Attitude Measurement and Perceptions of Accounting Faculty Publication Outlets. The Accounting Review, Vol. 58, No. 4. (Oct., 1983), pp

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1 Attitude Measurement and Perceptions of Accounting Faculty Publication Outlets Thomas P. Howard; Loren A. Nikolai The Accounting Review, Vol. 58, No. 4. (Oct., 1983), pp Stable URL: The Accounting Review is currently published by American Accounting Association. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Sun Mar 9 23:21:

2 THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW V0l. LVIII, No. 4 October 1983 Attitude Measurement and Perceptions of Accounting Faculty Publication Outlets Thomas P. Howard and Loren A. Nikolai ABSTRACT: Magnitude-estimation procedures are used to establish a ratio-scale "quality" ranking of journals in which accounting faculty typically publish. The Journal of Accounting Research and The Accounting Review are the highest-ranked journals. Significant differences were found in the journal rankings across the specialty areas of auditing, financial, managerial, and tax. Substantial differences are observable in comparisons of rankings of (1) faculty at doctoral-granting institutions versus faculty at institutions granting only master's or bachelor's degrees, and (2) assistant professors versusfull professors. In comparison to an earlier ranking, the two top journalsare identical but several new and accounting-related journals are included in the current ranking. IN this research study, magnitude-estimation procedures1 are used to establish a ranking of the perceived quality of accounting and accountingjournals. The are used contrast the rankings of subsets of accounting educators and to contrast the ranking with an ranking. METHOD Since the ranking is based on accounting educators' perceptions, a questionnaire approach was selected as the nleans to administer the study. Initially, a representative but not all-inclusive list of the important publications in accounting was assembled. The list included journals appealing to both "conce~tual" and "application" oriented accounting faulty, both in general and in regard to the specialized areas (i.e., tax, auditing) of accounting. A list of journals was initially developed based on a review of account- ing reference guides. To be included, a journal had to be in existence for at least Howard [I9811 discussed the evolution and use of magnitude-estimation procedures in social science research experiments. In magnitude-estimation research, subjects are presented with a series of stimuli and are asked to indicate the relatiae magnitude of the stimuli. Thus, "stimulus-centered'' scales can be developed which allow the researcher to draw conclusions about both the stimuli and the subjects. This is in contrast to other attitude measurement techniques and scales (i.e., Likert, semantic differential) which generate "subjectcentered" scales providing no valid way of assessing the stimuli themselves. Furthermore, the stimulus-centered scales developed using magnitude estimation procedures the ratio level, thereby allowing the use of more rigorous statistical procedures in any subsequent 765 Thomas P. Howard is Assistant Professor of A~~~~~~~~~~ and L~~~~A. Nikolai is Ernst & Whinney Professor of A ~both at the~ Uniuersity~of ~issouri-~olumbia. Manuscrip~recei~edSePtember 1982, Raision receit.eddecember 1982, Accepted March 1983.

3 The Accounting Review, October 1983 three years. Based on consultations with accounting faculty in several specialty areas and on the longevity of journal publications, several journals were dropped (and a few added) from the list. To provide a variety of journals, yet limit the response time of the subjects to 15 minutes or less, it was decided to establish the list at about 50 items. In addition to journals, accounting faculty publish in other "publications." In the interest of completeness, several categories of these publications were included on the list. The end result was a list of 51 items, as shown in Table 1. The following "scenario" was used to ask the subjects to rank the publications. Subjects were told that their school or department was going to adopt a "point system" for evaluating accounting publications as one measure of quality, to give different amounts of credit for articles appearing in the various publications. Subjects were then asked to assign points to a single-authored, main section article appearing in each publication based upon their perceptions of the value of the publication to their school or department. Reasons were suggested for why differences in value might exist, for instance, differences in the rigor of the review process, or differences in the contribution of the subject content to the mission of the subject's school or department. The scenario also provided a frame of reference and ranking procedure which would be understandable to the subjects and applicable to the magnitude-estimation analytical procedures to be used. Because it was judged that all respondents would be familiar with The Journal of Accountancy, this journal was selected as the frame of reference, was assigned an arbitrary value of 100 points, and was placed first on the list of publications. The remaining publications were listed in alphabetical order. Subjects were instructed to assign points based upon the value of an article published in each of the other publications relative to an article published in The Journal of Accountancy. For example, if a subject viewed an article in another publication as having three times the value of an article in The Journal of Accountancy, the subject was instructed to assign a value of 300 points to the publication. Likewise, an article having only one-half the value was to be assigned 50 points. If a journal was deemed to have no value, zero was the appropriate response; if the subject was not familiar with the journal, a "blank" was appropriate. Sample and Procedure The listing of accounting educators published in Hasselback [ ] was used to draw a sample. All faculty listed as holding an earned doctorate and teaching at a U.S. institution were consecutively numbered; this resulted in a population of 2,204. Using a random number table, 551 (25 percent) potential subjects were identified. Subsequently, 23 of these were eliminated because it was discovered that they did not meet one of the criteria or were erroneously listed. After pre-testing the questionnaire, a cover letter and a numbered questionnaire were sent to 528 subjects. The cover letter explained the project in terms of the scenario previously discussed and asked the participant to complete the questionnaire and return it in an enclosed, selfaddressed, stamped envelope. Initially, 232 usable responses were returned. About one month later, a follow-up letter and another questionnaire (identically numbered) were sent to the nonrespondents. In this cover letter, the subjects were urged to return the questionnaire even if they chose not to complete it. This resulted in an additional

