An analysis of the accounting and finance research productivity in Australia and New Zealand in 1991–2010
Kam C. Chana, Chih-Hsiang Changb, Jamie Y. Tongc, Feida Zhangc
aDepartment of Finance, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101, USA
bDepartment of Finance, National University of Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
cSun Yat-Sen Business School, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
Abstract
We assess the research productivity of the accounting and finance community in Australian and New Zealand higher education institutions (HEIs) during 1991–2010 using 48 high-quality accounting and finance journals. Our finding suggests that the HEIs’ research output steadily increases during the 20-year per- iod. The University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, Monash University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland are the top-five HEIs. We also find that it is a challenge for an academic staff member to publish multiple articles. If an author is able to manage five total appearances over a 20-year period, he/she is in the top 15 per cent among all authors. Many highly productive authors are able to move to different jobs during the 20-year period.
Key words: Research assessment; Accounting; Finance; Australia; New Zealand JEL classification: M40
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-629X.2011.00440.x
Helpful comments from Gary Monroe and an anonymous reviewer are gratefully acknowledged. We are responsible for any remaining errors. Zhang (corresponding author) would like to thank the financial supports from National Natural Science Foun- dation of China (approval number: 71002058), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, the financial engineering and risk management research centre of Sun Yat-Sen University, and the base for financial innovation and regional development research of a Grant of the 985 Project of Sun Yat-Sen University. Tong and Zhang would like to thank the financial support from a Grant of the 985 Project (the innovation base for Chinese family business research) from Sun Yat-Sen University, Foundation of the Ministry of Education of China (06JC630031).
Received 14 April 2011; accepted 28 July 2011 by Gary Monroe (Deputy Editor).
1. Introduction
Previous literature suggests that the findings in research assessment have impli- cations in resource allocation, faculty recruitment, student enrolment decisions and accreditation, among others. Accordingly, many higher education institu- tions (HEIs) pay attention to their research rankings. For example, the Univer- sity of New South Wales promotes its university ranking in the 2010 QS World University Rankings in its website.1Similarly, Australian-Universities.com offer several research rankings for business schools.2
In general, the findings from research assessments are useful to various constit- uents. Nonetheless, few up-to-date studies on Australia and New Zealand accounting and finance departments are available. The objective of this study was to provide an updated and a long-term assessment on the research produc- tivity of accounting and finance departments in Australia and New Zealand.
While Australian and New Zealand HEIs have been included in Chan et al.’s (2001, 2005a,b, 2011a,b) studies of the Asia-Pacific finance research and the Chan et al.’s (2005a,b) study of the Asia-Pacific accounting research, these studies cover a different time period, examine accounting research separately from finance research and are without a focus in an Australia and New Zealand environment.
Our study focuses on accounting and finance research productivity among Australian and New Zealand HEIs. We make several contributions to the litera- ture. First, we provide an updated study on Australia and New Zealand account- ing and finance research assessment. Prior research on the subject is primarily completed in the 1990s. Therefore, an updated study is warranted. Second, many Australian and New Zealand HEIs have accounting and finance faculty in the same department, and many of their faculty members pursue research in both areas. A finance- or accounting-only study, such as those by Chan et al.
(2011a,b, 2005a,b), does not accurately reflect the research productivity of the interdisciplinary nature of the accounting and finance departments among Aus- tralian and New Zealand HEIs. Third, Australia and New Zealand have a strong tradition to manage the research activity of their HEIs. Both Australia and New Zealand have adopted the UK’s research and assessment model to evaluate and allocate research funds among HEIs. For example, the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative was completed in 2010 and the Australian Research Council is about to conduct another round of ERA in 2012. Similarly, the New Zealand Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF) Exercise has
1http://www.unsw.edu.au/futureStudents/undergrad/sad/unirankings.html (assessed on 9 April 2011).
