4 [3] Bentley University 5 (8) #6 [4] 8 (10) #8 [9] 11 (14) #11 [11] Miami University 8 (7) #5 [14] 12 (9) #5 [12] 17 (12) #6 [19] Texas A&M University 9 (6) #6 [21] 8 (10) #9 [11] 14 (13) #11 [17] Arizona State University 9 (6) #3 [6] 12 (9) #5 [6] 14 (13) #8 [8] Rider University 9 (6) #4 [12] 12 (9) #5 [17] 27 (9) #5 [43] Case Western Reserve University 9 (6) #2 [10] 17 (7) #2 [21] 22 (10) #3 [27] Kansas State University 13 (5) #4 [29] 8 (10) #7 [9] 8 (15) #7 [14] Georgia State University 13 (5) #2 [14] 15 (8) #2 [16] 22 (10) #4 [25] Northern Illinois University 13 (5) #5 [31] 17 (7) #7 [21] 27 (9) #8 [29] University of Connecticut 13 (5) #4 [18] 17 (7) #6 [17] 27 (9) #8 [23] San Diego State University 13 (5) #5 [18] 21 (6) #5 [25] 41 (7) #6 [39] University of Waterloo 13 (5) #4 [20] 30 (5) #4 [38] 64 (5) #4 [82] (continued on next page)

12 98 Holderness, Myers, Summers, and Wood TABLE 2 (continued) University 6 Year 12 Year All Kennesaw State University 19 (4) #3 [13] 15 (8) #7 [15] 6 (16) #8 [6] Indiana University, Purdue 19 (4) #2 [54] 21 (6) #2 [58] 27 (9) #2 [82] Indianapolis Baylor University 19 (4) #4 [14] 21 (6) #5 [12] 51 (6) #5 [32] Iowa State University 19 (4) #4 [40] 30 (5) #4 [53] 21 (11) #5 [18] University of Illinois at Urbana- 19 (4) #4 [5] 38 (4) #4 [20] 41 (7) #6 [29] Champaign Robert Morris University 19 (4) #3 [33] 38 (4) #3 [53] 41 (7) #3 [79] Xavier University 19 (4) #3 [27] 38 (4) #3 [50] 51 (6) #5 [60] University of Alabama at 19 (4) #3 [33] 38 (4) #3 [53] 64 (5) #4 [86] Birmingham Virginia Polytechnic 19 (4) #4 [33] 38 (4) #4 [53] 64 (5) #5 [66] Belmont University 19 (4) #2 [21] 38 (4) #2 [39] 64 (5) #3 [53] Middlesex University 19 (4) #4 [40] 38 (4) #4 [70] 64 (5) #4 [107] The Ohio State University 30 (3) #2 [54] 4 (13) #6 [7] 4 (18) #6 [13] Villanova University 30 (3) #3 [40] 8 (10) #8 [8] 5 (17) #11 [9] University of Missouri 30 (3) #2 [7] 21 (6) #2 [5] 11 (14) #3 [2] University of West Florida 30 (3) #1 [88] 21 (6) #2 [49] 22 (10) #2 [42] Wayne State University 30 (3) #1 [88] 21 (6) #2 [35] 32 (8) #2 [49] Missouri State University 30 (3) #2 [40] 21 (6) #2 [21] 51 (6) #2 [50] University of Wyoming 30 (3) #3 [54] 30 (5) #4 [39] 32 (8) #4 [32] Eastern Michigan University 30 (3) #3 [88] 30 (5) #5 [53] 51 (6) #6 [66] Montana State University 30 (3) #1 [36] 30 (5) #3 [31] 64 (5) #3 [73] University of New Mexico 30 (3) #2 [31] 38 (4) #3 [26] 32 (8) #4 [20] Auburn University 30 (3) #3 [91] 38 (4) #4 [70] 82 (4) #4 [147] University of Lethbridge 30 (3) #2 [29] 38 (4) #3 [35] 82 (4) #3 [79] University of the West of Scotland 30 (3) #2 [40] 38 (4) #2 [31] 82 (4) #2 [73] Syracuse University 30 (3) #3 [51] 38 (4) #3 [58] 82 (4) #3 [123] University of Nebraska-Lincoln 30 (3) #1 [36] 56 (3) #1 [58] 27 (9) #6 [38] University of Tennessee Knoxville 30 (3) #1 [39] 56 (3) #1 [69] 32 (8) #5 [45] Northeastern University 30 (3) #3 [54] 56 (3) #3 [96] 51 (6) #6 [66] California State Polytechnic 30 (3) #3 [27] 56 (3) #3 [50] 64 (5) #3 [39] University, San Luis Obis University of North Carolina 30 (3) #3 [47] 56 (3) #3 [82] 64 (5) #5 [106] Wilmington Clemson University 30 (3) #3 [21] 56 (3) #3 [39] 64 (5) #5 [47] Loyola University Maryland 30 (3) #3 [98] 56 (3) #3 [148] 82 (4) #4 [164] University of Southern California 30 (3) #3 [54] 56 (3) #3 [96] 82 (4) #3 [88] Florida Atlantic University 30 (3) #3 [21] 56 (3) #3 [39] 109 (3) #3 [88] Appalachian State University 30 (3) #3 [40] 56 (3) #3 [70] 109 (3) #3 [147] Wake Forest University 30 (3) #3 [14] 56 (3) #3 [27] 109 (3) #3 [69] Rutgers, The State University of 30 (3) #3 [51] 56 (3) #3 [88] 109 (3) #3 [170] New Jersey Georgia Southern University 30 (3) #1 [53] 56 (3) #1 [93] 109 (3) #1 [176] Colorado State University 30 (3) #3 [21] 56 (3) #3 [39] 109 (3) #3 [88] Bowling Green State University 30 (3) #3 [54] 56 (3) #3 [96] 109 (3) #3 [179] University of Pretoria 30 (3) #3 [50] 56 (3) #3 [86] 109 (3) #3 [168] Oklahoma State University 30 (3) #3 [98] 56 (3) #3 [148] 109 (3) #3 [247] (continued on next page)

