Publishing in accounting journals: A fair game?

Description
Publication in the social sciences appears to have evolved into a game, played by four parties: the author, the reviewers,
the editor and the bureaucrats using the simple criterion that a quality researcher publishes in quality journals. Acceptance
rates for top quality journals now hover around the 10% mark. Something cannot be right with a system which creates so
much apparent waste. Either too many authors are submitting substandard articles or too many reviewers are setting unrealistically
high hurdles over which authors have to jump. Most of the literature has focussed on the unrealistically high
hurdle rate explanation and also on the fallibility of reviewers and editors. The aim of this paper is to explore the issues
of low acceptance rates as well as an increasingly lengthy publication process.

Publishing in accounting journals: A fair game?
Peter Moizer
*
Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Abstract
Publication in the social sciences appears to have evolved into a game, played by four parties: the author, the reviewers,
the editor and the bureaucrats using the simple criterion that a quality researcher publishes in quality journals. Acceptance
rates for top quality journals now hover around the 10% mark. Something cannot be right with a system which creates so
much apparent waste. Either too many authors are submitting substandard articles or too many reviewers are setting unre-
alistically high hurdles over which authors have to jump. Most of the literature has focussed on the unrealistically high
hurdle rate explanation and also on the fallibility of reviewers and editors. The aim of this paper is to explore the issues
of low acceptance rates as well as an increasingly lengthy publication process. The paper considers what is the purpose of
publishing in academic journals and what are the motivations of authors, reviewers and editors. In order to inform both
authors and reviewers of best practice, a summary of the extensive literature is given in the Appendix. The paper concludes
with a survey of the suggestions that have been made to improve the publishing process in order to link back to the original
purpose of publishing, that of communicating important results to inform public debate on major issues.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
‘‘It is because we put up with bad things that
hotel keepers continue to give them to us.’’
[Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm, Chapter 22,
Oxford Dictionary of Quotations]
Introduction
The genesis of this paper was an invited contribu-
tion to a conference of PhD students on the subject
of publishing articles in academic journals. One rea-
son for the invitation was that I had just stepped
down as a joint editor of a top 10 accounting journal
as judged by rankings of academics throughout the
world. At ?rst, I thought that the presentation would
be simple; a few ‘‘does and don’ts” for authors anx-
ious to please both reviewers and editors. However,
on re?ection and reading the literature on the sub-
ject, I became increasingly conscious of the way in
which publication in the social sciences has evolved
into a game, played by four parties: the author, the
reviewers, the editor and the bureaucrats using the
simple criterion that a quality researcher publishes
in quality journals. Somewhere in this game, the ori-
ginal purpose of publishing to advance knowledge in
one’s discipline seems to have got lost. A review of
the literature showed three main concerns: very
low acceptance rates, too much time spent on the
reviewing process and too much focus on the techni-
cal quality of a manuscript rather than its inherent
contribution to the academic discipline.
Of the three, the problem that seemed most signif-
icant was the low rates of acceptance, which are com-
0361-3682/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aos.2008.08.003
*
Tel.: +44 (0) 113 343 4499.
E-mail address: [email protected]
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
www.elsevier.com/locate/aos
monly less than 20% and even as low as 10% for the
major accounting journals. This implies a rejection
rate of 90%. This is in strong contrast to the accep-
tance rate in science journals. In a pioneering study,
Zuckerman and Merton (1971) found substantial
variation in rejection rates ranging from 20–40% in
the physical sciences to 70–90% in the social sciences
and humanities. In a later study, Hargens (1998)
found a similar range of rejection rates from 15% to
90% and Schminke (2002) reports that 90% of all
manuscripts are rejected by the Academy of Manage-
ment Journal. Something cannot be right with a sys-
tem which creates so much apparent waste. Either
toomany authors are submitting substandardarticles
or too many reviewers are setting unrealistically high
hurdles over which authors have to jump. From my
experience as author, reviewer and editor, my suspi-
cion was that both explanations had some merit.
Clearly as an author, I favoured the unrealistically
high hurdle rate explanation and as a reviewer and
editor, the large number of substandard articles!
The objective of the paper is to improve the pro-
cess and by two main approaches:
to produce advice on how both authors and
reviewers can best cope with the current situa-
tion, and
considering what changes can be made in the
process to make the publication process better
able to ful?l its original purpose of improving
the discipline.
The structure of the paper is the following.
Firstly, the avowed purpose behind publishing is,
i.e. the publicly acceptable version of the process
for consumption by bureaucrats and funding bodies.
There then follows a discussion of the academic pub-
lishing process and in particular what motivates the
three main players: authors, reviewers and editors.
The paper then considers the issue of the time it takes
to get published and includes a discussion of the
implications of Glenn Ellison’s q and r theory. The
paper concludes with some radical suggestions as
to how the situation can be improved and how aca-
demics might be able to free themselves from the tyr-
anny to which they have subjected themselves.
Purpose of publishing in academic accounting
journals
The academic spin that is put on the publishing
process can be seen from the UK’s Competition
Commission’s report on a proposed merger between
two publishers of academic journals (Harcourt and
Reed Elsevier, Competition Commission, 2001).
The Commission suggested that the primary func-
tion of a journal, from the viewpoint of the contrib-
uting author, and the research institution to which
he or she belongs, is to communicate the results of
their research as widely as possible, with the seg-
ment of the academic community to which it is of
interest. The Commission did also notice that the
career of an individual academic depends on his or
her record of published research. The phrase ‘‘pub-
lish or perish” was used to describe the position of
academics (Competition Commission, 2001, p. 59).
The Competition Commission’s focus was pri-
marily on publishing in medical, scienti?c and tech-
nical journals. The challenge is to produce a similar
statement for the purpose of publishing in account-
ing. One of my seminal experiences was hearing the
late Professor Eddie Stamp
1
of Lancaster University
answer exactly this question when it was put to him
by a mechanical engineer in a pub in deepest
Lancashire. The engineer asked Eddie what was
the good of doing research in accounting. Eddie
thought for a moment and then said that if you
imagined that accounting was the oil of British
industry, then the role of the academic researcher
was to improve the quality of the oil. At the heart
of this response is the utilitarian view that account-
ing research has as its objective the production of
something of value to society. That this is the view
of non-academics is apparent at civil receptions
for the Annual Congress of the European Account-
ing Association, where local dignitaries will inevita-
bly wish participants well in their important
scienti?c work. Similarly, there is often a rhetorical
assertion by regulators that they would like to make
policy decisions based on academic research as this
gives legitimacy to their recommendations. How-
ever, there is little indication that the publishing
process also has this objective.
Most studies looking at the impact of accounting
research on practice, suggest that in general
accounting research does not have much impact
1
It was Eddie Stamp’s column in The Times newspaper in 1969
criticizing the lack of de?nition and ?rmness of accounting
principles that led the Institute of Chartered Accountants in
England and Wales to introduce a new program for approving
accounting standards (Ze?, 1990). This set in train the process
that was to lead eventually to the creation of the International
Accounting Standards Board.
286 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
on the activity of accounting. For example, Bedford
(1978, p. 2) came to the conclusion that a survey of
the accounting literature over the past 10 years pro-
vided little reason to believe that a priori accounting
research has caused changes in accounting practice.
Dyckman, Gibbins, and Swieringa (1978, p. 87)
conclude that the impact of behavioural research
on accounting practice has been almost non-exis-
tent. Kaplan (1978, p. 168) concluded that he was
pessimistic about the ability of empirical research
to give many insights into the many and varied
questions confronting the accounting profession.
He argued that while it is typical, when confronted
with a di?cult policy issue, to call for more research
on the question, he could not see how empirical
research in particular can provide much guidance
in debates over issues which involve costly disclo-
sure. Similarly, Sullivan (1993) expressed the view
of most practitioners that their work was una?ected
by academic research, although he did argue that
focused and practical academic audit research could
a?ect the auditing standard setting process at both
the ?rm level and the Auditing Standards Board
level. Hopwood (2007, p. 1371) explains why this
should be:
‘‘The accounting research community has
become ever more internally focussed and self-
referential, and thereby, less subject to a diversity
of pressures and interests that would be created if
there were more active consumers of accounting
knowledge”.
If accounting research has so little obvious practical
impact, the question remains as to what is its pur-
pose. An answer might be expected to be found in
the published objectives of the journals which exist
to publish such research. Appendix A details the
published objectives of the major international jour-
nals publishing research in accounting and auditing.
The Journal of Accounting Research and the Jour-
nal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance are not in-
cluded because neither journal includes anything
that sets out the journal’s objectives. It can be seen
that the primary objective of most journal editors is
to publish the results of academic studies. Few of
the editors set out to determine why publishing
the results of academic studies is itself a worthwhile
activity; that seems to be taken as a given. When
framing the objectives of the journal, some editors
seek to delineate the areas of research in which they
seek to publish academic research articles, but the
central purpose of the publishing exercise is not
mentioned. Accounting Horizons could be seen as
the exception as its mission does include the notion
that there will be some net bene?t from publishing
its articles. However, for the rest, the unspoken
assumption would seem to be that journals exist
to allow academics to publish the results of their
work, subject to some set of criteria involving no-
tions of research excellence. These are rarely spelt
out, except to say that manuscripts will be reviewed
by researchers usually of international standing who
are presumed to be able to di?erentiate between
‘‘good” and ‘‘bad” research. One conclusion that
could be drawn from this is that the purpose of aca-
demic journals is simply to exist. The purpose of
publishing an academic journal is to publish the
work of academics. Within this Kafkaesque closed
system, roles are continually being interchanged
with academics one minute writing articles, another
reviewing them and another editing journals that
publish them. Even in the ?eld of scienti?c research,
doubts have been raised about the purpose of pub-
lication with 80% of scienti?c articles never having
been cited more than once (Hamilton, 1990, p. 1,
331).
It can be argued that the need to fund those
research projects that require the gathering of data
will introduce a set of ‘real world’ priorities, since
funding bodies have their own agenda, which is pri-
marily the need to show that they are using their
monies wisely to produce some economic bene?t.