2For details, see http://www.australian-universities.com/ratings/business-school-rankings/
(assessed on April 9, 2011). The website only lists a general ranking of top 12 business schools in Australia. No rankings in specific business areas are provided.
been conducted since 2002 (Edgar and Geare, 2010). The results of these research assessment exercises help Australian and New Zealand governments allocate research funding to HEIs. Both the ERA and PBRF, however, are short-term or intermediate-term assessments. The long-term research performance of HEIs is not clear. Hence, it makes sense to study both accounting and finance research productivity together over a longer period. Our findings augment the informa- tion provided from the government-sponsored assessment studies. Fourth, by studying a longer time period covering research output in accounting and finance journals, we are able to depict several interesting perspectives such as the trend of research output among Australian and New Zealand HEIs over time and HEIs’ faculty member job mobility. These perspectives are seldom addressed explicitly in any assessment exercises.
We document that the research output of Australian and New Zealand HEIs, in terms of weighted articles, steadily increases during the 20-year period. In 1991, Australian and New Zealand HEIs published 49.17 weighted articles and this number increased to 142.06 in 2010. The University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, Monash University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland are the top-five HEIs using 48 accounting and finance journals for the full sample. The frequency distribution of total appear- ances for authors suggests that it is a challenge to publish multiple articles. If an author is able to manage five total appearances over the 20-year period (1991–2010), he/she is in the top 15 per cent among the 1245 Australian and New Zealand academic staff members. Furthermore, we find that many highly productive authors are able to move to different jobs during the 20-year period.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a brief literature review on research productivity assessment related to Australia and New Zealand. Section 3 specifies the research designs and sample. Section 4 presents the empirical results, and we conclude this article in the last section.
2. Literature review
There is a voluminous amount of literature on research productivity assess- ment. To conserve space, we confine our discussion to literature related to Aus- tralia and New Zealand. Broadbent (2010) discusses rationales of an assessment programme with specific examples from the UK’s research and assessment exer- cises (RAEs). Broadbent (2010) suggests that RAEs in UK, or similar pro- grammes in other countries, allow a government to oversee its HEIs’ research activity through a peer-reviewed assessment programme. The RAEs also allow HEIs and the faculty to enhance their reputation. HEIs can expand their non- government-funded programmes, attracting oversea students, and hire produc- tive faculty. For academic staff, a strong assessment can boost their consultancy work, promotion, job mobility and salaries. Broadbent (2010) concludes that RAEs align individual, institutional and government interests. In contrast, De Lange et al. (2010) examine the potential impact of ERA on accounting
departments in Australia. De Langeet al.(2010) express concern that the general standing of Australian accounting departments would be lower.
Studies on Australia and New Zealand research assessment in accounting and/
or finance are not new. Brownell and Godfrey (1993) conduct a survey to report the ranking of Australian accounting departments. The University of Queens- land and the University of New South Wales are in the 1–2 positions. Wilkinson and Durden (1998) study the accounting faculty publication patterns in New Zealand. Towe (1996) provides an early study of accounting and finance depart- ments in Australia using publication records of 301 academic staff members dur- ing 1990–1994. Towe (1996) finds that there are only 28 academic staff members publishing more than two articles over the 5-year period.
Chanet al. (2001, 2005a,b, 2011a,b) conduct research assessments of finance departments in the Asia-Pacific region. Australian and New Zealand finance departments are evaluated in these studies. In Chan et al.’s study (2011), the University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, Monash University and the University of Auckland are among the top 10 universities in finance research productivity.
Chan et al. (2005a,b) provide the only assessment of accounting research in the Asia-Pacific region. They use 18 accounting journals during 1991–2002 in the evaluation. Among the top-20 accounting departments, Australia makes up 10 and New Zealand has one.
Overall, the literature on Australia and New Zealand accounting and finance research assessment is dated. In addition, the mentioned Asia-Pacific focused studies did not specifically examine Australian and New Zealand HEIs. Hence, the trends of research output among the Australian and New Zealand HEIs are not clear. Perspectives about the Australian and New Zealand academic staff members are not discussed either. Our study fills this gap by providing a compre- hensive and up-to-date assessment of the Australian and New Zealand account- ing and finance departments.
3. Data and method
To conduct a research assessment, we need to select a set of journals during a specific time period to conduct the study. We follow Chanet al. (2011a,b) and use their 23 finance journals. For accounting journals, we include a set of 24 accounting journals that were used in a global accounting ranking study by Chan et al. (2007). In the light of the generally high reputation of Accounting Horizons, Australian Accounting Review, International Journal of Accounting, and Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting, we also include them. Because Accounting and Finance, Journal of Business, Finance, and Accounting and Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting are included in both studies by Chanet al.(2007, 2011a,b), the final sample consists of 48 accounting and finance journals. The data cover 1991–2010. The full list of the journals is in the first column of Table 1.