4 Howard and Nikolai 1 16 responses returned, of which 37 were blank or unusable. The end result was usable responses, a response rate of 58.9 percent. An analysis revealed no discernible biases between respondents and nonrespondents with regard to ascertainable demographic information. Certain demographic information was collected in the questionnaire. Information about the subjects included their (1) professional rank, (2) years since doctorate, (3) area of specialization, and (4) tenure position. Information about the subject's school or department included its (1) undergraduate program AACSB accreditation, (2) graduate program AACSB accreditation, and (3) programs offered with a concentration in accounting. Subjects were asked to provide this information on the questionnaire by a checkmark process. The BMDPlS program of Biomedical 767 Computer Programs [I9771 was used to compute the geometric means for the scores assigned to the journals by the respondents. Blanks were ignored, so that the geometric mean for each journal was computed using the number of responses for that particular journal. The geometric means were, in turn, used as inputs for the "ANOVA" and "rank" procedures of SAS [1979]. The results obtained are summarized below. RESULTS Table 1 lists the overall ranking of journal quality based upon the geometric means computed using the magnitudeestimation results from the study. Figure 1 depicts the same information in a scalar f~rmat.~ Magnitude-estimate techniques provide results at the ratio level; thus. To conserve space, journals are identified by acronyms; these are shown in parentheses behind each journal listed in Table 1. I. Journal of Accounting Research (JAR) (176.70) 2. The Accounting Review (AR) (166.90) 3. Journal of Finance (JF) ( ) 4. Journal of Financial & Quant. Analysis (JFQA) (144.40) 5. Management Science (MS) ( ) 6. Journal of Business (JB) (134.00) 7. Harvard Business Review (HBR) (122.20) 8. Decision Sciences (DS) ( ) 9. Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) (110.10) 10. Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting (JBFA) (105.80) I I. Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) (102.60) 12. Journal of Taxation (JT) (100.60) 13. Journal of Accountancy (JA) (100.00) 14. Financial Analysts Journal (FAJ) (99.45) 15. Abacus (AB) (99.33) 16. Journal of Accounting, Audltlng & f-lnance (JAAF) (96.81) 17. Journal of Business Research (JBR) (92.96) 18. National Tax Journal (NTJ) (90.10) 19. Financial Executive (FE) (88.86) 20. Management Accounting (MA) (86.90) 2 1. Accounting and Business Research (ABR) (85.42) 22. International Journal of Accounting, Ed., & Res (IJA) (84.13) 23. Subsection of Major Journal (SMJ) (83.68) 24. CPA Journal (CPAJ) (77.07) 25. Tax Advisor (TA) (75.3 1) 26. Journal of Systems Management (JSM) (70.61) 27. Internal Auditor (IA) (69.53) 28. Accountancy (AC) (68.10) 29. Accounting Historians Journal (AHJ) (67.64) 30. EDP Auditor (EDPA) (66.29) 31. Taxes-The Tax Magazine (TTM) (66.24) 32. Government Accountants Journal (G AJ ) (6209) 33. Cost and Management (CM) (60.01) 34. Governmental Finance (GF) (58.13) 35. National AAA Proceedings (PNM) (56.66) 36. Managerial Planning (MP) (56.54) 37. Data Management (DM) (54.44) 38. Public Finance & Accounting (PFA) (54.01) 39. Business Horizons (BH) (53.20) 40. Datamation (DT) (52.16) 41. Practical Accountant (PA) (52.10) 42. National Public Accountant (NPA) (50.07) 43. Business and Society Review (BSR) (47.87) 44. Woman CPA (WCPA) (46.96) 45. Non-Accounting Industry Pub. (NIP) (46.22) 46. Accountants Digest (AD) (45.31) 47. CPA Firm Publications (CPAP) (43.71) 48. Regonal AAA Proceedings (PRM) (39.73) 49. Regional Publications (RP) (36.77) 50. Computers and People (CP) (33.46) 5 1. Collegiate News & Views (CNV) (24.18)

