Who Decides What is Publishable? Empirical Study on the Influence of a Journal’s Editorial Board on the Observed Paradigm Shift in US Academic Accounting Research

As the accounting publishing market is considered inefficient, changes in accounting research agendas may be associated with factors other than randomness. As such, editorial board members publishing in accounting journals may contribute to the enquiry revolution in accounting. As a result, the line of research before the changes may no longer be perceived as popular once the accounting academic community adopts a new paradigm. A researcher aiming to publish in leading accounting journals controlled by the promoters of this new dogma should be aware what ideas are deemed “interesting” under the predominant paradigm. In this vein, this study finds that the American Accounting Association’s (AAA) premier journal, The Accounting Review (TAR), experienced a shift that limits its scope to the new research stream represented by the financial empirical paradigm. More importantly, the analysis shows an association between this paradigm shift and TAR’s editorial board members who publish articles in the journal