The Social Structure of Communication in Major Accounting Research Journals

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bonner, Sarah E.; Hesford, James W.; Van der Stede, Wim A.; Young, S. Mark
• 署名单位: University of Southern California; University System of Ohio; University of Akron; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0823-9150
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1911-3846.2011.01134.x
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 869-+
• 关键词: value-relevance literature; COLLABORATION NETWORKS; EMPIRICAL-RESEARCH; citation analysis; capital-markets; INFORMATION; cocitation; ARTICLES; IMPACT

摘要

This study examines the social structure that exists for communicating research ideas in five major accounting journals. Understanding the structure of who communicates with whom is important because it shapes the innovativeness of knowledge creation, which prominent accounting scholars have claimed has become limited due to a specific type of communication structure-tribalism. We investigate all the major types of communication structures, using a mathematical algorithm and other analyses to distinguish among the types of structures. We measure communication using citations among authors who published articles during the period 1984-2008. We also examine changes in the structure over time. We find that the field contains multiple distinct clusters of researchers who communicate more with themselves than with other groups of researchers. Some of these clusters are centered on research topics alone, a finding consistent with a normal academic field. Remaining clusters are more narrowly based on combinations of topics, methods, and theory bases, and all but one of them represent a small world structure because they are close together and communicate frequently. These findings are positive because normal academic fields and small worlds contribute to innovation in research. Our analyses suggest that hub researchers, those who attract communication from multiple clusters and whose articles build on work from multiple clusters, likely have been instrumental in moving these clusters away from tribal thinking. The single cluster that exhibits some properties of tribalism is the economics-based archival financial accounting (EBAF) cluster. While researchers in other clusters cite this cluster, those within the cluster cite mostly themselves. Overall, our study shows that tribalism is not as rampant as previously suggested, but that field-wide changes may be necessary for the EBAF cluster to become less insular. Finally, we find that the field has become less tribal over time.