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Starting from the premise that formal ethical codes and other ethical discourses differ in their audiences, effects and characteristics, it is analyzed how practitioner‐directed ethical discourses have spoken and continue to speak about character‐based ethics. Borrowing from the literature on professions and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, starts from the assumption that editorials in practitioner‐oriented publications are a form of cultural good traded on an internal symbolic market. By providing access to symbolic capital, trade in this good acts to bind together members of the accounting profession, yet trade in this good also has the potential to obscure a number of important, underlying social issues. The study is based on a close (textual) reading of editorials in the Canadian Chartered Accountant (subsequently renamed CA Magazine) from 1911 to 1999, and this reading is framed in light of a number of macro‐level and meso‐level (contextual) changes. It is found that character‐based ethical discourses continue to pervade this professional field, though not without important changes which themselves need to be explained in light of the more widespread, non‐professional field.

The paper explores the rapidly changing environment affecting universities and their research communities. It sets out to explore the effect of university corporatisation on research and teaching, and aims to identify likely coping strategies for researchers. The role of AAAJ in supporting research in this turbulent environment is then considered.

The paper employs a literature‐based analysis, critique and argument. The paper's scope includes the teaching and research by academic scholars in a corporate university environment.

Universities and their research are increasingly becoming revenue‐seeking, market driven corporatised university tools. Researchers are increasingly subject to pressures to accept higher workloads, pursue aggressive revenue targets, and to conduct and publish research that fits management imposed key performance indicators. This leads to a packaging and commodification of research with a short term, status‐seeking and fund‐raising emphasis.

Scholars need innovative but disciplined approaches to coping with such pressures in order to maintain pursuit of path‐breaking and significant additions to knowledge.

Personal values and commitment by individual scholars, as well as scholarly networks and support mechanisms will be the long‐term key to future research of value to the community.

The paper alerts researchers to the impact on their work on current institutional, economic and political forces surrounding universities, and highlights the consequent corporatisation and commercialisation of universities. It offers a realistic assessment of the current research environment and reinforces the need for individual researcher reassessments and strategies.