Hence, the Economic and Social Funding Council
in the UK often seeks to in?uence the type of
research it funds by creating particular initiatives,
for example the Functioning of Markets Initiative,
in order to justify to government that the funds
given to it are being put to good use. Funding
bodies, therefore, require some form of output that
is likely to produce tangible bene?t for the greater
good. Funding by professional ?rms and profes-
sional bodies is also usually judged in relation to
the production of some bene?t for the ?rm or pro-
fessional body. There is then an inevitable tension
between the desires of the funding organisation for
output that will either have policy implications or
lead to better ways of operating and the desires of
journals to publish what are judged to be high qual-
ity manuscripts by academicians. One obvious
example of such tension is in the area of descriptive
research. Such work may receive funding because
the funding body believes that it is useful to ?nd
out what is happening as described by neutral, unbi-
ased academic researchers. The descriptive results
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 287
will then have utility to policy makers as it gives a
?rmer ground on which to make policy judgements.
However, from the perspective of an academic jour-
nal, such descriptive studies are less likely to ?nd
favour as they will not conform to the prevailing
model of a developed theory leading to testable
hypotheses which are then statistically investigated
by using the relevant data or surrogates.
The process of academic publishing
The Competition Commission’s report described
the production process as follows:
‘‘Once academic researchers have completed a
piece of original research, they will try to get it
published. To do this, they send the paper to a
journal. The academic transfers the copyright to
the publisher, generally without payment. The
publisher employs an expert in the ?eld to act as
editor. The editor sends the paper to referees
(other academics in the ?eld) and asks for veri?ca-
tion that the paper is of su?cient quality to pub-
lish. Authors, members of the editorial boards
and peer-reviewers receive no ?nancial remunera-
tion.” (Competition Commission, 2001, p. 56).
The Commission’s report describes the role of refer-
ees as academics ‘‘who report to the editorial boards
with an assessment of the originality of the research,
whether it is soundly based and whether the condi-
tions under which it was conducted were su?ciently
rigorous. They may also suggest ways in which an
article can be improved.” (Competition
Commission, 2001, p. 11). This positive view of the
process is echoed by Thornton (2004, p. 51) who
states that ‘‘Editors and referees evaluate manu-
scripts for professional competence, quality of pre-
sentation, relevance of subject matter, and the
signi?cance of the contribution to the literature.”
Looking at the cash basis of the academic publi-
cation process shows an interesting market. Jour-
nals receive academic articles free of charge and,
in many cases, charge fees just for examining the
manuscripts. Very rarely do authors receive com-
pensation from journals. Leading journals usually
employ at least two reviewers, who occasionally
get a small fee, but more usually receive nothing.
Hence, reviewers give their time for free and as the
process is usually blind, their identity is kept secret,
with only the editor knowing who has reviewed
what. Journals do sometimes at the end of the year,
publish the list of those who have reviewed from
them, but there is no link to the papers that were
reviewed. For their part, editors, receive payments
of variable size from publishers for their role in
the process. There would appear to be a su?cient
supply of academics willing to create the articles
to be published and to act as reviewers and editors.
It is therefore interesting to re?ect on the motives of
those involved in the academic publishing process.
The next three subsections will look at the motiva-
tions of the three groups: authors, referees and
editors.
Authors
Why academics wish to publish relates to the
nature of their employment. In many countries,
individual academic researchers have economic
incentives to publish in journals that are deemed
to be of high standing. In the US for example, pro-
motion and tenure decisions as well as various ‘‘fac-
ulty support decisions” such as salary increases,
teaching loads, research funding, summer support
and research awards are usually based on research
publication records (Swanson, 2004). Jo¨ nsson
(2006) quotes the editors of the Journal of Account-
ing and Economics as having calculated that an arti-
cle published in their journal was worth US$ 30,000
to the author in terms of increased life income. A
similar point has been made by Starbuck (2005)
who notes that deans of US business schools
announced new criteria for tenure and promotion
that placed extreme emphasis on publications in
so-called A journals. To gain tenure or promotion
to full professor, a professor must have published
at least N publications in A journals, since publica-
tions in B or C journals would be judged as insig-
ni?cant. A European colleague of mine had a
similar experience when a submission to an ‘‘A
grade” journal was rejected after a ?rst revision,
which meant that promotion to a full professorship
at a European university was lost. A corollary of
this imperative for young researchers to publish is
that there is less incentive for the older tenured pro-
fessors to do so (Oster & Hammermesh, 1998). For
example, Dunn (2005) shows that the publications
in the American Economic Review are dominated
by the 30–44 age group, with a modest rising trend
in the role of the 45–54 age group as they work
with younger colleagues who have stronger techni-
cal skills.
In the UK, researchers are judged by the ?ve or
six yearly Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
288 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
when four of their publications are judged to be of
international standing, etc. To be judged a
researcher of international standing can result in
promotion and an increased salary. Otley (2002)
describes the 2001 RAE as it applied to UK
accounting and ?nance academics. UK universities
submitted names of those researchers whose work
they wished to be evaluated, with the main emphasis
being placed on an evaluation of the quality of a
maximum of four pieces of published work cited
for each researcher in the 5-year period 1996–
2000. The researchers’ publications were judged by
a panel of 10 members, one of whom was not a full
time academic. Each individual submitted piece of
work was graded into three categories of excellence:
international, national and sub-national and then
aggregated directly into a unit of assessment table.
On the basis of this aggregation, individual univer-
sity departments were then graded on a seven point
scale. Otley (2002, p. 412) sets out how the three
grades of excellence were de?ned.
‘‘International excellence is interpreted as being
‘as good as the leading research in those coun-
tries where there is a signi?cant body of work
in the ?eld’. The Panel does not in general con-
?ne the international standard of comparison to
any particular geographical area. The Panel con-
?rms that the terms ‘international’ and ‘national’
refer to a quality standard, and not to the nature
or scope of any particular research. International
excellence equates to work of high quality with
which researchers in the specialist ?eld ought to
engage. National excellence equates to work of
sound quality with which other researchers in
the specialist ?eld should be expected to be
familiar”.
The Panel had to evaluate the publications of over
400 researchers and did so by reading ‘‘over ?ve
hundred pieces of cited work”. In general the work
examined tended to be concentrated on those items
which had no external ‘imprimatur’ of quality such
as books, research reports and working papers (Ot-
ley, 2002, p. 391). The clear impression given is that
the Panel took the view that if an article appeared in
a journal judged to be of international standing,
then that should be the standard attributed to the
article. Similarly, Easton and Easton (2003) found
that marketing publication in the UK was highly
concentrated in two major UK journals and they
raised the question of whether the RAE process
should involve greater e?orts to assess articles and
not journals. The RAE clearly therefore reinforces
the economic incentive on researchers to publish
articles in journals deemed to be of international
standing (Bence & Oppenheim, 2004; Humphrey,
Moizer, & Owen, 1995). In their evidence to the
Competition Commission, members of the research
assessment exercise explained that whilst all re-
search is treated equally regardless of where or
how it is published, there is a widespread belief
amongst higher education institutions that presti-
gious journals count most highly in the RAE and
this produces an inevitable pressure to be published
in them (Competition Commission, 2001, p. 59).
Not surprisingly given the importance of publish-
ing for the careers of academics, there have been a
considerable number of publications with the aim
of showing inexperienced faculty how to do it.
Appendix B contains a distillation of this sage
advice, so that the present manuscript will have util-
ity to those who want to take the plunge into the
cold waters of the academic publishing sea. The
advice is primarily of the form that one has to put
up with the system, because it will be worth it in
the long run. The aim for an aspiring academic is
therefore to ‘‘play the game”, since that is the road
to success.
Of course to play the game, one has ?rst to
understand its rules (Loeb, 1994). Borkowski and
Welsh (2000) found that the majority of authors
thought that codes of publishing ethics were needed,
whereas editors did not. In terms of what should
constitute such a set of rules, there are obvious pro-
hibitions such as the deliberate falsi?cation of data
and plagiarism (Borkowski & Welsh, 1998), but
more subtle and less accepted rules can also be
gleaned from the literature:
(i) identical manuscripts should not be sent
simultaneously to two journals (Calabrese &
Roberts, 2004; Von Glinow & Novell, 1982);
(ii) publishing two papers which have consider-
able overlap is acceptable to UK accounting
academics provided there are di?erent audi-
ences (e.g. professional and academic), but
not acceptable where the audiences are the
same (Brinn, Jones, & Pendlebury, 1998);
(iii) deriving multiple publications from a single
set of data should be allowed only (a) if it is
not possible to write a single integrative article
that is clear, digestible and meaningful and (b)
the multiple articles have distinct purposes
(Fine & Kurdek, 1994);
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 289
(iv) colleagues should only be shown as authors if
they have contributed to the research (Sher-
rell, Hair, & Gri?n, 1989);
(v) papers should not replicate other researchers’
methodology without giving due credit (Brinn
et al., 1998).
Another element of the game is the issue of rep-
lication and extension research, where work of one
researcher is replicated or extended by another. In
social science there is evidence that such work is
seen as being of inferior status and therefore
would-be authors are advised to avoid it (Hubbard
& Armstrong, 1994). Such a situation is in contrast
to that in the sciences and medicine, where replica-
tions and extensions are commonplace and are seen
as a powerful way of ensuring that empirical ?nd-
ings are robust from one group of researchers to
another. The value of replication and extension
research is that such research can help ensure the
integrity of a discipline’s empirical results by serv-
ing to guard against Type I errors (erroneous rejec-
tion of the null hypothesis) and more generally by
assessing the robustness and empirical generalis-
ability of results (Hubbard & Vetter, 1996, p.
154). The lack of this type of research in social sci-
ence based subjects is especially odd given that
social science theories are much less powerful than
in science. For example, a review of accounting
research published in the period 1970–1991 showed
that of 373 empirical studies, only 32 (8.6%) were
replication and/or extension studies (Hubbard &
Vetter, 1996, p. 158). Of the 32 replication/exten-
sion studies, six supported the results of the origi-
nal studies, 10 provided partial support and 16
(50%) had results which contradicted the original
?ndings (Hubbard & Vetter, 1996, p. 160). This
result has two possible explanations, the ?rst being
original empirical ?ndings in accounting research
are not very robust to replication or the second
that authors, reviewers and editors are biased
towards publishing those replication studies whose
?ndings contradict those of the earlier research.