Table1 ResearchoutputamongAustralianandNewZealandhighereducationinstitutionsin48accountingandfinancejournals(1991–2010) JournalfullnameAbbrev. name Totalnumber ofarticles published Wt.articles byAustralian HEIs Wt.articlesby NewZealand HEIs
%shareby Australian HEIs%shareby NZHEIsTotal (%) Accounting,Auditing,andAccountabilityJournalAAAJ628145.7326.9223.24.327.4 AustralianAccountingReviewAAR432300.6230.9269.67.276.7 AbacusAB345145.9213.9442.34.046.3 AccountingandBusinessResearchABR43044.089.2510.32.212.4 AccountingandFinanceAF416272.3829.5065.57.172.6 AccountingHorizonsAH5326.922.531.30.51.8 Accounting,Organizations,andSociety*AOS67561.964.759.20.79.9 TheAccountingReview*AR80914.001.691.70.21.9 Auditing:AJournalofPracticeandTheoryAUDITING37516.423.674.41.05.4 BritishAccountingReviewBAR35553.7711.9515.43.418.8 BehavioralResearchinAccountingBRA24116.832.507.01.08.0 ContemporaryAccountingResearch*CAR57017.083.503.00.63.6 EuropeanAccountingReviewEAR60114.582.922.40.52.9 EuropeanFinancialManagementEFM4000.000.000.00.00.0 FinancialAnalystsJournalFAJ9493.501.500.40.20.5 FinancialManagementFM5852.043.080.30.50.9 FinancialReviewFR65810.586.171.60.92.5 IssuesinAccountingEducationIAE5996.003.201.00.51.5 InternationalJournalofAccountingIJA43928.0010.426.42.48.6 JournalofAccounting,Auditing,andFinanceJAAF4543.172.500.70.61.2 JournalofAccountingandEconomics*JAE5335.330.171.00.01.0 JournalofAccountingLiteratureJAL896.085.086.85.712.5 JournalofAccountingandPublicPolicyJAPP3837.423.751.91.02.9 JournalofAccountingResearch*JAR5663.711.830.70.31.0 JournalofAmericanTaxationAssociationJATA2560.250.000.10.00.1 JournalofBusinessJB5157.831.751.50.31.9
Table1(continued) JournalfullnameAbbrev. name Totalnumber ofarticles published Wt.articles byAustralian HEIs Wt.articlesby NewZealand HEIs
%shareby Australian HEIs%shareby NZHEIsTotal (%) JournalofBankingandFinance*JBF230579.6720.753.50.94.4 JournalofBusiness,Finance,andAccountingJBFA114951.6712.254.51.15.6 JournalofCorporateFinance*JCF4448.921.002.00.22.2 JournalofEmpiricalFinanceJEMF48213.082.752.70.63.3 JournalofFinance*JF16207.742.880.50.20.7 JournalofFinancialEconomics*JFE12004.583.030.40.30.6 JournalofFinancialIntermediationJFI3252.500.000.80.00.8 JournalofFuturesMarketsJFM100745.9612.004.61.25.8 JournalofFinancialMarketsJFMkt2356.920.502.90.23.2 JournalofFinancialandQuantitativeAnalysis*JFQA6979.502.171.40.31.7 JournalofFinancialResearchJFR59614.167.832.41.33.7 JournalofFinancialServicesResearchJFSR4138.750.502.10.12.2 JournalofInternationalFinancialManagement andAccountingJIFMA2126.336.203.02.95.9 JournalofInternationalMoneyandFinanceJIMF107523.131.172.20.12.3 JournalofManagementAccountingResearchJMAR2008.500.004.30.04.3 JournalofPortfolioManagementJPM9284.670.580.50.10.6 ManagementAccountingResearchMAR38341.0012.0010.73.113.8 NationalTaxJournalNTJ8544.750.500.60.10.6 Pacific-BasinFinanceJournalPBFJ49198.4222.2920.04.524.6 ReviewofAccountingStudies*RAST2721.670.000.60.00.6 ReviewofFinancialStudies*RFS9661.251.920.10.20.3 ReviewofQuantitativeFinanceandAccountingRQFA69520.465.172.90.73.7 Total293841657.80298.985.61.06.6 ThistablepresentstheweightedarticlesandtheirpercentageshareofthetotalbyAustralianandNewZealandhighereducationinstitutions(HEIs)in48 high-qualityaccountingandfinancejournalsduring1991–2010.Theweightsarenumberofcoauthorsandnumberofcoaffiliations.*Journalsthatarerated as‘A*’bytheAustralianBusinessDeansCouncil.
