Do We Matter? Attention the General Public, Policymakers, and Academics Give to Accounting Research

Abstract

ABSTRACT Many question the value of accounting scholarship to society. We compare the attention the general public, policymakers, and academics give to academic accounting research relative to other business disciplines and other more general disciplines (economics, psychology, and other sciences). The results indicate that accounting research receives significantly less attention from the general public than all other disciplines and also performs relatively poorly in receiving policymakers' attention compared to both economics and finance. Within accounting subtopics, tax research receives more attention from the general public and policymakers than other topic areas. We also find that articles in other disciplines' elite journals cite relatively few of accounting's elite-level publications, but non-elite journal articles cite accounting research in similar numbers to other disciplines. Finally, we rank scholars, institutions, and journals by the attention they receive. We discuss how these findings could impact accounting education. Data Availability: Requests for data may be made to the authors.