TRENDS IN ACCOUNTING DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS: 1991–2000

✍ Scribed by Marcela Porporato; Ariel Sandin; Lewis Shaw

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 76 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0882-6110
• DOI: 10.1016/s0882-6110(03)20011-0

✦ Synopsis

Repeated calls for change in accounting programs and various pressures on the profession emphasize the importance of academic reflective adaptation.

Yet, curricula remain largely unchanged. One possible explanation may lie in the training of accounting educators. Doctoral programs focus on research culminating in dissertations. Assuming academics will tend to align career teaching and research interests consistent with their doctoral training, we examine doctoral dissertations in accounting over the ten-year period of 1991 through 2000.

Trends based on topic, research methodology, country of origin, and university are examined. The United States dominates and 14 major institutions continue to produce the preponderance of dissertations. Dissertation topics proportionally have not changed, nor has the predominant research methodology employed over the last decade. A strong emphasis on financial accounting topics utilizing publicly available databases persists. This is particularly so in the schools identified as the most prestigious. Implications for the crisis in accounting education are discussed.