In addition, we proofread the data to mitigate possible errors caused by chang- ing publishing habits of some authors and HEI name changes. For instance, Vic- toria University and Victoria University of Technology are the same HEI, only with recent name changes. For authors, some authors use names ‘J. Adams’, ‘J.
A. Adams’ or ‘John A. Adams’ over the 20 years. We make corrections to these cases.3
During the sample period, these 48 journals published a total of 29 384 articles. Australian and New Zealand have a total of 53 HEIs appearing at least once in the sample. We do not include editorials, comments, replies, book reviews, errata and guest editor introductions. Similar to Chan et al.
(2003), we use the number of coauthors (N) and coaffiliations (M) to derive the weighted articles as the measurement metric. For example, if an article has two coauthors (X and Y) and X lists one affiliation (A) and Y lists two affiliations (A and B), then, both authors X and Y get 0.5 weighted articles, while Institution A gets 0.75 weighted articles and Institution B gets 0.25 weighted articles.
Journal quality is hardly the same. While it would be useful to adopt a quality-adjusted metric to all journals, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to come up a generally acceptable quality measure for the 48 accounting and finance journals. Further, the typical Social Science Citation Index impact factors are not available for all journals. Hence, we provide an alternative ranking using only a smaller set of 12 accounting and finance journals that are rated as ‘A*’ by the Australian Business Deans Council. These journals are The Accounting Review, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Contempo- rary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Jour- nal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance and Journal of Banking and Finance. Using these 12 A* journals allows us to address the impact of rankings from departments that publish articles only in non-A* journals.
Similar to the literature (e.g. Chanet al., 2011a,b), we have several caveats in our study. First, our journal coverage is 1991–2010. That is, academic staff mem- bers who publish in pre-1991 period are not included. Second, it is possible that some academic staff members publish articles in high-quality journals of other disciplines. Thus, we may undercount institutional and personal contributions.
Third, academic staff members in other disciplines (e.g. management, statistics, economics and mathematics) from the same institutions may contribute to the 48 journals. Thus, it is possible that we overcount the contributions of the accounting and finance staff members in these HEIs.
3We make a good faith effort to make the corrections. However, some cases cannot be verified.
4. Results and discussions
The research output among Australian and New Zealand HEIs by journals is presented in Table 1. It shows that Australian and New Zealand HEIs pub- lish approximately 1658 and 299 weighted articles, representing 5.6 per cent and 1.0 per cent of the total, during the sample period. Australian Accounting Review, Accounting and Finance and Abacus have the highest Australia and New Zealand presences of 76.7 per cent, 72.6 per cent and 46.3 per cent, respectively. In contrast, European Financial Management, Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of American Taxation Association and Review of Financial Studies have much less Australia and New Zealand presences with 0.5 per cent or less contribution.
To evaluate the overall research performance of the accounting and finance academic community in Australia and New Zealand, we examine the annual weighted articles, the percentage share of the total number of articles and the total appearances of Australian and New Zealand HEIs. The results are pre- sented in Table 2 and Figures 1a,b. Australia HEIs, as a group, produced 44.42 weighted articles in 1991 and they increased to 114.48 weighted articles in 2010.
Similarly, New Zealand sees its HEIs having 4.75 weighted articles in 1991 to 27.58 weighted articles in 2010. With respect to the percentage share of the total articles available, Australian and New Zealand HEIs fluctuate between 4.1 per cent and 8.4 per cent. Table 2, Figure 1a,b together show that Australian and New Zealand HEIs’ accounting and finance community exhibits an increasing trend in research output during 1991–2010.