5 The Accounting Review, October 1983 Figure 1 is a ratio scale showing a visual "picture" of the relative rankings of the journals. As may be seen from Table 1 and Figure 1, the highest-ranked journal is the Journal of Accountirig Research, with a score of , followed by The Accountirig Review (166.90), Journal of Finance (154.30), Journal of' Financial and Quantitative Analysis (144.40), Management Science (135.1 O), Journal of Business (134.00), and Harvard Business Review (122.20). After these journals, there is less differentiation among publications. There is a group of journals with scores clustered between 83 and 116 and a second group with scores clustered between 33 and 78. Collegiate News and Views (24.18) is at the bottom of the ranking. Specialty Area Rankings While Table 1 and Figure 1 present interesting overall results, comparisons of the results can be made by grouping the subjects using the demographic data collected in the study. An important comparison is among "areas of specialization." That is, are there significant differences in the rankings of the journals attributable to differences in "areas of specialization?" The answer is yes. Using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), the differences are significant (F Value=4.97, P>F=0.0001). Table 2 shows the listings (and the geometric means) of the "top-ten" and "bottom-five" journals as ranked by faculty members in the specialty areas of auditing, financial, managerial, and tax.3 Figure 2 depicts the same information in a ratio-scale format, making it easier to observe the relative importance assigned to a given journal across the areas of specialization. The EDP and "other" groups listed on the questionnaire elicited so few responses that the analysis is not included. 1JAR AR 160 t ASQ 120 loo JF JFQ A t HBR DS AOS JBFA JT JA FAI AB JAAF JBR NTJ FE MA ABR IJA SMJ PRM 1CNV 20 RP CP

6 TABLE2 RANKINGOF TOP TEN AND BOTTOM-FIVE JOURNALS BY RESPONDENTS' AREASOF SPECIALIZATION Auditirig Financial Managerial Tax 1 Journal of Acct. Research (158.20) 2 The Accounting Review (152.70) 3 Admin. Science Qtry. (105.10) 4 Journal of Finance (103.60) 5 Journal of Accountancy (100.0) 6 Harvard Bus. Review (99.86) 7 Acct., Orgs. & Society (90.92) 8 Management Science (83.71) 9 Jr. of Bus. Fin. and Acct. (83.36) 10 Acct. and Bus. Research (83.05) 47 Regional Publications (19.78) 48 Data Management (19.74) 49 Datamation (19.74) 50 Bus. & Society Review (10.00) 51 Computers and People (10.00) The Accounting Review (178.70) Journal of Acct. Research (174.90) Journal of Finance (157.90) Jr. of Fin. & Quant. Analysis (156.00) Journal of Business ( ) Management Science ( ) Jr. of Bus. Fin. and Acct. (121.80) Harvard Bus. Review (121.70) Decision Sciences (121.30) Acct., Orgs. & Society ( ) Accountants Digest (40.1 1) Regional AAA Proceedings (39.19) Regional Publications (37.53) Computers and People (29.30) Collegiate News & Views (20.51) Journal of Acct. Research (197.90) Jr. of Fin. & Quant. Analysis (181.90) The Accounting Review (180.20) Journal of Finance (176.70) Management Science ( ) Journal of Business ( ) Decision Sciences (143.00) Admin. Science Qtrly. (142.30) Harvard Bus. Review (135.60) Acct., Orgs. & Society (132.80) CPA Firm Publications (44.25) Regional AAA Proceedings (43.70) Computers and People (38.09) Regional Publications (36.81) Collegiate News & Views (23.09) Journal of Finance (161.20) Journal of Taxation ( ) Journal of Acct. Research (159.20) The Accounting Review (145.10) National Tax Journal (141.30) Harvard Bus. Review (140.90) Jr. of Fin. & Quant. Analysis (131.60) Tax Advisor (128.50) Financial Analysts Jr. ( ) Journal of Business ( ) Regional Publications (37.16) Subsection of Major Jr. (34.30) Accountants Digest (33.93) Computers and People (26.05) Collegiate News & Views (19.01)