13 Accounting Education Research: Ranking Institutions and Individual Scholars 99 Panel C: Case TABLE 2 (continued) University 6 Year 12 Year All Bentley University 1 (15) #6 [1] 1 (18) #7 [1] 1 (18) #7 [1] Miami University 2 (11) #8 [4] 2 (17) #8 [3] 1 (18) #8 [3] University of Saskatchewan 3 (10) #6 [2] 3 (15) #6 [2] 3 (17) #6 [2] Baylor University 3 (10) #5 [3] 4 (12) #7 [4] 4 (14) #7 [4] Florida Atlantic University 5 (8) #4 [6] 5 (10) #5 [6] 5 (11) #5 [6] Brigham Young University 5 (8) #6 [10] 5 (10) #7 [15] 7 (10) #7 [28] Auburn University 7 (6) #4 [7] 5 (10) #5 [7] 7 (10) #5 [9] James Madison University 7 (6) #5 [5] 8 (8) #6 [5] 5 (11) #8 [5] Northern Illinois University 7 (6) #5 [12] 14 (6) #5 [26] 13 (8) #7 [14] Appalachian State University 7 (6) #5 [8] 14 (6) #5 [19] 13 (8) #7 [21] University of Houston-Clear Lake 7 (6) #5 [8] 14 (6) #5 [19] 25 (6) #5 [35] Georgia State University 12 (5) #1 [15] 8 (8) #2 [10] 7 (10) #3 [11] Texas Tech University 12 (5) #5 [11] 12 (7) #5 [10] 17 (7) #5 [25] DePaul University 12 (5) #5 [14] 14 (6) #5 [13] 10 (9) #5 [7] Virginia Commonwealth University 12 (5) #2 [22] 14 (6) #2 [30] 17 (7) #2 [41] University of Mississippi 12 (5) #5 [23] 14 (6) #5 [31] 25 (6) #5 [44] University of Western Australia 12 (5) #4 [26] 22 (5) #4 [43] 32 (5) #4 [67] Michigan State University 18 (4) #3 [16] 8 (8) #7 [8] 10 (9) #7 [8] State University of New York at 18 (4) #4 [23] 8 (8) #4 [9] 13 (8) #4 [12] Albany East Carolina University 18 (4) #3 [23] 14 (6) #3 [19] 17 (7) #3 [19] North Carolina State University 18 (4) #2 [12] 22 (5) #2 [17] 17 (7) #4 [14] University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 18 (4) #3 [20] 28 (4) #3 [38] 32 (5) #3 [42] State University of New York at 18 (4) #2 [16] 28 (4) #2 [31] 44 (4) #2 [44] Geneseo Northeastern University 24 (3) #2 [37] 12 (7) #4 [14] 17 (7) #4 [27] Western Michigan University 24 (3) #2 [26] 22 (5) #3 [23] 13 (8) #3 [12] University of Memphis 24 (3) #2 [39] 22 (5) #2 [23] 32 (5) #2 [36] University of Alabama at 24 (3) #2 [20] 28 (4) #3 [26] 32 (5) #3 [31] Birmingham University of Delaware 24 (3) #3 [16] 28 (4) #3 [23] 32 (5) #4 [21] Western New England University 24 (3) #2 [30] 28 (4) #3 [38] 44 (4) #3 [60] Wright State University 24 (3) #2 [30] 28 (4) #2 [40] 44 (4) #2 [63] Old Dominion University 24 (3) #3 [39] 28 (4) #3 [43] 44 (4) #3 [67] Wake Forest University 24 (3) #2 [30] 41 (3) #2 [55] 44 (4) #3 [60] Illinois State University 24 (3) #2 [39] 41 (3) #2 [69] 44 (4) #2 [44] Youngstown State University 24 (3) #1 [38] 41 (3) #1 [67] 56 (3) #1 [100] Suffolk University 24 (3) #3 [39] 41 (3) #3 [69] 56 (3) #3 [102] University of Arkansas at Little Rock 24 (3) #1 [16] 41 (3) #1 [31] 56 (3) #1 [44] Minnesota State Moorhead 24 (3) #3 [39] 41 (3) #3 [69] 56 (3) #3 [102] Stetson University 24 (3) #2 [30] 41 (3) #2 [55] 56 (3) #2 [80] Loyola University Chicago 24 (3) #2 [30] 41 (3) #2 [55] 56 (3) #2 [80] University of Oklahoma 40 (2) #2 [39] 14 (6) #2 [16] 25 (6) #2 [29] Boston College 40 (2) #1 [92] 22 (5) #2 [26] 17 (7) #2 [14] University of Wisconsin-Madison 40 (2) #1 [85] 22 (5) #3 [26] 25 (6) #3 [31] University of North Florida 40 (2) #2 [92] 28 (4) #4 [55] 32 (5) #4 [63] Babson College 40 (2) #1 [39] 28 (4) #2 [40] 44 (4) #2 [63] Arizona State University 40 (2) #2 [85] 41 (3) #3 [64] 17 (7) #5 [29] (continued on next page)