Table 3 Panel A presents the weighted articles of all 53 HEIs in the 48 accounting and finance journals. The University of New South Wales, the Uni- versity of Sydney, Monash University, the University of Melbourne and the Uni- versity of Queensland lead with 252.65, 192.56, 155.10, 123.51 and 84.54 weighted articles, respectively. Column (4) reports the total appearances. The total appearance rankings are similar to those with weighted articles with only minor changes in a few cases. The cumulative percentage of the weighted articles from the HEIs reported in Column (5) suggests a skewed distribution. The top- 10 HEIs publish approximately 61 per cent of the total research output. The skewed distribution implies that it is a challenge to move up the research rank- ing. For instance, to move from 30th to 20th (10 spots), an HEI needs to pro- duce 18.2 more articles (34.17–16.5), but for the same 10 spots from 20th to 10th, an HEI needs to produce 32.25 more articles (66.42–34.17).
Table 3 Panel B reports the Australian and New Zealand HEIs with only 12 A* journals in accounting and finance. The top-five HEIs are the Univer- sity of New South Wales, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the University of Sydney and the University of Auckland. The ranking in Panel B is slightly different from the ranking in Panel A. For instance, the University of Auckland moves from 9th in Panel A to 5th in Panel B. The cumulative percentage of weighted articles in these 12 A* journals shows
even higher skewness than that in Table 3 Panel A. The top-10 HEIs account for 77.6 per cent of all articles. Hence, to publish in A* journals would be even a much bigger challenge than just to publish in a set of high- quality accounting and finance journals.
With a 20-year period, we are able to divide the full sample into two subs- amples (1991 to 2000 and 2001 to 2010) and examine the progress of the HEIs in their research programme. Following Chan et al. (2011a,b), we report the ranking in the two separate subperiods in Table 4 Columns (4) and (6).
Clearly, the top-four HEIs remain the same over the two subperiods. The Uni- versity of Southern Queensland drops from 19th to 34th between the subperi- ods. In contrast, the University of Technology in Sydney sees a rise from 17th rank to 9th rank. Auckland University of Technology, having a relatively new finance department in mid-2000, establishes as a 15th-ranked HEI during 2001–2010.
Table 2
Financial research among Australian and New Zealand in 48 accounting and finance journals by year (1991–2010)
Year Total number of articles published
Wt. articles by Australian higher education institutions (HEIs)
Wt. articles by New Zealand HEIs
% share by Australian HEIs
% share by NZ HEIs
Total (%)
1991 1161 44.42 4.75 3.8 0.4 4.2
1992 1174 39.83 8.50 3.4 0.7 4.1
1993 1253 53.42 3.50 4.3 0.3 4.5
1994 1241 53.00 13.67 4.3 1.1 5.4
1995 1269 63.92 12.67 5.0 1.0 6.0
1996 1391 66.18 13.53 4.8 1.0 5.7
1997 1342 67.03 16.75 5.0 1.2 6.2
1998 1329 69.58 8.96 5.2 0.7 5.9
1999 1343 77.54 11.08 5.8 0.8 6.6
2000 1351 83.53 13.83 6.2 1.0 7.2
2001 1334 77.98 13.29 5.8 1.0 6.8
2002 1402 74.11 10.50 5.3 0.7 6.0
2003 1467 99.17 13.83 6.8 0.9 7.7
2004 1507 92.54 9.83 6.1 0.7 6.8
2005 1576 103.27 22.08 6.6 1.4 8.0
2006 1718 110.58 28.69 6.5 1.7 8.2
2007 1722 114.88 18.53 6.7 1.1 7.7
2008 1821 125.93 26.95 6.9 1.5 8.4
2009 1952 126.43 20.43 6.5 1.0 7.5
2010 2031 114.48 27.58 5.6 1.4 7.0
Total 29 384 1657.80 298.95 5.6 1.0 6.6
This table presents the trend of Australian and New Zealand HEIs’ weighted articles and their per- centage share of the total during 1991–2010.