The problem may also be related to the framing
of the null hypothesis to be tested. Burgstahler
(1987) argues that accounting researchers perceive
that signi?cant results are much more likely to be
published than non-signi?cant ones and so they
will choose to report those results that appear to
contradict the null hypothesis and not to report
those results that do not contradict the null
hypothesis.
‘‘The proportion of incorrect rejections in pub-
lished research is also increased by the behaviour
of journal editors and reviewers. If, as casual
empiricism suggests, stricter editorial standards
are applied to completed research with non-sig-
ni?cant results, the proportion of published
incorrect rejections of the null hypothesis will
be higher than implied by the nominal level of
the tests. In fact, if only rejections of null hypoth-
eses were published, then, even for a correct null
hypothesis, the probability of observing a pub-
lished study which rejects the hypothesis would
increase rapidly as the number of tests of the
hypothesis increased.” (Burgstahler, 1987, p.
209).
All games need umpires and an important aspect of
playing the academic game is the concept of ‘‘dodgy
umpires” who fail to recognize the true merit of a
manuscript. A number of studies have focussed on
the fallibility of reviewers and editors. There is not
space to detail all the ?ndings, but most research
on the journal review process has found little consis-
tency among reviewers’ evaluations of manuscripts
(e.g. Campanario, 1996; Gilliland & Cortina, 1997;
Starbuck, 2003). Probably the most discussed and
controversial study of the reviewing process was
the one by Peters and Ceci (1982) quoted in Star-
buck (2003). In this study, 12 highly regarded arti-
cles by authors from prestigious departments were
resubmitted to the journals that had already pub-
lished them just 18–36 months earlier. The resub-
missions had disguised names and institutions and
only three were spotted by either editors or review-
ers. Of the remaining nine, eight were rejected by the
editors, generally on the grounds of ‘‘serious meth-
odological ?aws”, including inappropriate statistical
analysis and faulty study design. Such results help
support the ‘‘publishing is a lottery” perspective or
serendipity as one colleague expressed it to me. In
this view, a submission to a journal is a gamble with
the chance variable being the quality of the review.
If one gets a reviewer who has clearly not bothered
to understand the paper, this perspective suggests
that the best approach is to try another journal
and hope that the serendipity process is kinder.
As well as the element of unreliability in the
reviewing process, the author has to learn to adapt
to the demands of the reviewers, leading Bruno Frey
to claim that this amounted to a form of prostitu-
tion Frey (2003), Frey (2005). These two papers
are notable for two reasons. The ?rst is that they
290 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
are very similar with similar blocks of text and
exactly the same abstracts, with neither paper refer-
ring to the existence of the other.
2
What makes this
double publication so wonderfully post-modern is
the contention of both papers that authors have to
prostitute themselves in order to get published.
What could be a better metaphor for prostituting
one’s talents than publishing substantially the same
paper in two di?erent journals! The essence of the
argument in the two papers relates to what happens
once an author’s papers have come back from the
refereeing process. As Frey points out, an author
knows that, normally, he or she will be lucky if,
after something like a year, he or she gets an invita-
tion to resubmit the paper according to the demands
exactly spelled out by the referees and the editor.
For most scholars, this is a proposal that cannot
be refused, because their survival in academia cru-
cially depends on publications in refereed journals.
Authors believe that they have a chance of getting
their paper accepted, only if they slavishly follow
the demands formulated by the reviewers and the
editor. Frey characterises this as academics becom-
ing prostitutes, selling their soul to conform to the
will of others, in order to gain publication (Frey,
2003, p. 206 or Frey, 2005, p. 175). If the author
revises according to the demands of the referees,
the editor makes the ?nal decision of whether to
reject or accept the paper for publication with a
given probability. In the case of rejection, the
author has expended a considerable amount of
work to please the referees, has lost more time (Frey
estimates that something like 2 years is not unrealis-
tic) and has to carry the moral cost of prostituting
him or herself. The e?ort, time and moral costs also
apply in the case of acceptance, but then they are
counterbalanced by the bene?ts of having the article
published, with all the resultant bene?ts. The point
made by Frey is that in most cases referees want
to see substantial changes almost to the point of
requiring a new paper.
Reviewers
The motivations of reviewers are the most prob-
lematic element within the academic publishing pro-
cess. Monetary reward is hardly an issue, since when
payments are made, the amounts are so low as not
to create any signi?cant incentive. Reviewing
receives virtually no weight in individual perfor-
mance evaluations and good reviewing means
almost nothing in the job market (Harrison, 2002).
There is no public recognition of the work that
the referee does, except as a member of an editorial
board or having one’s name published as an ad hoc
reviewer in the end of year edition of a journal. The
name of the referee is known only to the editor and
so there is an element of social control involved,
with a referee wishing to be seen as a good citizen,
particularly if the editor is responsible for a presti-
gious journal in which the referee might hope to
publish. However, this does not explain fully the
motivations of referees, since they also referee for
journals in which they may never publish. The issue
is further clouded by the fact that not all academics
will act as a referee. They may simply refuse with
apologies, they may never reply or they may take
so long to produce the review that it is of no value.
Brief (2004) noted that too often those asked to
serve as reviewers decline. As an editor, one soon
learns that there are a group of reliable referees
who will produce thoughtful and helpful reviews,
whereas there are others who cannot be relied upon.
The puzzle is therefore why some referees are
willing to perform their task without any economic
reward, given that reviewing consumes the aca-
demic’s most precious resource, time? Harrison
(2002) argues that sustained good reviewing builds
a positive reputation and a social network of grate-
ful editors and colleagues and indeed, Hamermesh
(1994) found that nearly one third of referees pub-
lished recently in the journal, whilst others had arti-
cles under review or forthcoming. Woodru? (2003)
explained his reasons for acting as reviewer as fol-
lows: ‘‘For me, the most important motivation for
devoting time and energy to journal reviewing lies
in the opportunity to meet the marketing disci-
pline’s needs for growth in and usefulness of the
body of marketing knowledge.” (Woodru?, 2003,
p. 327). Singh expressed his motivations in a similar
way:
‘‘Reviewing, like an essential food group, feeds
the intellectual health of a scholar. Reading and
2
Both papers start with the same challenge to potential
reviewers. The Public Choice paper begins ‘‘When writing this
paper, I never expected that it would be published in a (refereed)
economics journal because it would not be able to pass the
refereeing process within a reasonable period of time, if at all”
(Frey, 2003, p. 205). The European Journal of Law and Economics
paper begins ‘‘This paper will never be published in a (refereed)
economics journal, nor will it be submitted to a scholarly journal.
The author knows that if he submitted it, he would be lucky if,
after something like a year or so, he got an invitation to resubmit
the paper (Frey, 2005, p. 173).
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 291
critiquing scholarly outputs, listening and
responding to alternative viewpoints (of authors
and of other reviewers), and learning and grow-
ing this discourse are unsubstitutable goods for
this reviewer’s mind. That is the reviewer’s gold.”
(Singh, 2003, p. 335).
In their model of the reviewing process, Engers and
Gans (1998) assumed that referees are motivated by
a concern for the quality of research journals in a
self-interested way, although they did ?nd that mon-
etary incentives could play a role by eliciting speed-
ier review or a greater review rate. Engers and Gans
also comment on the similarity of their model to
voluntary work more generally, citing problems in
using monetary incentives to elicit more blood
donations. In this context, it is useful to note that
in the UK, blood donors do not receive any ?nan-
cial inducement, only the feeling that they are main-
taining the quality of the UK’s blood supply.
Azar (2006) notes that the speed that a referee
takes to review a paper will be determined by the
social norm of how long a referee should take based
on his or her views of how long others take. This
view will be conditioned by feedback from the jour-
nal when both reviews have been received as well as
the referee’s personal experience as an author of the
length of time to receive reviews back from a
journal.
Given the ambiguous incentives facing referees, it
is worth analysing what would be their economic
rational behaviour, since a rational economic per-
son would not necessarily be motivated to act in
the general social interest. Anonymous referees have
no property rights to the journal they advise and so
they are not concerned with the e?ect of their advice
on the journal. For a rational economic person,
such a lack of property rights should lead to shirk-
ing, since the interests of the journal and the referee
are not aligned. Any advice o?ered by a referee has
little or no consequences for them, since it is rare for
a referee to be confronted by an angry author.
Occasionally, journal editors might forward an irate
letter from an author to the referee, but there is no
obligation on the part of the referee to enter any
dialogue. Therefore, the main task of a referee is
to produce a report that follows the largely unwrit-
ten code of reviewing, which emphasizes the formal-
ity of the process. However, once the formalities are
observed, the referee is free to indulge him or her-
self. They might consider the common good, but
personal interests must inevitably also play a part.
For example, a referee might take exception if he
or she feels that his or her own contributions to
the area having been insu?ciently appreciated by
the author(s). Referees are also in possession of a
‘‘veto” power, since it is rare for an editor to go
against a referee who is strongly opposed to the
publication of a particular manuscript. There is thus
created a ‘‘censuring” system, making it di?cult to
have unconventional ideas accepted. Referees could
exercise the power of veto for three reasons: (i) the
idea is new and therefore more di?cult to grasp
and appreciate for the referees than are more con-
ventional contributions; (ii) the referees are nor-
mally leading researchers in the topic who fear the
loss of some of their reputation if a new idea is
introduced and (iii) the new idea is less well formu-
lated than are the well-established ideas and there-
fore is rejected for lack of rigour (Frey, 2003, p.
212).
Editors
The motivations of editors are potentially similar
to those of reviewers with the principal di?erence
being that the identity of an editor is not a secret
and therefore the editor’s reputation is enhanced
by the quality of the journal. Hence, editors are
interested in the in?uence and quality of their jour-
nals as that re?ects directly on them. Editors can
also receive substantial payments for acting as edi-
tors depending on the deal that they can make with
the publishers. They are also asked to speak at con-
ferences on how to get published as well as being
popular at convention bu?ets! In terms of the best
practice for editors, the literature is small.
Ben-Yashar and Nitzan (2001) use an economic
model to argue that editors should inform reviewers
as to how many reviewers will be employed to judge
a paper and what kind of decision rule the editor
will then employ to determine whether the paper
should be rejected or not.
