Mapping and exploring the topography of contemporary financial accounting research

This paper reports on a review of 1055 papers in the financial accounting literature published in eleven leading accounting journals in the period 2002 to 2007 inclusive. In contrast to most prior published literature reviews, which are located within a particular methodology and highly specialised, this is a broad literature review that covers both empirical/quantitative streams and critical/qualitative streams and is an attempt to draw a map of the overall structure and topography of published financial accounting research. The paper analyses a range of information collected from each paper about the authors, content, use of theories and research methods. The conclusions summarise the structure of the literature and give an insight into what journal editors and peer reviewers deem to be a contribution to knowledge in the field of financial accounting. Comments are included on the unique contribution made to the field by those authors within our sample writing and publishing outside the US. The paper is likely to be particularly relevant to new career researchers in financial accounting, PhD students reviewing the literature to locate their own research and academics looking for appropriate research outlets.