Following Chanet al. (2003), we study the total appearances of authors and labour mobility in the academia. Table 5 Panels A and B present the distribution of the total appearances by authors in 48 journals and in 12 A* journals. We also highlight job mobility among Australian and New Zealand academic staff in the Table. Because it is common for HEIs to count a coauthored article as
0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00 120.00 140.00
1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Australia NZ
0.0%
1.0%
2.0%
3.0%
4.0%
5.0%
6.0%
7.0%
8.0%
9.0%
1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009
% Australia
% NZ
% Total (a)
(b)
Figure 1 Weighted number of articles, percentage share of total and total appearance by Australian and New Zealand Higher Education Institutions. (a) Plots the weighted number of articles of Austra-
lian and New Zealand universities during 1991–2010. (b) Plots the percentage share of Australian and New Zealand universities during 1991–2010.
Table 3
Research output in accounting and finance departments in Australia and New Zealand during 1991–2010
Rank Higher education institution Wt-articles Total appearance
Cumulative percentage of wt-articles
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Panel A: 48 journals
1 U New South Wales 252.65 537 12.9
2 U Sydney 192.56 400 22.8
3 Monash U 155.10 338 30.7
4 U Melbourne 123.51 264 37.0
5 U Queensland 84.54 188 41.3
6 Australian National U 80.17 159 45.4
7 U Western Australia 78.94 189 49.4
8 Massey U 78.64 179 53.5
9 U Auckland 75.36 163 57.3
10 Macquarie U 66.42 135 60.7
11 U Tech Sydney 60.60 139 63.8
12 Griffith U 52.00 91 66.5
13 RMIT U 47.58 107 68.9
14 Victoria U Wellington 45.03 83 71.2
15 Deakin U 43.88 82 73.4
16 U Wollongong 40.25 61 75.5
17 U Newcastle 37.00 66 77.4
18 La Trobe U 36.33 77 79.2
19 U Waikato 35.00 69 81.0
20 Queensland U Tech 34.17 66 82.8
21 Flinders U South Australia 31.33 35 84.4
22 Edith Cowan U 26.07 52 85.7
23 Auckland U Tech 25.58 55 87.0
24 U Otago 24.99 53 88.3
25 U South Queensland 21.20 44 89.4
26 U Tasmania 20.28 42 90.4
27 U Canterbury 19.70 31 91.4
28 U Adelaide 18.13 29 92.3
29 Curtin U Tech 17.92 39 93.3
30 U Western Sydney 16.50 27 94.1
31 Murdoch U 15.67 37 94.9
32 U South Australia 13.42 30 95.6
33 Bond U 9.42 19 96.1
34 Charles Sturt U 9.03 16 96.5
35 U New England 8.17 17 97.0
36 Swinburne U Tech 8.03 15 97.4
37 Victoria U 7.42 13 97.7
38 U Ballarat 7.25 14 98.1
39 UNITEC Tech 6.44 13 98.4
40 U Canberra 6.00 8 98.7
Table 3 (continued)
Rank Higher education institution Wt-articles Total appearance
Cumulative percentage of wt-articles
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
41 Lincoln U 5.50 9 99.0
42 James Cook U 5.42 14 99.3
43 South Cross U 5.00 8 99.6
44 U Sunshine Coast 1.67 4 99.6
45 Central Queensland U 1.50 3 99.7
46 Open Polytechnic New Zealand 1.33 3 99.8
47 U Central Queensland 1.00 1 99.8
48 Northern Territory U 0.83 2 99.9
49 Manukau Institute Tech 0.75 2 99.9
50 U Notre Dame Australia 0.50 1 99.9
51t Chancellery U Tech 0.33 1 100.0
51t Charles Darwin U 0.33 1 100.0
51t Christchurch College Education 0.33 1 100.0
Total 1957.80 4032 –
Panel B: 12 ‘A*’ journals
1 U New South Wales 66.75 131 25.8
2 U Melbourne 28.79 55 36.9
3 Monash U 21.75 47 45.3
4 U Sydney 17.83 44 52.1
5 U Auckland 17.78 40 59.0
6 U Queensland 13.29 31 64.1
7 Macquarie U 11.67 27 68.6
8 Massey U 9.66 25 72.4
9 U Tech Sydney 7.75 18 75.4
10 Auckland U Tech 5.75 16 77.6
11 Victoria U Wellington 5.58 11 79.7
12 Australian National U 5.29 16 81.8
13 Griffith U 5.00 8 83.7
14t Bond U 4.00 6 85.2
14t U Western Sydney 4.00 5 86.8
16 RMIT U 3.42 7 88.1
17 U South Queensland 3.00 6 89.3
18 Deakin U 2.67 6 90.3
19t U Waikato 2.25 5 91.2
19t La Trobe U 2.25 4 92.0
21t U Otago 2.17 5 92.9
21t U Tasmania 2.17 3 93.7
23 Queensland U Tech 2.08 6 94.5
24 U Western Australia 2.04 6 95.3
25 U South Australia 1.83 3 96.0
26 Flinders U South Australia 1.50 2 96.6
27 U Wollongong 1.42 4 97.1
28 Edith Cowan U 1.33 2 97.6
