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The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion of Brian Rutherford’s paper “Articulating accounting principles: classical accounting theory as the pursuit of ‘explanation by embodiment’”.

The paper draws on the author’s experience of 13-years working at ICAEW trying to improve relations between the worlds of accounting practice and accounting research.

The paper argues that classical accounting theory became discredited because it was too detached from the world of practice and in fact seriously misunderstood it, and that accounting research using the methods of the social sciences is not incompatible with normative accounting theory. However, if Brian Rutherford’s paper encourages even more accounting researchers to engage in accounting policy debates, and to do so in ways that reflect a sympathetic understanding of existing practices, that would be a welcome development.

The paper contributes to the continuing debate on how accounting research can contribute to improvements in accounting practice.

The purpose of this paper is to review research investigating the implications of public private partnership (PPP) schemes for public investment, focusing on the role and effects of accounting as it relates to the assessment, management, control, reporting, accountability and policy direction of these arrangements. Based on this review, it aims to offer reflections on future directions for this research agenda.

This paper derives five research themes adapted from the PPP research agenda outlined by Broadbent and Laughlin as a framework to guide a literature‐based analysis and critique of the relevant PPP literature published up to December 2010.

The review highlights the range of interesting contributions that extant accounting‐related research has made to current knowledge about PPP policy and procedure. From this, concentrations of research effort are identified (its largely technical, critical, procurement‐oriented and Anglo‐centric focus), and opportunities for future research are proposed. With regard to the latter, the opportunities proffered have in common a need to question the nature and functioning of PPPs, consider the complexities of PPPs in action, and explore connections between research and practice.

The main contributions this paper makes relate to understanding the “state of the art” of accounting‐related PPP research, the progress this research agenda has made in line with Broadbent and Laughlin's agenda, as well as insights into fruitful directions future research could take.

While the debate about fair value accounting (FVA) and the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008-2009 has been explored in the academic and professional literature, there has been little debate about the consequences of FVA being implicated in the crash of Enron around 2001, and the effect of this on later FVA developments and the GFC. The purpose of this paper is to examine how well regulators, political actors, and other commentators may have understood the use, misuse, effects and consequences of FVA at the time of Enron, and to examine how this collective understanding (or lack thereof) has influenced later accounting policy, especially that going into and arising from the GFC.

Using content analysis, the commentary about FVA is traced through documents, primarily the US Congressional Hearings’ examination of the collapse of Enron that took place between December 2001 and December 2002. An assessment of the knowledge of and attitudes toward FVA is made from these and is then traced through later developments including policy responses before, during and after the GFC.

Links are found between the collapse of Enron and adjustments to FVA in the mid-2000s, which in turn became implicated in the GFC. These linkages are explored in the context of a fair value world view held by global standards setters in the mid-2000s. During the timeline from the 1990s to the mid-2000s, those advocating and adopting FVA as part of this world view, may have had collectively an insufficient understanding of the consequences or effects of FVA technology.

The study provides evidence of a direct link between Enron, the response of global standard setters, and the GFC controversy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide comment on the contribution of the Environmental performance accountability special issue of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal published in 1997 towards the innovation through a personal reflection developed from the perceived need to move academics and practitioners into the same space on environmental improvement by organisations. In addition, the paper will offer future directions for environmental performance accountability research, including the potential for tools such as integrated reporting, the need for theoretical pragmatism and importance of a transdisciplinary approach to research.

The diegetic method used for this article allowed for the provision of a narrative about actions, characters and events of interest to an audience. This method facilitated the intersection between the biographical and the historical content and context, and a hypodiegesis provided the ability for an embedded story within the larger history. The approach allowed for a hypodiegetic as the story within the story of developing the relationships between academic accountants and practitioners.

Contained in the special issue is a set of articles marking the extremes of academic and practitioner perspectives on what is broadly termed environmental performance and accountability. Review of the content of the special issue reveals that the bias is towards academic rather than practitioner appreciation. Review of the context providing the setting for the special issue shows the need for publishers to engage in the social media mechanisms needed to commence dialogue and convey the messages of academics to practitioners.

Subjective assessment is overtly recognized rather than subsumed in the research methods adopted.

The embedding of articles in special issues within a broader communications portfolio for practitioner understanding is suggested.

The nature of the personal reflection means that thoughts recorded are novel and unique.

Extending prior studies which suggest that the disclosure practice of developed economy entities tends to be more transparent than that of emerging economy entities, this study investigates whether such differences in the degree of disclosure transparency translate into different levels of value‐relevance of their accounting summary measures (i.e., book values and earnings). Consistent with theories that link disclosure quality with the impact of disclosure on investors' decisions, the evidence indicates that the accounting summary measures of developed economy entities are more value‐relevant than those of emerging economy entities in the U.S. stock market. This finding has some implications for the current policy debate in IASB regarding accounting for emerging economy entities.

This paper aims to document and discuss the involvement of a group of Spanish academics in the process of social and environmental reporting regulation to reflect on the role of accounting academics in regulatory processes.

The paper describes the long-standing engagement of a group of Spanish scholars in social and environmental reporting regulation, with a particular focus on the transposition of the EU Directive 2014/95/EU on non-financial information to the Spanish legislation.