Delays in publishing and q–r theory
Having looked at the motivations of the three
parties to the process, it is now appropriate to look
at one of the vexed questions of publishing in the
social sciences, namely the length of time it takes
from submission to ?nal publication of an article.
The importance for academics is clear, for as Leslie
(2005) notes, the major submission cost to an
author is the long and unpredictable spent waiting
292 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
for an editorial decision. As result of the incentives
operating on authors, the best strategy according to
Leslie in the absence of time delays is for an author
to start at the most prestigious journal and work
down until the article is accepted. However, Azar
(2005) took the result one step further by arguing
that the e?ect of editorial delay is to create a signif-
icant submission cost to authors and therefore he
argued that if editorial delay was reduced then that
would induce many additional submissions of low-
quality papers to good journals, increasing signi?-
cantly the workload of editors and referees. This
would also lead to an increase in the rejection rate
and cause papers to be rejected more times before
publication, o?setting at least some of the shorter
?rst response times. In an earlier paper, Azar
(2004) estimated that most manuscripts are submit-
ted between three and six times prior to publication
if all submissions to journals are included. He sug-
gests that this implies that the ?rst response time
(between submission and the ?rst editorial decision)
is much more important than other parts of the
publication delay.
In order to investigate the phenomenon of the
increasing time taken by an article from submission
to publication, Ellison (2002a) developed a model of
quality standards in academic publishing in terms of
‘‘q–r theory”, the central premise of which is that
academic papers can usefully be regarded as varying
along two quality dimensions: q and r. The dimen-
sion q is intended to re?ect the contribution inherent
in the main ideas of the paper. Ellison characterises
q as ‘‘a measure of what I would take out of a paper
if I were to teach it in a graduate course”. The r
dimension is ‘‘intended to re?ect additional aspects
of quality that may be improved when referees ask
authors to generalize theoretical results, to check
the robustness of empirical ?ndings, to extend the
analysis to consider related questions, to improve
and tighten a paper’s exposition, to make clear rela-
tionships to other papers in the literature and so
forth”. The model features a continuum of academ-
ics. They allocate their time between working on q-
quality and r-quality in trying to write one paper to
submit to the one journal in the profession. How the
profession weights q-quality and r-quality in select-
ing papers for publication is a commonly under-
stood social norm. Referees evaluate submitted
papers using this norm and propose improvements
that would bring a paper up to the publication
threshold. After revisions are made, the editor ?lls
the journal’s slots by accepting the fraction r of
papers with the highest quality. A crucial assump-
tion of the model is that the initial work on a paper
determines its q-quality and subsequent revisions
improve only r-quality. In the model, the most
important actors are the journal’s referees. They
attempt to learn from the prevailing social norm
from two sources: seeing what revisions they are
asked to make on their own papers and seeing
whether editors accept or reject papers they refer-
eed. When an additional assumption is made that
academics are biased and think that their work is
slightly better than it is, referees would try to hold
authors to the higher standards they mistakenly feel
is being applied to their own papers. The result is
the gradual evolution of social norms to increas-
ingly weight r-quality. The dynamics are slow and
steady and are used to justify the ?ndings in Ellison
(2002b) in relation to publishing in economics where
he ?nds that there has been a gradual slowdown of
the economics publishing process that cannot be
attributed to observable changes in the profession.
The important implication of Ellison’s work is the
notion that all parties to the publishing process
become unwitting accomplices to the pursuit of r-
quality leading to either a reduction in the number
of articles being published or a reduction in q-qual-
ity. Ellison quotes the example of many young econ-
omists who report spending as much time revising
old papers as working on new ones. Guiding larger
and more frequent revisions is an additional burden
on referees and editors. The role of editors also
becomes crucial because they have the power to
intervene in the process assuming that they recog-
nise what is happening. The problem with a slow
change is that participants do not recognize the
trend, which they themselves are helping to create.
Swanson (2004) sets out to compare publications
by the di?erent disciplines of accounting, ?nance,
management and marketing using Ellison’s theory
as a way of predicting that di?erent disciplines will
arrive at di?ering balances between q and r. He
found that there had been a decline over time in
the number of major articles being published, a
result which is consistent with Ellison’s model of
an increasing standard of r-quality. The implication
of this result is that accounting academics spend too
much time on the rigour of the analysis and insu?-
cient time on ideas. In practice, what this can mean
is that referees increasingly judge the quality of
papers by reviewing how well the research method
has been applied and how sophisticated are the ana-
lytical methods, rather than the inherent importance
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 293
of the paper’s conclusions. Hence, a theoretical
manuscript based on some game theoretic analysis
would be judged on the extent to which the analysis
had been competently performed, rather than the
extent to which the resulting ?ndings have some
inherent value. Reviewers of statistically based
empirical work would concentrate on the appropri-
ateness and application of the underlying theory,
the representative ness of the sample, the quality
of the statistical analysis, rather than whether the
results added in some way to what is already
known. The criteria for the reviewers of case studies
was well summed up by Hopwood (2000, p. iii)
when he summed up the conclusions emerging from
a special conference to celebrate the 25th anniver-
sary of Accounting Organizations and Society.
‘‘Another very clear message that emerged from
the discussions at the conference was the contin-
uing need for very careful structured observa-
tions of whatever was the focus of interest.
Rather than writing case studies per se or getting
involved in rather open-ended descriptive
research, the discussions repeatedly emphasised
the role of theoretically informed inquiries that
moved forward in a considered and structured
manner, comparing contrasting instances and
striving to learn from the result.”
In the language of the Ellison model, this is an ap-
peal for increasing r-quality.
The process modelled by Ellison would suggest a
reinforcement mechanism where authors whose
papers are accepted will seek to produce similar
work in order to maximise their chances of publica-
tion. When such authors act as reviewers, they will
use this acquired frame of reference in order to
decide whether or not to recommend publication.
Authors, reviewers and editors thus become
involved in a joint learning process, which reinforces
certain patterns of behaviour and discourages oth-
ers. The system becomes internally referenced with-
out any necessary link to ‘‘real world” issues.
Hence, there is nothing in the process that will nat-
urally produce work that has utility to those outside
the academic sphere, since the only criterion is
whether the work has utility for the academics
involved in its production.
Discussion and conclusions
The above analysis shows that there is a problem
in the world of social science publication and in aca-
demic accounting more particularly. The problem is
that acceptance rates at journals have fallen to a very
low level (10%) and the time from submission to
publication has increased inexorably. The e?ect of
this is that all three players in the process (authors,
reviewers and editors) expect that an article is likely
to be rejected. According to the model of Ellison, the
process is inexorable as the feedback loop between
authors who become reviewers and vice versa is that
the reviewing hurdle continues to be raised. Ellison’s
model indicates that matters will not improve with-
out some form of concerted external intervention.
The low acceptance rates cause rejected articles to
reappear as submissions to other journals until the
author gives up on the manuscript. This process
means that there is an ever increasing workload for
reviewers and editors, which eats into the prime
resource of academics, namely time. More time is
spent on submission, more time is spent reviewing
and more time is spent by editors.
The important question is how this vicious cycle
can be changed if at all. However, before this can
happen, there has to be a consensus as to the causes
of the problem. Logically, there can be only two rea-
sons for the low acceptance rates and longer publica-
tion times; either there are an increasing number of
substandard manuscripts being submitted or the cri-
teria for acceptance used by reviewers and editors
are becoming more demanding. From the literature
and personal experience, it would appear that both
explanations are tenable, although the exact e?ects
of each are hard to predict. The causes of both prob-
lems are not too di?cult to identify, but suggesting
solutions is rather more di?cult. The obvious candi-
dates for causes are: the doctrine of ‘‘you are where
you publish”, the large number of conference papers
in existence (often of low quality), a lack of training
for would-be authors on how to succeed in the jour-
nal publishing process, a lack of training for review-
ers on how best practice and a lack of a clear
statement about a journal’s raison d’eˆtre. Each of
these possible causes will be discussed together with
suggestions as to how they can be remedied. Finally,
the section concludes with other suggestions for
improving the academic publishing process, primar-
ily from the viewpoint of authors.
The increasing importance being placed on the
decision rule of ‘‘you are where you publish”
Those who make hiring, tenure and promotion
decisions gauge an academic’s research quality and
294 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
productivity by the number of articles published in
journals of su?cient standing. This then creates a
pressure on academics to submit to the perceived
top journals, which in turn increases the number
of submissions to those journals. If the rejection rate
is as high as 90% and the process is not perceived to
be fair then the obvious strategy is for would-be
academics to submit as many articles as possible
in the hope that one might be allowed into the jour-
nal. The alternative strategy of spending many
weeks crafting an article in the hope of making it
su?ciently attractive is not very appealing given
that the high rejection rate and the perceived seren-
dipity in the system. The dispiriting conclusion of
this analysis is that as long as those in power to
in?uence the careers of academics use the lazy route
of simply looking at publications rather than read-
ing the articles, then the process has to continue.
This fallacy of relying on only one kind of indica-
tor became known as Goodhart’s Law after the dis-
tinguished Chief Adviser to the Bank of England,
who noted that as soon as the government attempts
to regulate any particular set of ?nancial issues,
these become unreliable as indicators of economic
trends – ‘‘any observed statistical regularity will
tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for
control purposes.” (Chrystal & Mizen, 2001, p. 4).
Marilyn Strathern’s pithy version of Goodhart’s
Law is even more relevant to the present paper since
it has generally applicability: ‘‘When a measure
becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”
(Strathern, 1997). Focussing on only one measure
of an academic’s research prowess, changes the
behaviour of researchers in ways that are not neces-
sarily in the best interests of the discipline. For
example, researchers are no longer being asked to
research those areas where their input is most
needed to help policy choices by standard setters
and other regulators. Instead they must choose to
research those topic areas that are likely to be
viewed favourably by those journals in which the
researchers have to publish in order to further their
careers. Hence, the focus of research becomes what
can be published, rather than what is of high inher-
ent value to the long term future of the discipline.