one article, we use total appearances as the metric. Panel A Column (3) gives a cumulative percentage of the total appearances with respect to 48 journals. There are, altogether, 1245 authors publishing in the 48 journals, and 682 (about 55 per cent) of them only appear once during 1991–2010. For anyone who publishes 11 or more articles, he/she is approximately in the top 5 per cent (1–94.54 per cent) of all authors. Our findings are broadly consistent with Towe (1996) in that it is a challenge to produce multiple articles in high-quality accounting/finance journals. For the 12 A* journals, Panel B Columns 2 and 3 present similar statis- tics as those in Panel A. If an academic staff has five A* articles over the 20-year period, he/she is in the top 5 per cent among all authors who ever published in A* journals.
While it is natural to relate research productivity to academic staff members’
job mobility, the specific evidence in Australia and New Zealand has not been reported. The approach is to trace job movement for every Australian and New Zealand academic staff member. Such an approach, however, is not possible over a long period of time. Thus, we use the method outlined in Chanet al. (2003, 2011a,b) to identify labour mobility in academia. We use a computer program to read over the academic staff members’ affiliations over the 20 years and flag the
Table 3 (continued)
Rank Higher education institution Wt-articles Total appearance
Cumulative percentage of wt-articles
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
29 U Canberra 1.00 1 98.0
30 Murdoch U 0.92 3 98.4
31 U Sunshine Coast 0.67 2 98.6
32t U Newcastle 0.50 2 98.8
32t U Adelaide 0.50 1 99.0
32t U New England 0.50 1 99.2
32t Victoria U 0.50 1 99.4
32t U Ballarat 0.50 1 99.6
32t UNITEC Tech 0.50 1 99.8
32t South Cross U 0.50 1 100.0
Total 259.11 553 –
This table provides a ranking of Australian and New Zealand higher education institutions during 1991–2010 based on the weighted articles. Panel A uses all 48 accounting and finance journals, while Panel B only uses 12 A* journals (The Accounting Review, Accounting, Organizations, and Society, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Contemporary Accounting Research, Review of Accounting Studies, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance and Journal of Banking and Finance). The cumulative percentage is in the last column. ‘t’
stands for a tie.
members if they have different affiliations. To facilitate our analysis, we require the academic staff members to appear twice or more in the 48 journals during 1991–2010. Columns (4) and (5) in Table 5 Panels A and B report the relevant statistics for 48 journals and 12 A* journals.4In Column (4) of Panel A, with authors who appear only twice, 50 of 170 authors (about 29 per cent) move to a
Table 4
A comparison of research output during 1991–2000 and 2001–2010
Rank in Table 3 Panel A
Higher education institution
First 10 years:
1991–2000
Second 10 years:
2001–2010
Change in rank Wt-articles Rank Wt-articles Rank
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
1 U New South Wales 100.03 1 152.62 1 0
2 U Sydney 60.28 2 132.28 2 0
3 Monash U 47.90 3 107.20 3 0
4 U Melbourne 46.17 4 77.34 4 0
5 U Queensland 23.75 10 60.79 5 5
6 Australian National U 33.17 6 47.00 8 )2
7 U Western Australia 36.30 5 42.64 10 )5
8 Massey U 21.79 11 56.85 6 5
9 U Auckland 27.42 7 47.94 7 0
10 Macquarie U 27.42 8 39.00 11 )3
11 U Tech Sydney 15.08 17 45.52 9 8
12 Griffith U 25.33 9 26.67 13 )4
13 RMIT U 15.25 16 32.33 12 4
14 Victoria U Wellington 21.28 12 23.75 16 )4
15 Deakin U 18.17 14 25.71 14 0
16 U Wollongong 16.83 15 23.42 17 )2
17 U Newcastle 15.00 18 21.33 19 )1
18 La Trobe U 13.92 20 23.08 18 2
19 U Waikato 18.33 13 16.67 22 )9
20 Queensland U Tech 13.50 21t 20.67 20 1
21 Flinders U South Australia 10.83 26 20.50 21 5
22 Edith Cowan U 13.23 23 12.83 24 )1
23 Auckland U Tech 0.00 NA 25.58 15 NA
24 U Otago 13.50 21t 11.49 27 )6
25 U South Queensland 14.50 19 6.70 34 )15
This table reports the progress of Australian and New Zealand higher education institutions during 1991–2010. The rankings in each subperiod are presented. The last column shows the change in ranking.
