Self-regulation of the academic accounting literature: The case of James Hunton

This article sets forth Dr. Hunton's body of work with retractions noted. The article has several goals aimed at effective regulation of the accounting literature. First, it is a resource for researchers to determine whether a paper that they intend to cite has been retracted. Second, it encourages researchers to review and where feasible, replicate other papers authored by Dr. Hunton that have not been retracted to date in order to establish the legitimacy of those findings. Third, it encourages researchers to replicate or otherwise retest research questions in retracted papers so that reliable findings are made available to these questions. Fourth, at the second-order level, it encourages authors that have cited Dr. Hunton's papers to review their papers and where they deem it consistent with scholarly effort, restate their work. Similarly, editors of journals involved in the first- and second-order effects are encouraged to publish the additional analyses to reinforce the credibility of the literature. Fifth, an addition to the literature review process is suggested to assure that no papers in the chain of noted or cited work have been retracted. Finally and importantly, it reminds scholars of the importance of being diligent in their processes for producing, summarizing and retaining data and cross-reviewing data provided by and work completed by co-authors.