7 770 The Accounting Review, October 1983 From Table 2 and Figure 2, it may be seen that many of the top-ranked journals on the overall ranking are included in the specialty top-ten rankings, although in a different ordering and with a different geometric mean. Of interest are the journals included in a particular specialty area top-ten ranking, while excluded from other specialty area rankings. This is most evident in the tax area, where the Journal of Taxation, National Tax Journal, Tax Advisor, and Financial Analysts Journal are included, while these same journals are excluded from all other specialty area top-ten rankings. The Journal of Accountancy and Accounting and Business Research are included in the auditing top-ten ranking, but excluded from all other rankings. Three journals, Decision Sciences, Administrative Science FIGURE 2 RANKINGSCALESOF JOURNALS BY RESPONDENTS' AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION (Top-Tenand Bottom-Five) Auditing Financial Managerial Tax Score Journal Score Journal Score Journal Score Journal JAR AR JFQA JAR AR JF MS JF JF JT JAR JFQA JB 150 JB 150 DS ASQ AR NTJ HBR MS HBR -;AOS JFQA T A JBFA HBR DS AOS FAJ JB 100 loo PRM CPAP RP PRM AD RP CP RP CP AD SMJ CNV CNV C P C'N V I0 1BSR CP

8 Howard and Nikolai Quarterly, and Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting, are included in two specialty area top-ten rankings, while excluded from the others. For the bottom-five rankings, Collegiate News and Views and Computers and People are consistently ranked low. Considerable differences exist among the auditing group, tax group, and other specialty group bottom-five rankings. Of interest is that the auditing group ranks three "computer" journals among its bottom-five, perhaps because EDP auditing specialists are more familiar with these journals. Somewhat surprisingly, the tax group ranks a subsection of a major journal within its bottom-five; not so for any other group. Doctoral Schools 2)sMaster's and Bachelor's School Rankings It has sometimes been argued that whereas accounting faculty at doctoralgranting institutions may be more interested in "theoretical" research, faculty at institutions granting only bachelor's or master's degrees may be more interested in "pragmatic" research. This is because, in part, the missions of these types of schools are different. Doctoral degreegranting institutions are preparing their doctoral students for faculty positions; this preparation requires a solid grounding in the conceptual issues of accounting. Bachelor's and master's degree-granting institutions are primarily preparing their students for positions in the business world; this preparation requires a solid grounding in the practical aspects of accounting. A relevant comparison, in this study, is the difference in the rankings of faculty at these institutions. This comparison results in an F value of 2.11 and P>Fof The top-ten and bottomfive ranked journals and ranking scales of faculty at doctoral-granting institutions as compared to faculty at institu- tions granting only bachelor's or master's degrees are shown in Table 3. As may be seen in Table 3, the top three ranked journals are the same for both groups and several other journals are common to each ranking. Three journals, however, are not. Accounting, Organizations and Society, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting are included in the doctoral top-ten ranking while the Harvard Business Review, Journal of Accountancy, and Financial Analysts Journal are included in the bachelor's and master's top-ten ranking. An inference that may be drawn from this is that certain journals are highly ranked regardless of their theoreticalpragmatic orientation, while others are highly ranked based on the mission of the institution. Four journals are common to the bottom-five rankings of both groups. CPA Firm Publications are included in the doctoral bottom-five ranking while the Accountants Digest is included in the bachelor's and master's ranking. Also observable in Table 3 is that faculty at doctoral-granting institutions perceive the Journal of Accounting Research as having times more "quality" than the Journal of Accountancy, while faculty at master's and bachelor's-granting institutions perceive a similar quality differential of only times. Furthermore, the top-six journals of the doctoral ranking all score above the highest master's and bachelor's ranking journal. An inference that may be drawn from this is that faculty at doctoral-granting institutions attribute more "quality" to theoretical-empirical journals than do faculty at master's- and bachelor's-granting institutions. Assistant us. Full Professors' Rankings In many institutions, only full profes-