14 100 Holderness, Myers, Summers, and Wood TABLE 2 (continued) University 6 Year 12 Year All John Carroll University 40 (2) #2 [39] 41 (3) #2 [43] 17 (7) #3 [21] Kansas State University 40 (2) #2 [39] 41 (3) #3 [31] 56 (3) #3 [44] University of Georgia 40 (2) #2 [39] 41 (3) #2 [43] 56 (3) #2 [67] Truman State University 40 (2) #2 [92] 41 (3) #3 [40] 56 (3) #3 [63] University of Tampa 40 (2) #2 [39] 41 (3) #3 [55] 56 (3) #3 [80] Quinnipiac University 40 (2) #1 [92] 41 (3) #2 [64] 56 (3) #2 [97] California State Polytechnic 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 25 (6) #3 [9] University, San Luis Obis University of North Texas 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 44 (4) #3 [60] University of Illinois at Urbana- 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 56 (3) #3 [80] Champaign University of Michigan-Dearborn 40 (2) #2 [85] 62 (2) #2 [116] 56 (3) #3 [80] University of Vermont 40 (2) #2 [92] 62 (2) #2 [125] 56 (3) #2 [97] University of Virginia-McIntire 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 56 (3) #2 [67] School York University 40 (2) #1 [26] 62 (2) #1 [43] 56 (3) #2 [36] Robert Morris University 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] Xavier University 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] The Ohio State University 40 (2) #2 [36] 62 (2) #2 [63] 82 (2) #2 [95] University of Notre Dame 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] Baruch College-The City University 40 (2) #1 [39] 62 (2) #1 [69] 82 (2) #1 [102] of New York Fordham University 40 (2) #1 [85] 62 (2) #1 [116] 82 (2) #1 [143] Ghent University 40 (2) #2 [92] 62 (2) #2 [125] 82 (2) #2 [159] University of Rhode Island 40 (2) #2 [30] 62 (2) #2 [55] 82 (2) #2 [80] St. Mary s University 40 (2) #1 [26] 62 (2) #1 [43] 82 (2) #1 [67] Wilfrid Laurier University 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] University of Colorado - Colorado 40 (2) #2 [91] 62 (2) #2 [122] 82 (2) #2 [154] Springs Southeastern Louisiana University 40 (2) #1 [39] 62 (2) #1 [69] 82 (2) #1 [102] Central Michigan University 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] Fort Lewis College 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] Jacksonville University 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] Northern Kentucky University 40 (2) #2 [85] 62 (2) #2 [116] 82 (2) #2 [143] Thunderbird School of Global 40 (2) #2 [85] 62 (2) #2 [116] 82 (2) #2 [143] Management St. John Fisher College 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] HHL - Leipzig Graduate School of 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] Management Lincoln University 40 (2) #2 [100] 62 (2) #2 [139] 82 (2) #2 [175] University of Louisville 40 (2) #2 [92] 62 (2) #2 [125] 82 (2) #2 [159] Macquarie University 40 (2) #2 [100] 62 (2) #2 [139] 82 (2) #2 [175] University of St. Thomas 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] State University of New York at 40 (2) #2 [92] 62 (2) #2 [125] 82 (2) #2 [159] New Paltz Keene State College 40 (2) #2 [39] 62 (2) #2 [69] 82 (2) #2 [102] Four numbers are presented, the unscaled ranking number, (number of articles), # number of authors contributing to the ranking, and [ranking scaled by coauthorship]. Rankings are sorted first by the 6-year ranking, then by the 12-year ranking, and then by the All ranking.