The large number of poor quality conference papers in
existence
A common feature of most university funding of
attendance at an overseas conference is that the
applicant for funding must present a paper at the
conference; no presentation, no funding. Clearly
this creates an unwelcome set of imperatives.
Organisers of conferences know that in order for
the conference to be a ?nancial success, they must
attract a lot of academics. However, in order for
an academic to be able to a?ord the conference fees
and travel and accommodation costs, the academic
has to be allowed to present his or her research in
order to receive funding and therefore to come at
all. Hence, the large conferences attracting a
multi-national attendance have to have large num-
ber of parallel sessions with each author allowed
only a modest amount of time to present the results.
There is an acceptance process but the hurdle is
much lower than for journal acceptance. Is this per-
haps the origins of the many substandard manu-
scripts which will never be accepted, but which
will clog up the publishing process. If conferences
were choosier about what papers were accepted,
then perhaps the academic side of such conferences
might be more rewarding intellectually. At the
moment, there are too many poor quality papers
that attendees have either to sit or through or
ignore. Is this a sensible use of quality time? Maybe
the ?rst step is for conference organizers to be
bolder in their acceptance criteria and to limit the
number of papers. If this means that less people
attend then that should be to the good. In time,
the funders of conference travel will realize that pre-
senting a paper is not necessarily the best measure of
the funding decision.
Lack of training for would-be authors on how to
succeed in the journal publishing process
Most PhD programs concentrate on giving the
students expertise in the art of conducting research
(ability to read journals critically, ability to apply
the appropriate theoretical paradigms, ability to
undertake appropriate research techniques, ability
to apply and interpret appropriate statistical tech-
niques and ability to conduct a sustained piece of
research and write up the ?ndings in a thesis). How-
ever, there is often little preparation given for the
student as a potential publisher of academic work.
There is also a problem in that there is an expecta-
tion that a PhD thesis can be mined for research
articles, although the thesis is not constructed on
that basis. As a result, the resulting submissions to
journals do not ?t the requirements of the journal
as they tend to be taken directly from the thesis
without su?cient thought as to what is required
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 295
for an academic article. In my experience, this is
another source of submissions that ultimately fail.
Part of the reason for writing this paper is to o?er
the distilled wisdom for would-be publishers that
is included in Appendix B.
The e?ect of this lacking of training on how to
publish in refereed journals is that there is a lot of
‘‘learning on the job”, where would-be authors learn
the hard way about the review process by receiving
heavily critical comments from referees. This can
result in a potential researcher becoming discouraged
by the process and hence leaving the profession. It is
not obvious that a Darwinian lawof natural selection
will produce the best researchers. Survival of the ?t-
test does not lead to the best researchers, merely those
who have thick skins and have learned not to take
‘‘No” for an answer. The article by De Lange
(2005) is a good example of how prospective authors
could be introduced to the world of publishing. I once
conducted a session for the British Accounting Asso-
ciation on the publishing process, by giving a group
of new lecturers a copy of a paper to read before
the session. In the session, they were then given the
referees’ comments, which we then discussed. The
authors’ revised manuscript was then given out for
the audience to consider and then come back and dis-
cuss what they thought. The second set of reviewers’
comments was then given out. Such an event was very
well received and it seemed to bene?t the participants
in appreciating what was involved in the process.
Lack of training for reviewers on best practice
The vast majority of reviewers learn their craft by
doing it in the real world of manuscript evaluation.
There is little formal instruction in how to be a good
reviewer. Appendix C is a summary of what experi-
enced reviewers and editors have said on the review
process. This sort of information should be made
generally available. It is not enough to expect new
lecturers to pick up the review process as if by osmo-
sis. One suggestion by Miner (2003) is to conduct
workshops at professional meetings to train review-
ers. This training should involve readings from the
literature on the subject matter, designed to make
the trainees sensitive to what constitutes e?ective
reviewing and what does not.
Such review sessions at an annual meeting would
allow di?erent views on the academic publication
process to be debated. For example, one key issue
is the extent to which reviewers have the mind set
that the paper sent to them is likely to be rejected
and therefore their objective is ?nd reasons to fail
it. It would be much more bene?cial to regard the
review process as a two stage one. In the ?rst stage,
the reviewer is answering the question of whether
the manuscript could conceivably be published. If
the answer is ‘‘No”, there is then the issue of what
is the role of the reviewer. Should it be the job of
the reviewer to train future researchers, by o?ering
detailed suggestions as to how the authors can
improve their performance? Or is simply the job of
the reviewer to say that the paper is not capable
of being improved su?ciently to make it of publish-
able quality? Having decided whether the paper has
potential, the reviewer can then set about what is
arguably the most important part of the review pro-
cess, namely that of o?ering suggestions as to how
the paper can be improved su?ciently to warrant
publication.
Another point of discussion could be the extent to
which the reviewer should adopt a forensic role to
determine if the author is attempting to conceal
something. As a reviewer, one sometimes gets the
feeling that an author is trying to conceal some fun-
damental ?aw in the paper by deliberating writing
up the results in a way that hides what has happened,
rather than reveal all. A reviewer almost needs to be
mindful of the investigative approaches of Sherlock
Holmes: ‘‘You mentioned your name as if I should
recognize it, but I assure you that, beyond obvious
facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a
Freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing what-
ever about you.” (Doyle, 1905, pp. 31/32).
There is also little feedback to a reviewer on the
quality of his or her review. Only once have I
received any comments back on one of my reviews.
In most cases, the best that a reviewer can hope to
receive is a copy of the editor’s letter to the author
and a copy of the other person’s review. There is
rarely any communication between the editor and
the reviewer on how useful the referee’s review
was. There is also little communication from an edi-
tor on the reasons for his or her own decision. The
most dramatic illustration of this, was once when
after having favourably reviewed a paper, I received
a note from the editor, saying ‘‘thank you for your
review, I have rejected the paper”.
A lack of a clear statement about a journal’s
perceived raison d’eˆtre
As in the section ‘Purpose of publishing in aca-
demic accounting journals’ indicated, there is no
296 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
clear statement in most journals of the editor’s per-
ceived purpose in publishing articles in the journal.
As Appendix A indicates, most statements are sim-
ply descriptions of the ?eld in which the journal
intends to publish articles. There is no clear state-
ment of the journal’s purpose. Using the Eddie
Stamp logic from the section ‘Purpose of publishing
in academic accounting journals’, one way of fram-
ing the purpose of the journal would be ?rstly to
describe what the role of accounting is, then to
describe the role of academic research in relation
to its subject matter and ?nally to indicate how pub-
lishing research studies can be expected to bene?t
the discipline. This lack of a sense of purpose in aca-
demic accounting publishing is one of the elements
that is most dispiriting. There is a sense in which
it has no purpose other than furthering the aca-
demic careers of authors. This may be one of the
reasons why reviewers focus so much on r quality,
since they have no clear idea of what q is. All
reviewers can do is determine whether the research
has been properly conducted and analysed. The pur-
poses of enhancing public debate or increasing
understanding of an area seem to have got lost. A
clearer statement of a journal’s purpose might help
reviewers and also authors contemplating submit-
ting a manuscript. The issue was highlighted for
me as an editor in relation to the publication of arti-
cles dealing with the more arcane elements of statis-
tical sampling in auditing. The papers had high r
content, but as the models were always based on
unrealistic error distributions, there was no obvious
link to improving the practice of obtaining audit
evidence. Belatedly, I now realize that a much
clearer statement of what the journal saw as its
rationale for existence would have helped both
authors and reviewers. There is also the possible
improvement in the motivations of researchers to
act as reviewers. At the moment, the principal
motive seems to be to keep in with the editor so that
he or she will view future submissions more kindly,
which is a perpetuation of the publishing game. It
would be so much more ful?lling if reviewers
thought that they were helping improve the disci-
pline and that the journal was a force for public
good.
Additional suggestions for improving the process
Several suggestions have been as to how the sys-
tem of the review process could be improved as well
as simply improving the quality of the approach
taken by reviewers. The ?rst suggestion that has
been made is that the anonymity of reviewers should
be removed (Epstein, 1995). This could take two
forms. Either the names of the reviewers are
revealed to the author when the ?rst reviews are sent
back or the names of the reviewers appear at the
bottom of the published article, but are not dis-
closed in the event of the article not being published.
The argument for the ?rst alternative is that it
would prevent reviewers from hiding behind the
cloak of anonymity and make them more account-
able for their views. The obvious disadvantage is
that some academics might be put o? reviewing
altogether, but then maybe if they are afraid to
defend their opinions, they should not be allowed
to review. The other potential disadvantage is that
it could lead to anodyne reviews, rather like per-
sonal references when the individual giving the ref-
erence knows that it will be made available to the
person on whom he or she is giving the reference.
The argument for the second alternative is that it
would allow the ?nal published article to be judged
more as a joint product between authors, reviewers
and editor. Hence, once the reviewer knew that the
paper was heading for publication, he or she would
be more co-operative in the search for the ?nal pub-
lishable article and possibly less negative in their
comments. This last suggestion would appear to
have some merit and again would bene?t from being
debated in some forum where the role of reviewers
was considered. There is nothing to stop reviewers
from implementing this change themselves. It sim-
ply requires them to sign the review or indicate to
the editor that they are happy for their name to be
made known to the author. This could also facilitate
direct dialogue between author and reviewer which
could speed up the review process and result in a
publishable article within a much quicker time
frame.
Another possibility is that the journal editors
would require submitting authors to suggest at least
one reviewer for the paper (Epstein, 1995). The edi-
tor would not necessarily have to select the reviewer
and whether or not the reviewer’s name was
revealed would depend on the policy of the journal.
The advantage of this proposal is that it would con-
centrate authors’ minds on identifying the potential
merits of the paper and its contribution to the liter-
ature. The danger is that authors and nominated
reviewers could cluster into groups, with one mem-
ber nominating another as reviewer on some rota-
tional basis.
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 297
Another possibility is raising the costs of submis-
sion to a journal and using the money to pay referees
for completing their reviews within a certain time-
scale. The advantage of this proposal is that it should
cut down the length of time that a reviewer takes to
send a review to the editor (Engers & Gans, 1998).
The disadvantage is that by increasing the costs of
journal submission, some academics will be priced
out of the publishing market. This would be espe-
cially true of academics from poorer countries.