9 Doctorate Degree Rankrnqs 1. Journal of Acct. Research (210.50) 2. The Accounting Review (196.30) 3. Journal of Finance (195.40) Score Doctorute Journal Master j. & Bachelor S Score Journal 4. Management Science (171.50) Journal of Business (171.40) 6. Jr. of Fin. & Quant. Analysis (168.50) 7. Acct., Orgs. & Society (137.80) AR JF Admin. Science Qtrly. (135.80) 9. Decision Sciences ( ) 10. Jr. of Bus., Fin., and Acct. (121.50) 47. CPA Firm Publications (38.13) 48. Regional AAA Proceedings (37.82) 160 JFQA Computers and People (32.56) 50. Regional Publications (30.26) 51. Collegiate News & Views (20.57) Master's and Bachelor S Rankings I. Journal of Acct. Research (152.70) 2. The Accounting Review (146.70) 150 JAR AR 140 -r f JF I20 HBR 3. Journal of Finance (124.50) 4. Harvard Bus. Review (122.90) 5. Jr. of Fin. & Quant. Analysis (119.00) 6. Journal of Business (105.60) 7. Management Science (104.80) 8. Journal of Accountancy (100.00) 9. Decision Sciences (99.58) 10. Financial Analysts Jr. (93.67) 47. Accountants Digest (45.81) 48. Regional Publications (41.71) 49. Regional AAA Proceedings (41.16) 50. Computers and People (34.12) 51. Collegiate News & Views (26.54) AD 40 RP PRM CP 30 CNV 20 -

10 Assistant Professor Ranking 1. Journal of Acct. Research (167.60) 2. The Accounting Review (156.00) 3. Journal of Finance (128.40) 4. Harvard Bus. Review (122.20) 5. Journal of Business ( ) 6. Management Science ( ) 7. Jr. of Fin. & Quant. Analysis ( ) 8. Journal of Accountancy (100.00) 9. Adrnin. Science Qtrly. (99.50) 10. Journal of Taxation (96.98) 47. Accountants Digest (42.28) 48. Computers and People (37.32) 49. Regional AAA Proceedings (35.32) 50. Regional Publications (34.03) 51. Collegiate News & Views (25.87) Full Professor Ranking 1. Jr. of Fin. & Quant. Analysis (207.30) 2. Journal of Finance (192.20) 3. Journal of Acct. Research (182.60) 4. The Accounting Review (180.10) 5. Journal of Business (166.60) 6. Management Science (153.90) - Asst. Prof. Full Prof. Score Journal Score Journal JAR AR JF HBR JB MS JFQA JA ASQ JT - JFQ A JF JAR AR JB MS JBFA DS AOS HBR 7. Jr. of Bus., Fin., and Acct. (134.90) 8. Decision Sciences (131.90) 9. Acct., Orgs. & Society (125.40) 10. Harvard'Bus. Review (I 19.40) 47. Regonal Publications (40.64) 48. Managerial Planning (40.12) 49. Regional AAA Proceedings (35.74) 50. Computers and People (23.29) 51. Collegiate News & Views (19.97) AD CP PRM RP CNV RP MP PRM CP CNV -

11 The Accounting Review, October 1983 sors are involved in the promotion decision. One criterion in the promotion decision of most schools or departments is the quality of research completed by the particular individual under consideration. A way of assessing quality of research output is by attaching a "quality factor" to the output based upon perceptions of the quality of journal in which the output is published. An interesting comparison, then, is the ranking of journals by full professors versus the ranking of journals by assistant professor~.~ This comparison results in an F value of 1.89 and P> F of The top-ten and bottom-five ranked journals and ranking scales of these two groups are shown in Table 4. As may be seen in Table 4, the assistant professor group ranks the Journal of Accounting Research and The Accounting Review as the highest journals. This group also includes the Journal of Accountancy, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Journal of Taxation, not included in the top-ten by the full professors. The full professors, on the other hand, rank the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and the Journal of Finance as their top journals. This group also includes the Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting, Decision Sciences, and Accounting, Organizations and Society, not included by the assistant professors. In the bottom-five, four journals are included in both rankings. The Accountants Digest is included in the assistant professors' ranking while Managerial Planning is included in the full professors' ranking.5 In an earlier article, Benjamin and Brenner El9741 reported a study of the subjective evaluations of accounting faculty and department heads about the quality of selected journals. Their ration- ale for the study was that an important criterion in the evaluation of an author's achievement is the perceived quality of the journal in which the article appears. Since the purpose of developing their ranking is similar to one of the reasons for establishing the current ranking, a comparison of the two rankings may provide useful insights. Furthermore, insights may be drawn on any changes in perceptions over the eight-year time period since the earlier study. In the Benjamin and Brenner study, a random sample of 200 accounting faculty and 163 department heads of AACSBaccredited schools was asked to evaluate the quality of 24 accounting and business-related journals. The respondents could choose from six responses ranging from excellent quality (1) through poor quality (5), with a score of 6 for "insufficient" information. An average score was computed and an overall ranking was developed based on a weighted average of the department head and faculty perceived-quality scores. Their ranking and mean scores of top-ten journals are shown in Table 5, along with the ranking and mean scores for the current study. The comparison in Table 5 is blurred somewhat by the fact that five journals included in the top-ten of the current study were not included in the Benjamin and Brenner study. Of the five, two journals came into existence subsequent to the earlier study. The remaining three existed but were not included in the earlier sample. A comparison of the rankings of full professors versus associate professors is not included here because of the lack of substantial difference. ' Numerous other comparisons were made based on questions of interest to various constituencies. No significant differences were found in rankings by tenured versus untenured faculty, faculty holding doctorate degrees for various lengths of time, or AACSB-accredited versus nonaccredited units at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

