Editorial: A Retrospective on the International Journal of Auditing, and a Call for Collaborative Research Involving Less Developed Regions

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijau.12028
• Author: Jenny Stewart
• Published date: 01 November 2014
• Date: 01 November 2014

Editorial: A Retrospective on the International Journal of Auditing, and a Call

for Collaborative Research Involving Less Developed Regions

Jenny Stewart, Editor-in-Chief

I became Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of

Auditing (IJA) in 2008, after serving as an editor since

2006. During that time, I have been assisted by a team of

editors who over the years haveincluded Anne Loft, Tom

McKee, Clive Lennox, David Hay and Ilias Basioudis. I

am very grateful for the commitment and dedication to

the journal thatthese colleagues have shown. I would also

like to express my sincere thanks to the members of our

Editorial Advisory Board for their continuing support of

IJA and for their help in our efforts to improve the

journal’s recognition and standing. I am also grateful to

the many reviewers who provide constructive feedback

to authors in order to improve the quality of the

manuscripts we publish.

My commitment when I took over as Editor-in-Chief

was to ensure that IJA remained the premier specialist

auditing journal with a global perspective. To assess

whether this objective has been achieved, I performed a

quick analysis of the manuscripts published since 2008.

This analysis reveals some interesting statistics. We have

published 95 manuscripts with authors from 26 nations,

including 13 different European countries. There have

been 39 papers from Europe, 27 from North America, 12

from Australasia, five from Asia and one each from the

Middle East and Africa. The remaining ten papers

represent international collaborations. Seven of these

involved collaborations between researchers from

Europe, the United States and Australasia. Two involved

collaborations between United States and Asian

researchers and one between Australian and Asian

researchers.

So what can we conclude from this analysis? Yes,we do

have a global perspective, but the great majority of our

accepted manuscripts are from researchers in highly

developed nations. While I can affirm that submissions

from researchers in emerging economies have been

steadily increasing, the low publication rate reflects the

difficulty that many of these researchers have in

achieving the high standards required for publication in

the journal. To overcome this problem, I would like

to encourage much greater collaboration between

researchers from North America, Europe andAustralasia

and those from less developed regions such as Asia, the

Middle East and Africa. In this way, more experienced

researchers can mentor and assist those from emerging

economies to perform high quality research which can be

published in journals such as IJA. Thiswould help correct

the imbalance that currently exists and enablethe journal

to become truly global while maintaining the high

standards that we have set.

On that note, I would like to conclude by thanking the

new Editor-in-Chief, David Hay, and the current

editorial team, Anne Loft, Ilias Basioudis and Gerrit

Sarens, for their ongoing commitment to IJA. I am very

happy to be leaving the journal in their capable hands

and I look forward to seeing it continue to grow in

reputation and standing as the leading international

journal in auditing.

International Journal of Auditing doi:10.1111/ijau.12028

Int. J. Audit. 18: 171 (2014)

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd ISSN 1090-6738