RESEARCHING AND PUBLISHING IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

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RESEARCHING AND PUBLISHINGIN MANAGEMENT
ACCOUNTING

• MICHAEL SHIELDS
• MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
• 2005

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OUTLINE

• KEY QUESTIONS
• KNOW THE 12 RS OF RESEARCH
• PUBLISHING IS AN ART OF PERSUASION
• QUALITIES OF PUBLISHED PAPERS
• INTERESTING RESEARCH
• FACTORS AFFECTING A PAPERS PUBLISHABILITY
• PREPARING TO DO RESEARCH
• GETTING STARTED ON A RESEARCH PROJECT
• CONVERTING A DISSERTATION INTO A PUBLISHABLE
  ARTICLE

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1. KEY QUESTIONS

• Publishing a paper is difficult without an
  interesting research question.
• What is an interesting research question?
• Writing a publishable paper is the hardest part
  of the research process.
• How do you write a publishable paper?

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2. KNOW THE 12 RS OF RESEARCH

• Read about the phenomena of interest from a
  variety of perspectives to learn as much as
  possible about it.
• Arithmetic (math, statistics) to learn more about
  and to formalize and systematize the phenomena of
  interest.
• Write what you have learned that is interesting
  to others.
• Writing is the most challenging of the Rs
  because it requires you to crystallize your
  thinking.
• Write a paper about the end-product of your
  research that is of interest to others.
• Dont write a diary of your research process.

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• Rewriting writing is mostly rewriting.
• Review your rewriting.
• Revise, revise, revise.
• Release your paper to others to read.
• Revise again after getting feedback from others.
• Review process varies by journal.
• Learn the process and tailor your paper to the
  idiosyncrasies of your target journal.

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• Reviewers generally are constructive in offering
  suggestions to improve a paper
• Reviewers often have more insight than the author
  about the true contribution or potential of a
  paper.
• Its a small world with the same reviewers across
  journals and conferences.
• Reviews
• When you receive reviews, expect to have an
  emotional boil-over.
• Put the paper away until you cool down and then
  analyze the review comments.
• Failure to address reviewers comments decreases
  the chances of publication.
• Write a letter to editor and reviewers indicating
  how you have responded to the reviewers
  comments.
• Reputation
• Manage your reputation by following the first 11
  Rs.

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3. PUBLISHING IS AN ART OF PERSUASION

• Write to change others beliefs
• Substance alone is not enough
• Good presentation style
• Do not expect reviewers to be patient or read
  between the lines
• If you do not sell your research contribution by
  the end of the introduction, it is likely your
  paper will not be sold
• Good cosmetics are important as it shows
  commitment to and pride in your work
• Scholarly manuscript writing style
• Journal format
• Good printing
• Dont undersell, dont oversell. Tight papers
  sell.

 
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SUCCESSFUL PAPERS

• Successful papers have indicated early in the
  paper 1. what issue is being addressed, 2. why
  the issue is an important interesting one, and
  3. how the issue is addressed. Many of them have
  indicated whether the incremental contribution of
  a paper was through the use of new data, use of a
  new estimation or research method or a new theory
  as to how real-world facts relate to each other.
  Finally, most successful papers have been
  economically presented and exhibited careful
  exposition that allows the reviewer to focus on
  what is at issue and efficiently make an
  evaluation on the merits of the paper itself.
  
• Kinney, TAR 1990 Editorial

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4. QUALITIES OF PUBLISHED PAPERS

• INTERESTING
• Consequential
• Novel
• Relevant
• Unexpected / Anomaly
• CREDIBLE
• Auditable
• Believable
• Credible
• Defensible
• Repeatable

• NIRDy
• Novel
• Interesting
• Replicable
• Defensible
• NIRD
• New
• Innovative
• Rigorous
• Defensible

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5. INTERESTING RESEARCH

• Davis, M. 1971. Thats interesting! Towards a
  phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of
  phenomenology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences.
  
