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The purpose of this paper is to explore the aptness of “information literacy”, conceptualized as a socially contextualized phenomenon, for analyses of interdisciplinary scholarly communication.

The paper presents a conceptual analysis. Two influential representatives of the social turn in the information literacy literature are taken as starting points: Annemaree Lloyd’s conceptualization of “information literacy practice”, and Jack Andersen’s conceptualization of information literacy as “genre knowledge”. Their positioning of information literacy as a socially contextualized phenomenon – by use of practice theories and rhetorical genre theory, respectively, – is analysed against an illustrative example of interdisciplinary scholarly communication.

Conceptualizations by Lloyd and Andersen explain information literacy as socially contextualized in terms of stable norms and understandings shared in social communities. Their concepts have the potential of explaining changes and innovations in social practices including scholarly communication. If we combine genre-theoretical and practice-theoretical concepts – and accentuate the open-endedness of social practices and of genres – we can enhance the understanding of information literacy in settings of interdisciplinary scholarly communication where the actors involved lack shared conventions and assumptions.

The paper suggests that the fluid features of social contexts should be accounted for in the information literacy literature. By combining genre-theoretical and practice-theoretical concepts in a novel way it offers such an account. It provides a useful framework for understanding the phenomenon of information literacy in interdisciplinary scholarly communication.

This paper presents the findings of an investigation designed to reveal the destination of the refereed journal research output of accounting and finance faculty members across their entire academic careers. A geographic approach was adopted with the intention of providing a historical data‐set to inform the development of a region‐centric model of academic research productivity. The study focuses on publication careers of accounting and finance academics from one particular geographic region, New Zealand. The data were collected through a detailed examination of electronic databases of journal holdings and research reports of tertiary institutions. The results of this study provide evidence that, across their careers, New Zealand's academics have published a significant number of papers in journals located in two regions, Australia‐New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and that this academic community has attained publication success in international journals generally regarded as high quality.

This study explores the quality of sustainability reporting (QSR) and the impact of regulatory guidelines, social performance and a standardised reporting framework (using the Global Reporting Initiative [GRI] guidelines) on QSR in the context of banks in Bangladesh.

Using a sample of 315 banking firm-year observations over 13 years (2002–2014), a content analysis technique is used to develop the 11-item QSR index. Regression analysis is used to test the research hypotheses.

Initially, QSR evolved symbolically in Bangladesh's banks but, over our investigation period, with QSR indicators gradually improving, the trends became substantive. The influences on QSR were sustainable banking practice regulatory guidelines, social performance and use of the GRI guidelines. However, until banks improve reporting information, such as external verification and trends over time, QSR cannot be regarded as fully substantive.

This study advances QSR research and debate among academic researchers. With regulatory agencies and stakeholders increasingly using sustainability reporting information for decision making, the information's quality is vital.

This study is the first on QSR in the banking industry context, with previous research mostly investigating the quantity of sustainability reporting. The current study also synthesises QSR with sustainability regulation and social performance factors which have rarely been used in the sustainability literature. To gain a holistic understanding of QSR, existing QSR measures are advanced by combining external reporting efforts with banks' internalisation initiatives.

This paper aims to analyse the character and strength of the claims made in an emerging literature offering a sociology of financial reporting principles.

The analysis evaluates exemplary works in the literature against the characteristics of the paranoid style first identified by Richard Hofstadter: overheated claims of a far-reaching, malign and collusive machinery of influence; a reductive, rationalistic and dualistic reading of events; weak empirics; and weak theorisation.

A significant stream within the literature is coming to be constructed in the paranoid style. Paranoid stylistics, used as a diagnostic tool, alerts us here to distorted judgement.

Alternative ways of avoiding the dangers of paranoid-style readings are suggested, ranging from resisting the temptations towards such readings to a radical re-working of the epistemics of “socio-accounting”.

The danger of allowing the conclusions advanced in the literature to go unchallenged is that they may influence society’s attitude to accounting, public policy-making and scholars’ willingness to contribute to the crafting of reporting principles and standards.

Although paranoid style analysis has been widely used to examine narratives in other academic fields, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to apply it to scholarly accounting.

This paper aims to advance the case for accounting scholars possessing substantial professional accounting expertise to use judgement drawing on that expertise (target-disciplinary judgement) as a major component of their research methodology.

The paper addresses methodological issues drawing on the criteriological debate within the methodological literature, a review of the ironies of contemporary narrative accounting research, including professional firm research, and an analysis of epistemological congruence seeking analogous cases in mainstream social scientific research.

