Impediments to Relevant Research: The Journal Review and Publication Process

Schrand comments on the perception that accounting research has had relatively little impact on accounting practice over the last half of a century. A review of the contents of The Accounting Review from 1967 provides a sense for researchers' understanding of accounting practice half a century ago. Excluding the teaching-related articles, there are 20 "essays" on accounting theory. These papers most commonly address financial accounting topics. They represent pure research about what would describe as familiar financial accounting issues like comparability and materiality, the conceptual underpinnings of the accounting standards, or applications of specific financial accounting rules. These articles are relevant to textbook authors, who train future corporate accountants, or to practitioner groups such as auditors and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).