Outsourcing of Internal Auditing

Accounting Historians Journal Volume 38, Number 1 June 2011 pp. 31-56

Frank A. Badua
LAMAR UNIVERSITY

Gary John Previts
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

and

Miklos A. Vasarhelyi
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

TRACING THE DEVELOPMENT OF ACCOUNTING THOUGHT BY ANALYZING CONTENT, COMMUNICATION, AND QUALITY IN ACCOUNTING RESEARCH OVER TIME
Abstract: This paper analyzes the longitudinal development of accounting thought by characterizing the content of accounting research over several decades (1963 to 2003). The paper also investigates the interaction among accounting scholars and examines the relationship of research quality, topical coverage, methodological tools, and citation behavior. Thus, this analysis describes how accounting research has evolved, both in its content and in the way it has been used and perceived by its adherent scholars.

INTRODUCTION The motivation for this study is to improve our understanding of the relationships exhibited in academic research over a period of several recent decades. This paper represents a study of accounting research as embodied in three scholarly accounting journals (Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting Research, and The Accounting Reviev\^) as related to the objective of improving our understanding of this literature by employing a set of taxonomic properties in our analysis about the content and context of said literature. Further, this study characterizes the content of accounting research, the communication of this research through the interaction among accountAcknowledgments: The authors would like to thank Dr. Richard Fleischman and the reviewers for their help on this paper. The paper is dedicated to Don Ouirino Badua y Espero (1928-2011) who taught his son to love history for the beauty of its stories and the wisdom of its lessons.

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Accounting Historians Journal, June 2011

ing scholars, and how both this content and this interaction help define research quality. By this

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