The paper shows that, within a vocationally related subject like accounting, appropriately trained and qualified scholarly researchers have the opportunity to deploy their professional expertise to make expansive target-disciplinary judgements in ways that satisfy accepted social scientific methodological criteria and offer epistemological convergence comparable to that of mainstream approaches like insider anthropology and autoethnography.

Using target-disciplinary expertise to make expansive judgements provides scholars with a way of expanding the range of research questions they address, including resuming evaluative-descriptive surveys that can, among other things, examine the quality of disclosures holistically rather than in the highly atomistic way often adopted by academics at the moment.

The approach defended in this paper offers accounting scholars the opportunity to apply their particular skills to investigate questions likely to be of interest to preparers and users of financial statements, to explore issues of wider interest, such as the adequacy of environmental or social responsibility disclosures, and to test and augment professional firm findings. In so doing, scholars can go some way to remedying the gap between academic research and practice.

Little attention has been given to the use of expansive, expert target-disciplinary judgement in the methodological literature.

The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Distribution costs have a significant impact on product prices as they can represent as much as 60 per cent of the cost of consumer goods. A paucity of research and scholarly writing regarding distribution costs may contribute to a less than vigorous control of these costs which in turn could be aggravating the recent inflation of product prices. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current state of distribution cost analysis and to suggest changes in present methods.

Scholarly interest in the business effects of organised crime (OC) has recently increased. This study aims to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) on the conditions under which OC could pose a threat to or take control of firms within a particular context.

We use narrative synthesis and thematic analysis, with a sample of 46 theoretical and empirical studies published over the past 30 years on the relationship between OC and firms within the disciplines of Business, Management and Accounting (BMA).

SLR and thematic analysis show that scholarly interest has focused on four key domains: OC as a firm, the impact of OC on firms, firms’ efforts to counter OC’s influence and governmental interventions. Using medical metaphors, we also develop a diagram depicting the interplay between OC and firms within the BMA literature.

This study contributes to the literature shaping an agenda to steer future research towards these four key themes. The effectiveness of anti-OC tools and measures depends on a thorough understanding of local norms, behaviours and business practices. In addition to measurement and methodological challenges, several grey areas remain, including the distinction between criminal enterprises and legitimate businesses. Ambiguities also surround the circumstances under which the OC preys upon firms or employs them to establish dominance over a territory.

Increasingly, academics new to higher education find themselves in a “publish or perish” environment, with little if any formal or informal support structures. This is a situation that many academics have faced and lamented. The discussion in this paper emanates from the objective of seeking to change this environment. The mentoring provided an opportunity to work collaboratively with accounting academics who are new to the higher education sector, and focuses on developing and/or enhancing a scholarly approach to teaching and learning.

The reflective practitioner model provides the theoretical framework that underpins this mentoring process. The discussion in this research paper provides an opportunity to explore this mentoring process, primarily aimed at developing and encouraging a scholarly approach to teaching and learning by academics new to the environment. Data on the process were collected using a survey questionnaire and as a result of informal discussions during the mentoring process.

The findings indicate an overall positive response to the process for both the mentor and the mentee and the achievement of the planned research outcomes.

The discussion in this paper outlines a framework and process that others may follow when mentoring academics entering a “new” educational experience.

The authors expect major shifts in thinking about the transnational regulation of accounting and how it will develop. This is a time for ideas as well as action. The global accounting profession must take a leading role in developing and presenting the case for the transnational regulation of accounting, in identifying new regulations, new ways of regulating, and new compacts between regulators and other stakeholders, and in framing the debate on the transnational regulation of accounting into the future. The academic community must bring intellectual rigor to thinking on the issues. The purpose of this paper is to put the case that there is a new research agenda to be formed by taking a view that combines existing work on the transnational regulation of accounting with a contemporaneous understanding of the forces for regulatory and professional change, and insight into the roles that various actors have assumed historically and will likely play going forward, so as to develop workable and sustainable models for the transnational regulation of accounting into the future.

This paper presents a view on why the transnational regulation of accounting is increasingly becoming more important and more relevant. The paper identifies several possible work streams and research questions, and also comments on the papers appearing in this AAAJ special issue.

The authors find that the transnational regulation of accounting is becoming more important and relevant and identify drivers of this. The authors also suggest that self-regulation comes from professionalization, that systems of professional self-regulation (or co-regulation) at the national level have been transformed into the systems of global self-regulation. Also there is a growing level of scholarly engagement with transnational regimes of accounting regulation and the emerging portrayal of such regimes as arenas characterized by multiple actors, agendas, and strategies of influence.

Promotes a greater awareness and understanding of the importance of the transnational regulation of accounting, showcases recent work that demonstrates the breadth and depth of what is being done and of what needs to be done in the transnational regulation of accounting, identifies some of the key issues and imperatives for the transnational regulation of accounting.