Diversity Issues in Accounting Research: A Content Analysis of AAA Annual Meetings 1998-2015

Abstract

Diversity in accounting, namely the diversity of social actors engaging in the broader sphere of accounting research, education, and practice, has been subject to accounting research for decades. However, no comprehensive analysis of such research has yet been conducted. Therefore, we investigate this increasingly significant subfield of accounting research by applying an empirical-archival content analysis to AAA annual meetings between 1998 and 2015. Using a large dataset consisting of 9,689 papers, we analyze the relevance of research on diversity in accounting within accounting research, themes scholars address, and contributing authors with respect to both their gender and institutional origin. This exploratory study provides a fundamental picture of the development and current state of research on diversity in accounting, which is of considerable importance to individual scholars, reviewers, journal editors, regulators, decision-makers, and both educational and professional institutions.