• Interesting research propositions have the
  following form
• "What seems to be X is in reality not-X"
• "What is accepted as X is actually not-X
•  
• Interesting proposition forms for a phenomenon
  and phenomena

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PHENOMENON

• What seems to be a _____ phenomenon is in reality
  a _____ phenomenon, and vice versa.
• changing / unchanging
• functional / dysfunctional
• good / bad
• homogeneous / heterogeneous
• important / unimportant
• individual / holistic
• local / general
• organized / disorganized
• stable / unstable
• structured / unstructured

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PHENOMENA

• What seems to be _____ phenomena are in reality
  ____ phenomena.
• causally related / not causally related
• compatible / incompatible
• independent / dependent
• positively related / negatively related
• similar / dissimilar

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INTERESTING RESEARCH

• Addresses paradoxical issues
• Challenges conventional wisdom
• Counter intuitive
• Reconciles anomalies
• Has tension
• Competing or alternative predictions are credible
  ex ante

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EXAMPLES

• The structure of ill-structured problems (Simon
  AI 1973)
• Is responsibility accounting irresponsible? (Pick
  NYCPA 1971)
• Managers should be evaluated on outcomes they do
  not control (Antle and Demski TAR 1988)
• Performance measures can be economically
  uninformative but cognitively informative (Luft
  and Shields TAR 2001)
• Whether management accounting control increases,
  decreases, or has no affect on organizations
  performance depends on their competitive strategy
  and whether their decision and communication
  processes are organic or mechanistic (Chenhall
  and Morris Omega 1995)

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EXAMPLES

• Performance usually is a dependent variable but
  accounting frequently is based on past or
  expected performance (Merchant AOS 1984)
• Inclusion of opportunity costs in decisions
  depends on financial accounting knowledge and
  decision context (Vera-Munoz TAR 1998)
• Accounting is good in some situations and bad in
  other situations
• As uncertainty increases, performance increases
  with the use of subjective performance evaluation
  and decreases with the use of objective
  performance evaluation (Govindarajan AOS 1984)

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6. FACTORS AFFECTING A PAPERS PUBLISHABILITY

• Common features of papers published in Journal of
  Management Accounting Research
• New research question, theory, or research method
• Creatively extends prior studies with a new twist
  or insight
• Interesting, credible, NIRD, NIRDy

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PROFILE OF PAPERS IN JMAR

• Deductive theory construction using analytic
  methods
• Logic, math
• Theory-driven quantitative empirical hypothesis
  testing
• Archival, experimental, survey
• Qualitative case / field study with inductive ex
  post theory construction
• More than description

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CHARACTERISTICS OF PAPERS REJECTED AT JMAR

• Content analysis of reasons reviewers rejected
  papers
• 27 categories that I reduced to 4
• Research question is not interesting, not
  relevant, lack of contribution to scholarly
  literature, nothing new.
• Theory is unreliable, flaws in analytics,
  assumptions or models are too unrealistic or
  simplistic, inappropriate theory to address
  research question, lack of ex ante or ex post
  theory.

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CONTINUED

• Research method is not sufficient to test or
  refine theory
• Construct validity, internal validity,
  statistical-conclusion validity
• Communication is ineffective
• Rough draft, too early, poorly written, does not
  communicate

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SURVEY OF REVIEWERS OF 27 ACCOUNTING JOURNALS

• Factors that increase publishability
• New theory with significant results
• Interesting topic with content that differs from
  previous research published in the journal
• Factors that decrease publishability
• No new information
• Nonsignificant results
• Inclusion of paper in published proceedings
• Lack of generalizability of results
• Lack of control group
• Topic is outside mainstream of field or journal
• Czyzewski and Dickinson. 1990. Journal of
  Accounting Education

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FACTORS LEADING TO SUCCESS IN ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
AND PUBLICATION

• 119 influential accounting researchers beliefs
  about the most important factors, in rank order
• These researchers have the highest citations
  counts in 5 top-quality accounting journals
• Chow and Harrison. 1998. Journal of Accounting
  Education
• Ability to communicate and write logically,
  clearly and concisely
• Rigorous doctoral training, focusing on research
  skills and statistics
• Persistence, perseverance, dedication
• Interesting or original topic
• Relevance or importance of topic

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Continued

• Supportive colleagues
• Discipline and hard work
• Presenting at conferences and workshops
• Having time strictly for doing research
• Solid research design
• Thorough and rigorous data analysis
• Innovative theory, hypotheses, research design
• Staying current with literature and research
  skills
• Motivating research with strong theory
• Having good co-authors

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7. PREPARING TO DO RESEARCH

• Invest in your human capital
• Literature, theory, research methods, scholarly
  writing
• Identify and develop a core competence.
• Learn, study, ask questions, be entrepreneurial
• Study your target journals
• What types of articles do they publish
• Topics, research questions, theories, methods,
  data
• Motivation
• Work long, hard and smart
• Improve your scholarly writing -- journalese

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IMPROVING YOUR JOURNALESE

• Zimmerman. 1989. Issues in Accounting Education
• Dont write a mystery
• State in the introduction and conclusion the
  purpose, major findings, and conclusions
• Dont use jargon, acronyms or terms defined only
  in your paper
• Dont write a diary
• Write your paper in a linear, straightforward
  manner
• Dont include your false starts and unsuccessful
  paths
• Limit the use of may to qualify conclusions
• X may cause Y, but X may not cause Y
• Do not use may to substitute for if-then
  condition statements