Another suggestion is that journals should create
a meaningful appeals procedure for authors who
believe that their rejected article has been improp-
erly evaluated (Miner, 2003). Ideally someone other
than the original editor should determine whether a
request for a re-review should be allowed (Epstein,
1995). Once an appeals procedure has been estab-
lished, records should be kept of the number of
appeals generated by di?erent reviewers. If there is
consistency in the nature of complaints about the
work of a particular reviewer, the reviewer should
be provided with appropriate feedback from the edi-
torial team. In the event that the feedback does not
lead to an improvement, the services of the reviewer
would be discontinued.
Another idea is to allow authors to provide feed-
back on the quality of the service that they have
received from the review process. This could take
consist of standard forms asking questions such as
whether the reviews were conscientious, construc-
tive, unbiased, informed and balanced with respect
to considering positive as well as negative aspects
of the manuscript (Epstein, 1995). The advantage
of this proposal is that it would provide reviewers
with some feedback and therefore to help them
improve their reviewing and reduce the incidence
of errors. At present, reviewers can make any sort
of statement with impunity and the author is not
in a position to challenge it. I remember one paper
that I as editor thought had potential and would
interest readers, but which had received poor
reviews. I wrote an encouraging editorial letter
and the author responded that he would resubmit
provided I agreed ‘‘to protect him from the review-
ers”. This suggestion does not require any sort of
editorial change since in principle any author can
create a response to the points made by the review-
ers and ask the editor to forward them to the
reviewers. Obviously, such letters will have to be
carefully structured to acknowledge the authors
appreciation of the time given by the reviewer, but
also to make informative and constructive com-
ments about areas where the author disagrees with
the comments of the reviewer.
Clearly there is a lot that can be done to improve
the present state of publishing in accounting jour-
nals. The issue is the extent to which members of
the accounting academic community wish to engage
in a debate about the nature of the problem and its
possible solutions. One suggestion might be to get
representatives of the major academic accounting
associations across the world to come together and
debate these issues. As Ellison (2002a, p. 1025) con-
cludes: ‘‘If many social norms are indeed possible,
then academic communities may be able to achieve
dramatic welfare improvements by simply discussing
what standards members would like to have and
agreeing on a change”.
Appendix A. Aims/objectives of main academic
accounting and auditing journals
Abacus
‘‘ABACUS has as its objective the publication of
exploratory constructive and critical articles on all
aspects of accounting and on those phases of the
theory and administration of organizations and of
economic behaviour generally which are related to
accounting, ?nance and business studies.”
Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal
‘‘The journal Accounting, Auditing and Account-
ability is dedicated to the advancement of account-
ing knowledge and provides a forum for the
publication of high quality manuscripts concerning
the interaction between accounting/auditing and
their socio-economic and political environments.”
Accounting and Business Research
‘‘The objective of Accounting and Business
Research is the publication of substantial and origi-
nal contributions to knowledge in the areas of
accounting broadly de?ned.”
Accounting and Finance
‘‘The Journal seeks to publish work that devel-
ops, tests, or advances accounting and ?nance the-
ory, research and practice, etc. The primary
criterion for publication in Accounting and Finance
298 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
is the signi?cance of the contribution an article
makes to the literature.”
Accounting Horizons
‘‘Accounting Horizons’ primary objective is to
publish papers focusing on the scholarship of inte-
gration and application. Building on the work of
the Carnegie Foundation, we can de?ne integra-
tion scholarship and application scholarship as
follows:
The scholarship of integration asks – What do
research results mean to those who might bene?t
from those discoveries? Is it possible to interpret
new discoveries in ways that provide a larger,
more comprehensive understanding?
The scholarship of application focuses on engage-
ment and asks – How can knowledge be respon-
sibly applied to consequential problems?
Application is not a one-way street, as new intel-
lectual understandings can arise out (of) the very
act of application. . .theory and practice vitally
interact and one renews the other.”
Accounting, Organizations and Society
‘‘The aims of the journal are:
1. To provide a specialized forum for the publica-
tion of research on the behavioural, organiza-
tional and social aspects of accounting.
2. To foster new thinking, research and action on
the social and behavioural aspects of accounting.
3. To report on experiments on the behavioural and
social aspects of accounting in a way that
explains how the experiment was developed; the
process by which it was implemented and its con-
sequences, both planned and unplanned.”
Accounting Review
‘‘The Accounting Review should be viewed as the
premier journal for publishing articles reporting the
results of accounting research and explaining and
illustrating related research methodology. The scope
of acceptable articles should embrace any research
methodology and any accounting-related subject,
as long as the articles meet the standards established
for publication in the journal. . . The primary, but
not exclusive, audience should be. . .academicians,
graduate students and others interested in account-
ing research.”
Auditing: a Journal of Practice and Theory
‘‘The purpose of this journal is to contribute to
the theory and practice of auditing.”
British Accounting Review
‘‘The Journal seeks to serve the aims of the
British Accounting Association and the broader
international accounting community by publishing
research of the highest quality possible and of inter-
est to an international audience.”
Critical Perspectives on Accounting
‘‘Critical Perspectives on Accounting aims to pro-
vide a forum for a growing number of accounting
researchers and practitioners who realize that con-
ventional theory and practice is ill-suited to the
challenges of the modern environment, and that
accounting practices and corporate behaviour are
inextricably connected with many allocative, distrib-
utive, social and ecological problems of our era.
From such concerns, a new literature is emerging
that seeks to reformulate corporate, social and
political activity, and the theoretical and practical
means by which we apprehend and a?ect that
activity.”
European Accounting Review
‘‘The major aim of the journal is to publish schol-
arly articles, which ful?l the highest quality stan-
dards of academic accounting research. . . The
journal acknowledges its European origins and the
distinctive variety of the European accounting
research community.”
International Journal of Accounting
‘‘The International Journal of Accounting (IJA)
aims at publishing accounting research that contrib-
utes to the analyses and understanding of interna-
tional business conditions and transactions. The
editors of IJA encourage authors to submit high
quality research that studies accounting as a subsys-
tem of the cultural, economic and institutional fac-
tors of di?erent nations.”
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 299
International Journal of Auditing
‘‘Its primary aim is to communicate clearly to an
international readership the results of original
auditing research conducted in practice and in
research institutions.”
Journal of Accounting and Economics
‘‘The Journal of Accounting and Economics
encourages the application of economic theory to
the explanation of accounting phenomena. The the-
ories of the ?rm, public choice, government regula-
tion and agency theory, in addition to ?nancial
economics can contribute signi?cantly to increasing
our understanding of accounting. The JAE provides
a forum for the publication of the highest quality
manuscripts which employ economic analyses of
accounting problems.”
Journal of Accounting Literature
‘‘The objective of the Journal is two-fold: (1) to
provide a concise topical synthesis of research to
assist academics and others in gaining knowledge
and appreciation of accounting research areas out-
side their own expertise, and (2) to publish papers
presented at University of Florida research confer-
ences on selected accounting and auditing issues.”
Journal of Accounting and Public Policy
‘‘The relationship and mutual e?ects on each
other of accounting and public policy is an increas-
ingly important area of research. Journal of
Accounting and Public Policy serves researchers,
educators, policymakers, and practitioners in both
disciplines by publishing research results and serv-
ing as a forum for the exchange of ideas.”
Journal of Business Finance and Accounting
‘‘The Journal exists to publish high quality
research papers in Finance and economic aspects
of Accounting. . . A distinctive feature of the Jour-
nal is that it recognises that adverse selection and
moral hazard issues are pervasive in ?nancial mar-
kets and business organisations, and that Account-
ing (both ?nancial and managerial) plays a part in
ameliorating the problems arising from such infor-
mational problems. Thus, the editors see Account-
ing and Finance as being conceptually interlinked.”
Appendix B. Recommended best practice for getting
articles published ‘‘Work, ?nish, publish
The guidance to academic faculty on how to
get published in the social sciences represents a
considerable publication industry. There are books
showing how it can be done, such as Cameran
(1988) and Hu? (1999) o?ering a step-by-step
approach to the writing and publishing
process; Cummings and Frost (1995) setting out
the issues, challenges and emotions generated by
the process of becoming an organizational
researcher; and collections of essays such as Frost
and Taylor (1996) organized around the metaphor
of the rhythms of academic careers, re?ecting a
belief that there are multiple points during profes-
sional development. There are also many personal
statements by experienced academics. These can
appear in an edited book such as Simon and Fyfe
(1994), which contains the recollections, interpre-
tations and advice of 14 former and current edi-
tors of social science journals, special series
publishers and university presses. Alternatively,
editors and experienced researcher write journal
articles on the subject of publication and rejection
(e.g., Armstrong, 2006; Cady, 2001, 2002a, 2002b;
Clark, Floyd, & Wright, 2006; Czyzewski & Dick-
inson, 1990; De Lange, 2005; Estrin, 1981; Frank-
furter, 2000; Gilmore, Carson, & Perry, 2006;
Homburg, 2003; Howard & Stout, 2006; Jo¨ nsson,
2006; Kacmar, 2002; Locker, Reinsch, Dulek, &
Flatley, 1994; Neuhauser, McEachern, Zyzanski,
Flocke, & Williams, 2000; Parasuraman, 2003;
Perry, Carson, & Gilmore, 2003; Rynes, 2002;
Starbuck, 2003; Stewart, 2002; Stout, Rebele, &
Howard, 2006; Summers, 2001; Swartz, 1999;
Toppins, Henson, & Solezio, 1988; Walker,
2004).
The general advice that all this accumulated wis-
dom o?ers is remarkably similar and can be distilled
down into the following general rules of publication:
1. Understand that a long-term planning horizon
and constancy of purpose are essential.
Included in this long-term planning is taking
a view on whether the would-be author wants
to maximise the quantity of publications by
having a large number of publications in
lesser-known journals (an r-strategist) or
maximising quality by concentrating most of
their publications in top journals (a K-strate-
gist) (Faria, 2003).
300 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
2. Develop a broad set of methodological skills
(e.g. qualitative research methods, survey
research, experimental design, econometric
analysis, etc.) which will provide long term
bene?ts as one can rely on this same set of
skills for many years.
