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ABSTRACT
Many academic accountants have explicit or implicit motivations to publish their research in the best journals in the discipline. However, whether the chances of success are better at some of these journals is unknown. This paper examines the archival record to find differences within the authorship of three such publications (The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Accounting and Economics) over a recently completed 20-year period. The journals do not differentiate according to the authors' doctoral training, but are differently sensitive to place of faculty employment. The journals are equally receptive to non-U.S. authors, but different in their receptivity to recently graduated and frequently appearing authors. Although areas of change over time are noted, both among journals and within each journal itself, the record also shows a good deal of consistency in other relationships over the 20-year period.

The history of accounting as an academic discipline is a short one. Although the study of accounting in institutions of higher education is roughly coextensive with the rise of the business school, the need for a dedicated group of full-time faculty in this area is not as well established as other business disciplines. This paper pertains to the recent trajectory of the accounting professoriate. Disciplinary success should be evidenced by the broader recognition of importance of and high demand for its work, and the numerical increase of its practitioners. Although the value and importance of accounting is a maintained hypothesis within the field, how accepted this idea is in the business school is an empirical question. This paper illustrates the number and distribution of accounting faculty over a 20-year period through the consideration of a number of specific research questions. The results show that after a decade-long increase, the number of the full-time accountancy faculty in the U.S. in the last decade has declined. This decline is not uniform, but instead is patterned in ways that raise further doubts about the future of the discipline.

ABSTRACT
The accounting establishment and AICPA Foundation responded to an inadequate supply of new accounting faculty by creating the Accounting Doctoral Scholars (ADS) program. Between 2009 and 2018, the $17 million program enabled 105 practitioners to become audit and tax faculty. Based on market data and an ADS participant survey, we find an increase in doctoral graduates at ADS and non-ADS schools relative to pre-ADS years, and unmet demand for audit has decreased after ADS, whereas tax remains in need. Compared to the market, ADS graduates experienced somewhat better placements by moving up to more prestigious strata and were more likely to place at schools with a doctoral program. Additionally, we present results for ADS students' motivations, degree completion time, and differences between audit and tax participants. Our findings have important implications for academic accounting, business schools, regulators, and policymakers. We provide important context for changes in market trends preceding COVID-19.

ABSTRACT
The sudden collapse of Arthur Andersen & Co. (Andersen) in 2001–2002 altered the careers of many professionals who were employed by that international accounting firm. Now that many years have passed since that event, some long-run consequences can be quantified. This paper examines the subsequent careers of 267 managers employed by Andersen at that time in seven Midwestern U.S. cities. Benchmarking these results against similarly situated individuals at another large firm, we conclude that ex-Andersen managers were much less likely to continue in large firm employment, stay in public accounting, or achieve partnership status in the profession. However, the professional networks maintained by ex-Andersen people many years after that firm's collapse appear as strong as that of the control sample.
Data Availability: Data are available from the first author upon request.

ABSTRACT
The ability to move from one employing institution to another can be very important in an academic career. This study concerns the mid-career opportunities for institutional migration for accounting faculty. Unlike previous studies that focused on the characteristics, motivations, and attainments of mobile faculty, this study examines the relative size of the accounting professoriate that has been in transition at various points in time. When a large component of senior accounting academics have (have not) taken new positions in the last few years, the opportunity structure can be said to be high (low). The findings, using accounting doctoral schools as the empirical setting, document a declining opportunity set. Over time, the fraction of senior accounting academics that have changed schools in the previous five years has dwindled. This conclusion holds true across various divisions of academic accounting. Specifically, a decline is shown for both public schools and private schools, for higher and lower prestige schools, and for most sub-fields of the accounting discipline. The paper offers implications about this long-term trend.

ABSTRACT
The inadequate supply of new terminally qualified accounting faculty poses a great concern for many accounting faculty and administrators. Although the general downward trajectory has been well observed, more specific information would offer potential insights about causes and continuation. This paper examines change in accounting doctoral student production in the U.S. since 1989 through the use of five-year moving averages. Aggregated on this basis, the downward movement predominates, notwithstanding the schools that began new programs or increased doctoral student production during this time. The results show that larger declines occurred for middle prestige schools, for larger universities, and for public schools. Schools that periodically successfully compete in M.B.A. program rankings also more likely have diminished the size of their accounting Ph.D. programs. Despite a recent increase in graduations, data on the population of current doctoral students suggest the continuation of the problems associated with the supply and demand imbalance that exists in this sector of the U.S. academy.

ABSTRACT: All academic disciplines must establish procedures to protect the quality of their knowledge. This usually entails a process of peer review whose function is to make judgments about the value of scholarship. The impact of these judgments is to elevate some scholarship to the highest plateaus of prominence, to prevent other work from publication, and to place the remainder in a system of stratification. The people who perform this function have considerable power to shape the literature, and therefore form a worthwhile object of study. This paper considers the editorial review board of The Accounting Review at three points in time over a 20-year period. The results suggest that institutional concentration of the gatekeepers has modestly decreased over time. However, other differences suggest that the scholarly representativeness of the group has diminished.

This study examines how accounting students' ability to assess their course standing mid-way through the term is associated with their success in the course. Drawing on the paradigm of self-efficacy, we explicitly assess mid-way through the course how aware students are of (1) their exam performance, having taken an exam but before receiving feedback, and (2) their final course grade. Path analysis results for a sample of 214 students suggest that the more conservative a student's self-efficacy (that is, the less optimistic or more pessimistic the self-assessment), the higher the second exam score and final course grade. This relationship holds even after controlling for cumulative GPA in accounting courses, average exam performance during the term, trajectory of achievement, number of accounting classes already completed, and the extent of involvement in extracurricular activities. Path analysis results also support the notion that student characteristics are associated with performance, both directly and indirectly (via their association with the conservatism of self-efficacy). We find that the direction of inaccuracy matters. When students' predictions are below outcomes, reflecting pessimism, subsequent performance improves. When predictions are above outcomes, reflecting optimism, subsequent performance deteriorates. These results suggest that the direction of inaccuracy in understanding current course standing is an essential element of students' success in the classroom, apparently due to the self-regulatory behavior prompted by such misalignment.

Two key organizational properties have long been studied: (1) the manner in which instrumental work processes are performed, and (2) the symbolic display of rational practice in response to institutional pressures. However, the relationship between these properties has proven to be contentious. For example, at different times, the sociology of professions, institutional theory and loose coupling perspectives have proposed that they should be decoupled and then loosely coupled with one another. Extending beyond these contending propositions, it has also been reasoned that a duality inheres in many elements of organizational structure such that they may be simultaneously instrumental and symbolic in character. To evaluate the relationship among institutional pressures, instrumental work processes and coordination practices, we administered a questionnaire to audit teams in the US General Accounting Office (GAO). Statistical results, augmented with field interviews, suggest that instrumental work processes are loosely coupled with, rather than decoupled from, institutional pressures and their attendant symbolic displays of rational practice. Extending beyond the loose coupling concept, we also found that institutional pressures incite the symbolic facets of instrumental tasks and coordination practices, while GAO professional activities both embody and incite the instrumental facets of institutional pressures. Implications for future research in alternative organizational contexts are explored.