12 Howard and Nikolai BB Study Current Study Rank Mean* Rank Mean # Journal of Accounting Research The Accounting Review Journal of Finance Journal of Fin. & Quant. Analysis Management Science Harvard Business Review Journal of Business Decision Sciences Accounting, Organizations and Society Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting Journal of Accountancy Abacus Financial Analysts Journal Journal of Taxation Financial Executive * Ardhmetic mean extrapolated from the separate means l~sted for the department heads and accounting faculty In the Benjamin and Brenner (BB) study + Geometric mean. NI =Not mcluded m study Excluding these five journals, the two rankings reveal a great deal of similarity near the top of the rankings, some similarity in the middle, and less similarity in the lower top-ten. For instance, the top three journals (Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, and Management Science) are the same in both rankings. At the other extreme, Financial Executive was ranked as tenth in the earlier study, but was not ranked in the top-ten of the current study. Based on the journals common to both studies, a Spearman rank-order correlation yielded a correlation coefficient of Several other observations are notable. First, the new journals (namely, Accounting, Organizations and Society and Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting) originating subsequent to the earlier study have established themselves as high-quality journals in a relatively short time. Second, several journals in areas "interrelated" to accounting (i.e., finance, quantitative methods, organiza- tional theory) now hold a high position in the journal rankings. Finally, and perhaps more importantly, the use of magnitude-estimation procedures yields a better "picture" of the relative quality levels of the journals. That is, in the earlier study all of the top-ten journals had scores in a range (1.63 highest to 2.34 lowest) centered on "above average in quality." Little differentiation can be made of the differences in quality for the journals included in this earlier study. On the other hand, the top two journals in the current study, for instance, are perceived to be of more than 50 percent higher quality than the tenth-ranked journal. Several limitations exist for this study. First, a few respondents noted that the Journal of Accounting and Economics should have been included in the list of journals. This journal was excluded from the list because it had been in existence

13 776 for such a short time (less than 3 years) when the study was conducted. In retrospect, however, inclusion of this journal in our list would have provided additional insights into the journal rankings. Second, the scenario in which the respondents were asked to rank the journals was alienating to certain potential subjects. Several faculty refused to complete the ranking because they are opposed, in principle, to a "point system" for ranking publications as part of an evaluation process in their school or department. The scenario was designed only to give a focus for the rankings and was not intended as an actual end result of the rankings. Fortunately, the usable response rate of over 58 percent provided sufficient subjects for analysis. The Accounting Review, October 1983 Third, no information was gathered concerning what journals respondents subscribe to, read, or publish in, and no reasons were elicited regarding why respondents ranked the journals as they did. Interesting insights might have been drawn by a comparison of this information. Finally, the magnitude-estimation procedures used in this study have been challenged by researchers who do not believe that opinions and attitudes can be measured at all. The seriousness of this criticism depends on each reader's position on this matter.6 See Howard [I9811 for a more complete discussion of both sides of this issue. REFERENCES Benjamin, J. and V. Brenner, "Perceptions of Journal Quality," THEACCOUN~NG REVIEW (April 1974), pp Biomedical Computer Programs (University of California Press, 1977). Hasselback, James R., Accounting Faculty Directory (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1981). Howard, T., "Attitude Measurement: Some Further Considerations," THEACCOUNTINGREVIEW(July 1981), pp SAS Institute, Inc., Statistical Analysis System, (Cary, NC: SAS, 1979).