3. Learn to be a critical reader of the literature
looking for problems with the theory, data
collection, analysis or conclusions.
4. Use the literature to stimulate one’s own think-
ing beyond merely understanding what is cov-
ered in each of the individual articles reviewed.
5. Write down one’s ideas to avoid losing them
and also to test their logic as this is more
apparent when they are summarised –
‘‘How can I know what I think until I see
what I say?” (quoted in Jo¨ nsson (2006, p.
480).
6. Make academic writing a habit and construct
a routine that suits one’s own preferences.
7. Focus on an interesting problems to
research, by considering if there are gaps in
existing knowledge or new areas of research
created by recent developments (e.g. changes
in market conditions, new regulations, etc.).
Voss (2003) suggests that innovation in
research can be characterised in terms of
increasing interest as: incremental (re?ning
and extending an established design); modu-
lar (replacing one or more core concepts
without changing the system’s architecture);
architectural (new interactions and linkages
between core concepts are introduced); and
radical (a dominant new design is created
by incorporating links between new core
concepts).
8. Focus on developing hypotheses to be tested.
These should contribute to the literature and
should lead to a feasible rigorous research
design to test them.
9. Work with others, since the process of collab-
oration allows ideas to be shared and tested.
10. Work on several manuscripts at a time, since
the publishing process is a long one.
11. Target journals to ensure that the manuscripts
pass the test of being appropriate for the
journal.
12. Make the e?ort to write well in English. For
those for whom English is not their ?rst lan-
guage, it is better to write ?rst in bad English
which is then corrected than to write in the
home language and then to translate it.
13. Learn how to present information clearly,
including the appropriate use of tables and
footnotes. Papers should follow the journal
format and usually should consist of at least
six parts: introduction (what is the paper
about?), background/literature review, theo-
retical framework leading to a statement of
research purpose (hypotheses), data creation,
analysis of data, discussion and conclusions
(why does the paper matter?).
14. Recognize that the bibliography in a paper is an
indication to the editor of possible reviewers.
15. Learn how to deal with US journals, when
reporting non-US results, since US reviewers
will need convincing that the paper is relevant
to a US audience. Homburg (2003) also makes
the point that US reviewers may not under-
stand A4 sized paper and he says that he
always sends papers to US journals on US
paper format.
16. Get colleagues to read and critique manu-
scripts. Brown (2005) shows the importance
of circulating and presenting manuscripts by
?nding that the probability of acceptance in
leading journals increases the more that the
papers are presented at workshops.
17. Ensure that the paper conforms to the jour-
nal’s house style, before sending it o?. Follow
the journal submission rules.
18. Do not send the same article to more than one
journal.
19. Learn to absorb the slings and arrows of for-
tune that are the comments by reviewers. Try
to incorporate as many of the reviewers’
points as possible. If a small minority appear
to be ‘‘o? track” and they cannot be incorpo-
rated without seriously a?ecting the ?ow of
the article, then a polite note is necessary for
the reviewers. In general, a polite letter should
be sent in which the author explains how each
point made by the reviewer has been used to
improve the paper.
20. Expect to act as a reviewer for the journal to
which you have submitted articles as editors
are continually searching for reviewers who
will deliver insightful reviews within a short
timescale. Potential authors have an incentive
to act as good reviewers.
21. Learn to accept rejection, as appeals to an edi-
tor are rarely successful. The following are the
types of reasons given for rejection: poor moti-
vation, not consistent with the journal’s objec-
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 301
tives, unreliable or inappropriate theory, mea-
surement issues, statistical issues, not a mean-
ingful contribution to the literature, poorly
organized paper, badly written paper, failure
to take account of the reviewers’ concerns
(for resubmissions) and the results already
published elsewhere.
22. Analyse the reasons for rejection. Consider
whether a new paper can be created from the
reject or whether a revised version of the paper
could be published elsewhere. It is not a good
idea simply to send the original manuscript o?
to another journal.
23. Realize that a resubmission o?er is no guaran-
tee of acceptance. ‘‘Once I submitted a paper
three times to a journal, based on the
reviewer’s encouragement. Each time, the
review was less enthusiastic than the time
before. After three submissions, the paper
was rejected.” (Frankfurter, 2000, p. 305).
24. Recognize that authors’ motivation and belief
in their work play large parts in determining
whether their manuscripts make it into print.
There is certain Darwinian process of ‘‘sur-
vival of the ?ttest” at work.
Appendix C. Recommended best practice for acting
as a reviewer
A number of reviewers have written articles
about the review process in an e?ort to improve it,
such as Bedeian (2003), Brinn et al. (1998), Epstein
(1995), Harrison (2002), Holbrook (1986), Miner
(2003), Omer, Porter, Yetman, and Magro (2004),
Singh (2003), Summers (2001) and Woodru?
(2003). A summary of these points would suggest
that a good reviewer should:
1. Inform the editor if he or she knows the iden-
tity of the author, but still review the paper.
2. Be professionally quali?ed to undertake the
review, by having a su?cient knowledge of
the subject of the paper, he or she has been
asked to review. If this is not the case, then
the good reviewer will send the paper back
to the editor.
3. Set aside enough time to read the entire article
in depth in one sitting.
4. Be aware of any paradigm preferences, which
might in?uence judgement and lead to the rejec-
tion of a paper because a particular direction of
inquiry is not interesting to the reviewer.
5. Struggle to ?nd a way to make the review posi-
tive in tone. Even when ?nding fault, use
adjectives like interesting, imaginative and
ambitious.
6. Ask for additional material that will
strengthen the paper, not for some self-inter-
ested reason.
7. Allow for the possibility of no revisions in
those rare cases where the law of diminishing
returns would render any further work of min-
imal incremental value.
8. When making extensive or detailed sugges-
tions, try to create a list of necessary changes
the ?rst time to avoid discovering more and
more new suggestions on each succeeding revi-
sion of the paper. However, a good reviewer
will allow the authors some ?exibility to write
the article that they want to write.
9. Distinguish between correctable and uncor-
rectable ?aws.
10. For correctable ?aws, indicate what might be
done to ?x them.
11. For uncorrectable ?aws, indicate which
should be discussed in the Limitations section
of the paper.
12. When recommending rejection of an article,
specify the reasons (e.g. uncorrectable ?aws)
and provide a convincing argument as to
why these ?aws justify rejecting the
manuscript.
13. When not too time consuming, direct the
authors to articles or books that may be useful
to them in revising their manuscripts.
14. When receiving a revised submission, pay
attention to what the other reviewer and the
editor has had to say.
15. Produce reviews within a reasonable span of
time (i.e. within 30 days).
References
Armstrong, T. R. (2006). Encouragement to write articles for the
ODJ. Organizational Development Journal, 24(2), 5–6.
Azar, O. H. (2004). Rejections and the importance of ?rst
response times. International Journal of Social Economics,
31(3/4), 259–274.
Azar, O. H. (2005). The review process in economics: Is it too
fast?. Southern Economic Journal 72(2), 482–491.
Azar, O. H. (2006). The academic review process: How can we
make it more e?cient?. American Economist 50(1), 37–50.
Bedford, N. M. (1978). The impact of a priori theory and
research on accounting practice. In A. R. Abdel-Khalik & T.
F. Keller (Eds.), The impact of accounting research on practice
302 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304
and disclosure (pp. 2–31). Durham, NC: Duke University
Press.
Bedeian, A. G. (2003). The manuscript review process – The
proper roles of authors, referees and editors. Journal of
Management Inquiry, 12(4), 331–338.
Bence, V., & Oppenheim, C. (2004). The in?uence of peer review
on the research assessment exercise. Journal of Information
Science, 30(4), 347–368.
Ben-Yashar, R., & Nitzan, S. (2001). Are referees su?ciently
informed about the editor’s practice?. Theory and Decision
51(1), 1–11.
Borkowski, S. C., & Welsh, M. J. (1998). Ethics and the
accounting publishing process: Author, reviewer and editor
issues. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(16), 1785–1803.
Borkowski, S. C., & Welsh, M. J. (2000). Ethical practice in the
accounting publishing process: Contrasting opinions of
authors and editors. Journal of Business Ethics, 25(1), 15–31.
Brief, A. P. (2004). Editor’s comments: What I don’t like about
my job. The Academy of Management Review, 29(3), 339–341.
Brinn, T., Jones, M. J., & Pendlebury, M. (1998). UK academic
accountants’ perceptions of research and publication prac-
tices. British Accounting Review, 30, 313–390.
Brown, L. D. (2005). The importance of circulating and
presenting manuscripts: Evidence from the accounting liter-
ature. The Accounting Review, 80(1), 55–83.
Burgstahler, D. (1987). Inference from empirical research. The
Accounting Review, 62(1), 203–214.
Cady, S. H. (2001). Getting published part 1: Tapping the
wisdom of your soul. Organization Development Journal,
19(4), 1–2.
Cady, S. H. (2002a). Getting published part 2: There is a home
for every article. Organization Development Journal, 20(1),
1–3.
Cady, S. H. (2002b). Getting published part 3: Create the article
of your choosing: Dream, innovative, incremental or dud.
Organization Development Journal, 20(2), 1–3.
Calabrese, R. L., & Roberts, B. (2004). Self-interest and scholarly
publication: The dilemma of researchers, reviewers and
editors. The International Journal of Educational Management,
18(6), 335–341.
Cameran, J. (1988). The right way to write: An invitation and
initiation in the writing life. New York, NY: Tarcher/Putnam.
Campanario, J. M. (1996). Have referees rejected some of the
most-cited articles of all times?. Journal of the American
Society for Information Science 47(4), 302–310.
Chrystal, K. A., & Mizen, P. D. (2001). Goodhart’s Law: Its
origins, meaning and implications for monetary policy. .
Clark, T., Floyd, S. W., & Wright, M. (2006). On the review
process and journal development. Journal of Management
Studies, 43(3), 655–664.
Competition Commission. (2001). Reed Elsevier Plc and Har-
court General Inc. A report on the proposed merger. .
Cummings, L. L., & Frost, P. J. (1995). Publishing in the
organizational sciences (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Czyzewski, A. B., & Dickinson, H. D. (1990). Factors leading to
the rejection of accountants’ manuscripts. Journal of Account-
ing Education, 8, 93–104.