Despite failures and mistakes in the engagement history of those scholars with different regulatory processes, academics problematized social and environmental reporting regulation, bridged the gap between regulation and practice, and facilitated the debate about social and environmental reporting. This long-term and collective engagement generated the intellectual capital that allowed researchers to provide their perspectives when the Spanish political process was ripe to move such regulation in a progressive direction.

The paper remarks two important aspects that, according to the reported experience, are required for academics to engage in social and environmental reporting regulation: developing long-standing research projects that enable the accumulation of intellectual capital to effectively intervene in regulatory processes when the opportunity arises; and nurturing epistemic communities seeking to promote corporate accountability was fundamental to circulate ideas and foster the connection between academics and policymakers. This long-term and collective perspective is at odds with current forms of research assessment.

Academics have a responsibility to intervene in regulatory processes to increase corporate transparency.

The experience reported is unique and the authors have first-hand information. It spans through two decades and extracts some conclusions that could feed further discussions about engagement and, hopefully, encourage scholars to develop significant research projects.

A gap between research and practice is commonly perceived throughout accounting academia. However, empirical evidence on the magnitude of this detachment remains scarce. The authors provide new evidence to the ongoing debate by introducing a novel topic-based approach to capture the research-practice gap and quantify its extent. They also explore regional differences in the research-practice gap.

The authors apply the unsupervised machine learning approach Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to compare the topical composition of 2,251 articles from six premier research, practice and bridging journals from the USA and Europe between 2009 and 2019. The authors extend the existing methods of summarizing literature and develop metrics that allow researchers to evaluate the research-practice gap. The authors conduct a plethora of additional analyses to corroborate the findings.

The results substantiate a pronounced topic-related research-practice gap in accounting literature and document its statistical significance. Moreover, the authors uncover that this gap is more pronounced in the USA than in Europe, highlighting the importance of institutional differences between academic communities.

The authors objectify the debate about the extent of a research-practice gap and stimulate further discussions about explanations and consequences.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to deploy a rigorous machine learning approach to measure a topic-based research-practice gap in the accounting literature. Additionally, the authors provide theoretical rationales for the extent and regional differences in the research-practice gap.

The time period from the mid-1980s through 2002 is described in this series of research as a “pre-SOX” era of rapid deprofessionalization in U.S. pubic accountancy resulting in the loss of professional status. This was a period, however, when all professions were suffering some deprofessionalization. During the pre-SOX period it appears that leadership in public accountancy responded to a nearly perfect storm of changes confronting the profession with a corporate mentality of management by objectives, commercialization, and profit maximization resulting in constant and substantial net deprofessionalization greater than that of other professions. Starting in the late-1970s and continuing through 2001, some critics of public accountancy have asserted that leaders in the profession either lost or forgot what was required for public accountancy to be recognized as a profession. The conclusion stated in this paper is that public accountancy has lost its professional status in or before 2002. The reasons and events leading to this conclusion are presented and discussed. In the United States it appears as though once professional status is lost, regaining the elite status is more difficult. The question is if public accountancy can learn from history going into the substantial changes to be confronted in the post-SOX era of public accountancy and regain or at least make progress toward regaining professional status.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive theory as to why academic research in accounting is said not to help practice.

The authors (1) present a comprehensive literature review in the academic/practitioner gap arena, and (2) develop a theoretical background for it. Further, they identify (3) the different information needs of these groups using value group theory and (4) the inherent factors and personality traits that influence career choice. Next, they (5) evaluate the values of each subgroup. They then (6) theorize what types of accounting research would interest each. They argue that (7) individuals who enter the academy differ from those who enter practice, and (8) the socialization processes and the impact of the professional setting (practice or academe) on behaviors further the separation of academic research from practitioner needs.

This paper is theoretical. It suggests that bridging the gap will be difficult. The study is theoretical. The limitation is that it does not empirically test the relationships hypothesized. By providing a comprehensive model of factors underlying the gap, however, it can be a fruitful source of research ideas for years to come. The implications are that it will be difficult to bridge the gap between accounting practitioners and academics. Having a greater understanding of the causes of the gap, however, may be very useful in fostering thought as to how to overcome it.

Prior literature on the topic is largely atheoretical. This paper is the first to develop a broad theory of the gap.

This commissioned paper reviews literature outlining reasons for a perceived gap between academics and standard setters as policy makers. The aim of this paper is to emphasise how academics and standard setters can collaborate on accounting and audit research and assist standard setters to act in the public interest.

The approach is primarily a literature and document review of relevant issues, summarising New Zealand’s standard setting arrangements, providing examples of successful policy-changing research, and making recommendations on future research topics.

Despite the long-held views of a gap between academic researchers and standard setters, increasingly standard setters utilise research and request input from academics in their deliberations. Standard setters can increase the likelihood of relevant research by promoting critical issues for research and connecting their practitioner networks with academics. Academics can bridge the gap by selecting topics of mutual interest and by communicating their findings extensively and well.

Increasing collaboration should lead to better accounting and audit standards.

This paper highlights matters of concern in the New Zealand standard setting environment where there is a strategic objective to undertake research.