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CONTINUED

• Limit use of footnotes to a maximum of 1 per page
• Limit use of acronyms
• Dont decrease readability to save space
• Only use common acronyms (e.g., FASB)
• Avoid author developed variable names
• Two errors in using tables
• Too many delete minor extensions and
  replications that are in the text
• Not free standing describe the contents of the
  table via title and row and column headings
• For additional tips on writing, see Ashton (1998)
  Journal of Accounting Education

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8. GETTING STARTED ON A RESEARCH PROJECT

• Pick an interesting research question that is
  within your range of competence
• Whats new?
• What will the reader learn and find interesting?
• What does your project feature that is not in
  other papers?
• Build off of prior research
• Dont put your project in a vacuum
• Identify strengths and weaknesses of prior
  research and how your project will improve this
  stream of research
• Research that makes a novel contribution does not
  mean that it is unrelated to prior research
• Use contemporary relevant theory
• Identify the theories that have been used in
  published articles on this topic and in your
  target journals

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CONTINUED

• Use appropriate research methods
• Occams razor and principal of parsimony
• Use the simplest explanation, assumptions, or
  model possible to explain and predict the
  phenomena of interest
• Make sure your paper communicates to the audience
• If an editor or reviewer cannot read and
  understand your paper, then a rejection is almost
  automatic
• Take courses in scientific and technical writing
• Hire a professional editor

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USE THE PREDICTIVE VALIDITY FRAMEWORK

• External validity (Link 1)
• Expected causal relations that link concepts
• Luft and Shields (AOS 2003) for guidelines
• Construct validity (Link 2)
• Operationalization of concepts as variables
• Internal validity (Link 4)
• Dependent variable is affected only by
  independent variable
• Statistical-conclusion validity (Link 5)
• Control for effects on dependent variable of all
  variables except the independent variable

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PREDICTIVE VALIDITY FRAMEWORKLibby, Bloomfield
and Nelson (AOS 2002)
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GETTING SOMETHING ON PAPER

• Its so easy to think about your research in your
  head but so difficult to put on paper!
• What is the research question?
• Why is this research question interesting to the
  reader?
• What is the purpose / contribution of this paper?
• Abstract
• Outline of paper
• Concepts, relations, literature

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9. CONVERTING A DISSERTATION INTO A PUBLISHABLE
ARTICLE

• A dissertation demonstrates your ability to
  conduct independent scholarly research, with a
  literature review that is broad and extensive,
  with one or two main results and several minor
  results, and is judged on its ex ante potential
  to add to the field.

• An article communicates a finding that is
  important to others in the field, uses the
  author's understanding of the field to focus on
  the critical literature background, assumes a
  sophisticated reader, focuses on the principal
  issue(s), is judged on its ex post contribution
  to the reader's understanding of the field (field
  significance vs. statistical significance), and
  is much more focused than a dissertation.

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CONTINUED

• Identify your articles intended principal
  contribution
• No one has done this before" and "I have access
  to this data" are not sufficient motivations for
  an article
• 2. Design a paper that focuses on that
  contribution
• focus the motivation and literature review on
  whats interesting to the reader
• eliminate diversions and tangents
• assume an informed reader
• start with a new file dont try to reduce a
  dissertation to an article

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CONTINUED

• 3. Clearly explain the logic of and describe your
  ex ante and / or ex post model and hypothesis.
• Wait until your dissertation is finished before
  attempting to publish from it.
• Published quantitative empirical papers almost
  always have a similar format
• introduction, literature review and analysis,
  model / hypotheses, research method, results,
  discussion (summary, limitations, implications
  for future research).

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AVOID THESE CONVERSION PITFALLS

• Unclear motivation / purpose
• Focus on why the paper is interesting
• Explain how the variables are expected to be
  related
• Dont use theories and methods without a clear
  purpose
• Too many diversions and tangents
• Technical problems
• Analysis, design, tests
• Paper submitted immediately upon completion
• Did not set paper aside for a few weeks to read
  it cold
• Did not present paper to others before submission
• No professional editing

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CONTINUED

• Liberal use of cut and paste from other
  documents
• Too long or too short
• A dissertation usually is too long to be
  published as a paper in a journal
• Avoid trying to get too many papers from a
  dissertation
• 7. Trying to shrink a dissertation to be a
  journal article or not writing your article from
  scratch