De Lange, P. A. (2005). The long road to publishing: A user
friendly expose´. Accounting Education: An International
Journal, 14(2), 133–168.
Doyle, S. A. C. (1905). The Norwood Builder, reprinted in The
Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1981. London: Penguin Books.
Dunn, R. Jr., (2005). The age bias in academic publishing.
Challenge, 48(5), 5–11.
Dyckman, T. R., Gibbins, M., & Swieringa, R. J. (1978).
Experimental and survey research in ?nancial accounting: A
review and evaluation. In A. R. Abdel-Khalik & T. F. Keller
(Eds.), The impact of accounting research on practice and
disclosure (pp. 47–105). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Easton, G., & Easton, D. M. (2003). Marketing Journals and the
Research Assessment Exercise, 19, 1–19.
Ellison, G. (2002a). Evolving standards for academic publishing:
A q–r theory. The Journal of Political Economy, 110(5),
994–1034.
Ellison, G. (2002b). The slow down of the economics publishing
process. The Journal of Political Economy, 110(5), 947–993.
Engers, M., & Gans, J. S. (1998). Why referees are not paid
(enough). The American Economic Review, 88(5), 1341–1349.
Epstein, S. (1995). What can be done to improve the journal
review process. American Psychologist, 50(10), 883–885.
Estrin, H. (1981). How to write for scienti?c and technical
journals. Journal of Business Communication, 18(3), 55–58.
Faria, J. R. (2003). What type of economist are you: r-Strategist
of K-strategist. Journal of Economic Studies, 30(2), 144–154.
Fine, M. A., & Kurdek, L. A. (1994). Publishing multiple journal
articles from a single data set: Issues and recommendations.
Journal of Family Psychology, 8(4), 371–379.
Frankfurter, G. M. (2000). The young ?nance faculty’s guide to
publishing: Inspired by and after (rather loosely) Benjamin
Britten. International Review of Financial Analysis, 9, 299–314.
Frey, B. S. (2003). Publishing as prostitution? – Choosing
between one’s own ideas and academic success. Public Choice,
116(1–2), 205–223.
Frey, B. S. (2005). Problems with publishing: Existing state and
solutions. European Journal of Law and Economics, 19,
173–190.
Frost, P. J., & Taylor, M. S. (Eds.). (1996). Rhythms of academic
life: Personal accounts of careers in academia. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
Gilliland, S. W., & Cortina, J. M. (1997). Reviewer and editor
decision making in the journal review process. Personnel
Psychology, 50(2), 427–452.
Gilmore, A., Carson, D., & Perry, C. (2006). Academic publish-
ing: Best practice for editors, guest editors, authors and
reviewers. European Business Review, 18(6), 468–478.
Hamermesh, D. S. (1994). Facts and myths about refereeing. The
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8(1), 153–163.
Hamilton, D. P. (1990). Publishing by- and for-? – The numbers.
Science New Series, 250(4986), 1331–1332.
Hargens, L. L. (1998). Scholarly consensus and journal rejection
rates. American Sociological Review, 53(1), 139–151.
Harrison, D. (2002). Obligations and obfuscations in the review
process. 45(6), 1079–1084.
Holbrook, M. B. (1986). A note on sadomasochism in the review
process: I hate when that happens. Journal of Marketing,
50(3), 104–108.
Homburg, C. (2003). Publishing processes in the academic
marketing discipline in the United State: A German perspec-
tive. Academy of Marketing Science Journal, 31(3), 348–350.
P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304 303
Hopwood, A. G. (2000). Editorial: Celebrating and reviewing.
Accounting, Organizations and Society, 25(8), iii–iv.
Hopwood, A. G. (2007). Whither accounting research?. Account-
ing Review 8(5), 1365–1374.
Howard, T. P., & Stout, D. E. (2006). Reasons accounting case/
instructional resource papers are rejected for publication.
Journal of Accounting Education, 24(1), 1–15.
Hubbard, R., & Armstrong, J. S. (1994). Replications and
extensions in marketing: Rarely published but quite contrary.
International Research in Marketing, 11, 223–248.
Hubbard, R., & Vetter, D. E. (1996). An empirical comparison of
published replication research in accounting, economics,
?nance, management and marketing. Journal of Business
Research, 35(2), 153–164.
Hu?, A. S. (1999). Writing for scholarly publication. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Humphrey, C. G., Moizer, P., & Owen, D. L. (1995). Questioning
the merits of research selectivity in British University
Accounting. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal,
8(3), 141–164.
Jo¨ nsson, S. (2006). On academic writing. European Business
Review, 18(6), 479–490.
Kacmar, M. (2002). Editorial: Parting thoughts. Journal of
Management, 28(6), 719–724.
Kaplan, R. S. (1978). The information content of ?nancial
accounting numbers: A survey of empirical evidence. In A. R.
Abdel-Khalik & T. F. Keller (Eds.), The impact of accounting
research on practice and disclosure (pp. 134–173). Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Leslie, D. (2005). Are delays in academic publishing necessary.
The American Economic Review, 95(1), 407–413.
Locker, K. O., Reinsch, N. L., Jr., Dulek, R., & Flatley, M. E.
(1994). Turning a presentation into an article – What makes
an article publishable?. The Bulletin of the Association of
Business Communication 57(2), 59–66.
Loeb, S. E. (1994). Accounting academic ethics: A code is needed.
Issues in Accounting Education, 9(1), 191–200.
Miner, J. B. (2003). Commentary on Arthur Bedeian’s ‘The
manuscript review process: The proper roles of authors,
referees and editors’. Journal of Management Inquiry, 12(4),
339–343.
Neuhauser, D., McEachern, E., Zyzanski, S., Flocke, S., &
Williams, R. L. (2000). Continuous quality improvement and
the process of writing for academic publication. Quality
Management in Health Care, 8(3), 65–73.
Omer, T. C., Porter, S. L., Yetman, R. J., & Magro, A. M.
(2004). A discussion with reviewers: Insights from the midyear
ATA meetings. The Journal of the American Taxation
Association, 26(Suppl.), 135–141.
Oster, S. M., & Hammermesh, D. S. (1998). Aging and
productivity among economists. Review of Economics and
Statistics, 80(1), 154–156.
Otley, D. (2002). British Research in Accounting and Finance
(1996–2000): The 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. British
Accounting Review, 34(4), 387–418.
Parasuraman, A. (2003). Re?ections on contributing to a
discipline through research and writing. Academy of Market-
ing Science Journal, 31(3), 314–318.
Perry, C., Carson, D., & Gilmore, A. (2003). Joining a conver-
sation: Writing for EJM’s editors, reviewers and readers
requires planning, care and persistence. European Journal of
Marketing, 37(5/6), 652–667.
Peters, D. P., & Ceci, S. J. (1982). Peer-review practices of
psychological journals: The fate of published articles, sub-
mitted again. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 5, 187–255.
Rynes, S. (2002). From the editors: Some re?ections on contri-
bution. Academy of Management Journal, 45(2), 311–313.
Schminke, M. (2002). From the editors: Tensions. Academy of
Management Journal, 45(3), 487–490.
Sherrell, D. L., Hair, J. F., Jr., & Gri?n, M. (1989). Marketing
academicians’ perceptions of ethical research and publishing
behavior. Academy of Marketing Science Journal, 17(4),
315–324.
Simon, R. J., & Fyfe, J. J. (Eds.). (1994). Editors as gatekeepers:
Getting published in the social sciences. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Little?eld Publishers.
Singh, J. (2003). A reviewer’s gold. Academy of Marketing
Science, 31(3), 331–336.
Starbuck, W. H. (2003). Turning lemons into lemonade: Where is
the value in peer reviews?. Journal of Management Inquiry
12(4), 344–351.
Starbuck, W. H. (2005). How much better are the most
prestigious journals? The statistics of academic publication.
Organization Science, 16(2), 180–200.
Stewart, D. W. (2002). Getting published: Re?ections of an old
editor. Journal of Marketing, 66(4), 1–6.
Stout, D. E., Rebele, J. E., & Howard, T. P. (2006). Reasons
research papers are rejected at accounting journals. Issues in
Accounting Education, 21(2), 81–98.
Strathern, M. (1997). Improving ratings: Audit in the British
university system. European Review, 5(3), 305–321.
Sullivan, J. B. (1993). The impact of auditing research on auditing
practice. Auditing: A Journal of Theory and Practice, 12(Sup-
pl.), 1–2.
Summers, J. O. (2001). Guidelines for conducting research and
publishing in marketing: From conceptualization through the
review process. Academy of Marketing Science Journal, 29(4),
405–415.
Swanson, E. P. (2004). Publishing in the majors: A comparison of
accounting, ?nance, management and marketing. Contempo-
rary Accounting Research, 21(1), 223–255.
Swartz, K. (1999). Peer-reviewed journals and quality. Inquiry –
Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, 36(2), 119–121.
Thornton, M. (2004). Does academic publishing pass the real
market test?. Public Choice 120, 41–61.
Toppins, A. D., Henson, K. T., & Solezio, E. (1988). What
editors want: How to get published in HRD. Training and
Development Journal, 42(3), 26–29.
Von Glinow, M. A., & Novell, L. Jr., (1982). Ethical standards
with organizational behaviour. Academy of Management
Journal, 25(2), 417–436.
Voss, G. B. (2003). Formulating interesting research questions.
Academy of Marketing Science Journal, 31(3), 356–359.
Walker, S. (2004). Getting published. In Paper presented at the
accounting and commercial law conference.
Woodru?, R. B. (2003). Serving the marketing discipline through
journal reviews. Academy of Marketing Science, 31(3),
327–330.
Ze?, S. A. (1990). Review of selected papers on accounting,
auditing and professional problems by Edward Stamp.
Accounting Review, 65(1), 292–293.
Zuckerman, H. A., & Merton, R. K. (1971). Patterns of
evaluation in science: Institutionalization, structure and
functions of the referee system. Minerva, 9(1), 66–100.
304 P. Moizer / Accounting, Organizations and Society 34 (2009) 285–304

doc_258138041.pdf