4The reported statistics in Table 5, however, are very possible to underreport academic staff members’ mobility. The reason is that some members may stop publishing in the 48 journals after they move to new jobs.
new job during the 20-year period. For authors with three and more appearances in the 48 journals, the percentage of authors who move to different jobs is much higher than 29 per cent. In fact, for highly productive authors with 15 or more total appearances in the 48 journals, a large proportion of them move to differ- ent jobs during the 20-year period. Panel B shows similar findings for author mobility in the 12 A* journals. In sum, our finding suggests a positive association between research output and job mobility.
Table 5
Frequency distribution of total appearances by authors and their job mobility in Australian and New Zealand higher education institutions
Total appearances
Number of authors
Cumulative % of the total number of authors
Number of authors who moved jobs
% of authors who moved jobs within each appearance category
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Panel A: 48 journals
1 only 682 54.78 NA NA
2 only 170 68.43 50 29.41
3 only 99 76.39 33 33.33
4 only 67 81.77 34 50.75
5 only 47 85.54 27 57.45
6 only 30 87.95 19 63.33
7 only 27 90.12 20 74.07
8 only 19 91.65 8 42.11
9 only 17 93.01 14 82.35
10 only 10 93.82 9 90.00
11 only 9 94.54 8 88.89
12–14 27 96.71 22 81.48
15–17 14 97.83 13 92.86
18–20 13 98.88 11 84.62
21–24 5 99.28 5 100.00
25 or more 9 100.00 6 66.67
Total 1245 279 49.56 (279/563 authors)
Panel B: 12 A* journals
1 only 186 66.43 56 30.11
2 only 45 82.50 26 57.78
3 only 16 88.21 9 56.25
4 only 12 92.50 10 83.33
5 only 7 95.00 7 100
6 or more 14 100 11 78.57
Total 280 119 42.50 (218 of 280)
This table shows the frequency distribution of total appearances by each author. Column (4) lists the number of authors who move jobs in the 20-year period. Overall, 49.56% of all authors who publish more than one article moved to another job.
5. Summary
In this study, we offer a long-term, up-to-date and comprehensive examination of the research productivity of accounting and finance departments in Australia and New Zealand during 1991–2010. With comprehensive data from 48 account- ing and finance journals, we make several interesting findings. First, the research output among Australian and New Zealand accounting and finance departments exhibits an upward trend in terms of absolute output as well as percentage share of the total research during the 20-year period. Australian and New Zealand HEIs published a total of 49.17 weighted articles in 1991, but in 2010, they pub- lished 142.06 weighted articles. Second, the University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, Monash University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland are the top-five HEIs in accounting and finance research productivity. Within a set of 12 A* accounting and finance journals, the top-five HEIs are the University of New South Wales, the University of Mel- bourne, Monash University, the University of Sydney and the University of Auckland. Third, after we divide the 20-year sample into two subperiods, we find that the top-four HEIs do not show any change in ranking. Nevertheless, while some HEIs are making significant progress, others experience a decline in their research output. Fourth, the results from the frequency distribution for the total appearances by authors suggest that it is a challenge to publish multiple articles.
If an author is able to manage five total appearances, he/she is in the top 15 per cent among the 1245 Australian and New Zealand academic staff members. Fur- thermore, we find that many highly productive staff members are able to move to different jobs during the 20-year period. We contend that research productiv- ity contributes to staff members’ job mobility.
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