Accounting academia in emerging economies: evolutions and challenges

• Date: 05 May 2015
• Pages: 128-151
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJAIM-04-2014-0024
• Published date: 05 May 2015
• Author: Nadia Albu,Catalin Nicolae Albu,Stefan Bunea,Maria Madalina Girbina
• Subject Matter: Accounting & Finance,Accounting/accountancy,Accounting methods/systems

Accounting academia in

emerging economies: evolutions

and challenges

Nadia Albu, Catalin Nicolae Albu, Stefan Bunea and

Maria Madalina Girbina

Department of Accounting and Management Information Systems,

Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the development of accounting academia in an emerging

country situated in Central and Eastern Europe.

Design/methodology/approach – First, the authors analyze publications in the main three local

Romanian journals dedicated to accounting, using content analysis and statistical tests in line with the

issues analyzed for accounting publications in the international literature. Second, they mobilize

personal experience of, and observations of local developments by, the authors.

Findings – The authors nd that the decision of establishing a national journal ranking system in

Romania in 2005 had both positive and negative consequences. Romanian accounting academics were

asked after 2005 to focus on a very short notice on writing research papers, following a long period of

communism and about 15 years of post-communism during which they wrote textbooks and

professional papers. Journal and university rankings therefore inuenced the publication behavior of

such researchers, leading to searches for efciency, ease of publications, publications outside

accounting as well as to a difcult publication of their research outcome by internationally relevant

accounting journals.

Research limitations/implications – Publications in the three Romanian accounting journals for

one year were analyzed and the personal experience of the authors mobilized. However, following this

study, university administrators and national regulators can better ascertain the effect of their actions,

and use these ndings to better plan their future actions.

Originality/value – This paper contributes to accounting research literature by offering insights into

the current state of accounting research and publication in an emerging economy (Romania), and by

investigating the institutional factors that may be responsible for this state of affairs.

Keywords Romania, Accounting research, Academic identity construction,

Accounting academic career, Accounting journals, Publishing patterns

Paper type Research paper

A presentation based on the topic of this paper was made during the “Meet the editors” panel

organized during the 3rd edition of the International Conference on Accounting and Management

Information Systems (AMIS) held at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania, on

19-20 June 2008. Dr Lee Yao (former editor of IJAIM) was a panelist and he was intrigued by the

evolutions of the academic environment in Romania in particular, and in developing countries in

general. The authors thank Dr Yao and the other panelists and participants at the workshop for

their contributions, comments and suggestions. Also, they particularly thank Robert Faff for his

useful comments and suggestions, and the IJAIM anonymous reviewer.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/1834-7649.htm

IJAIM

23,2

128

Received 14 April 2014

Revised 14 April 2014

Accepted 19 April 2014

InternationalJournal of

Accounting& Information

Management

Vol.23 No. 2, 2015

pp.128-151

©Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1834-7649

DOI 10.1108/IJAIM-04-2014-0024

1. Introduction

Research and publication records are most important in tenure evaluation, universities’

ranking and grant awarding across all disciplines and all universities (Bonner et al.,

2006;Brinn and Jones, 2008;Wu et al., 2009). Usually, incentive systems are used to

enhance research activity; yet, poorly designed, they can easily induce pernicious effects

(Charreaux and Schatt, 2005;Ratnatunga, 2008;Albu and Albu, 2012).

Therefore, how the body of accounting knowledge is created and disseminated and

how the identity of accounting academics is formed are of academic interest. Prior

research in these areas is related to journal rankings (Reiter and Williams, 2002;

Swanson, 2004;Lowe and Locke, 2005;Bonner et al., 2006;Hoffjan et al., 2008;Wu et al.,

2009;Northcott and Linacre, 2010), the effects of assessment and evaluation practices

(Cottingham and Hussey, 2000;Lowe and Locke, 2005;Cruz-Castro and Sanz-Menendez,

2008), the relationship between accounting research and practice (Lee, 1989;Cottingham

and Hussey, 2000;Inanga and Schneider, 2005;Moehrle et al., 2009;Baldvinsdottir et al.,

2010;Parker et al., 2011;Tucker and Lowe, 2011) and the academic life and career

(Hermanson, 2008;Gendron, 2008;James, 2008;Chua, 2011;Czarniawska, 2011;

Messner, 2013). Much of this research is placed in the context of developed countries,

with a preeminence for the Anglo-American context (UK, Australia, USA) (Cottingham

and Hussey, 2000;Inanga and Schneider, 2005;Lowe and Locke, 2005;Gendron, 2008;

James, 2008;Northcott and Linacre, 2010) and only a few insights on the European

context (Charreaux and Schatt, 2005;Gosselin, 2005;Cruz-Castro and Sanz-Menendez,

2008;Hopwood, 2008;Messner, 2013). Hence, calls have been launched to study the

challenging academic environment of developing countries (Samkin and Schneider,

2012), affected by the local cultural and history, but also by mimetic actions of following

international models. We follow Hopwood’s (2008) call for research of the strategies of

coping with these changes and their consequences in different contexts.

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of accounting

academia in an emerging country situated in Central and Eastern Europe (i.e. Romania).

To this end, we mobilize the specic problem of ranking accounting journals, as well as

our experience and observations of the local developments. Our research is placed in the

context of a developing country, facing both its prolonged communist past, which

lowered the role of economic-based research, and also the pressure to align with

international trends, especially considering its recent membership of the European

Union (since 2007). Due to the communist past, the subject of publication quality in

social sciences in general, and in accounting in particular[1], was of little interest until

fairly recently in Romania. We posit that there are two main reasons for this state of

affairs. First, for a long time in Romania, the evaluation of academics was based on their

teaching activity (mainly focusing on writing textbooks) and the number of articles

published, regardless of the rank (quality) of the journal of publication. Thus, promotion

criteria for Romanian academics have been traditionally based on the number of papers

(i.e. form), rather than on their quality (i.e. substance). Second, domestically, the ranking

of publications (journals and publishing houses) has only been only performed since

2005 and is the prerogative of the National Authority for Scientic Research (ro.

Consiliul Nat¸ional al Cerceta˘rii S¸tiint¸ice – CNCS), a consultative board assisting the

Minister of Education, Research, Youth and Sports (ro. Ministerul Educat¸iei, Cerceta˘rii,

Tineretului s¸i Sportului – MECTS).

129

Accounting

academia in

emerging

economies