| Abstract: |
Purpose – University academics are important to the discovery and
dissemination of knowledge about accounting practice and accounting learning.
This article explores the consequences for the Pacific society of New Zealand
of how these discovery and dissemination activities have come to be assessed
for performance management, formulaic public funding and offshore
accreditation. Design/methodology/approach – A longitudinal, bibliometric
approach is taken to how knowledge about accounting practice and accounting
learning in New Zealand has been disseminated over the past half century. The
approach lends itself to the question of whether the trends revealed in the
bibliometrics are suited to New Zealand audiences, including students,
accountants, policymakers, Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous people and its
diverse recent-settler populations, and Pacific New Zealand Society. One
hundred and sixty accounting journals and several professional magazines are
searched for articles based on empirical materials drawn from New Zealand.
Findings – The findings relate to the geographical locations of the editors
and the rankings of the periodicals that articles have been published in, and
the topics the articles cover. The findings are interpreted in the broad
contexts of academic activities, university development, and tertiary
education policy and funding. Of the three activities associated with
accounting in New Zealand universities, research has been the last to develop,
starting with occasional articles penned by a small band of professors and
published in the Chartered Accountants Journal (CAJ) and The Accounting
Review. Now, research is often accorded the highest priority, as reflected in
formal individual academic performance measurement systems, and related
institutional incentives and penalties (exemplified by the Performance Based
Research Fund of 2012). Measurement is conducted at the individual and
institutional level, using criteria linked to lists of periodicals that are
decidedly Atlantocentric. The CAJ has been deserted in favour of academic
journals, virtually all based outside New Zealand. Academics have modified the
way they report to suit the foreign editors and readerships. Publication
patterns continue to change. Strong incentives and coercements seem to exist
for New Zealand-based academics to behave selfishly for short-term survival.
These persuaders seem to be wielded by a quasi-indigenous élite seeking to
mimic their supposed superior counterparts elsewhere; and to dominate their
subjects, and so exercise power and maintain their status. This is regardless
of what might be better from a local, societal point of view. To publish about
New Zealand, there is some advantage in studying areas in which New Zealand is
seen as a “world leader” (e.g., Structural Adjustment, New Public Management,
environmental accounting). This contrasts with areas about which the outside
world is oblivious (e.g., New Zealand’s multicultural array of people and
organisations, including the Maori people) or areas in which New Zealand lacks
differences of “world” interest (e.g., financial collapses and director
impropriety, what can be learnt from stock exchange data). Research
limitations/implications – The research is confined to basic bibliometrics (a
publication analysis, rather than citation or co-citation analyses), anecdotes
and comparison with secondary sources. Originality/value – This study is
concerned with whether knowledge about accounting practice and accounting
learning in New Zealand is being disseminated in a way that suits those likely
to be most interested and affected. It is distinct from most studies of this
ilk, which attempt to rank journals or are about researcher productivity and
author placement. |
| Keywords: |
Higher education, Bibliometrics, Colonialism, Criticism, Accounting history, Accounting research, New Zealand, Research assessment |