Foster School ranked #7 in the world for financial accounting research

According to the annual index of accounting research compiled by Brigham Young University, the UW Foster School of Business ranks #7 in the world (#5 in the United States) in research contributions to the field of financial accounting over the past six years.

The comprehensive database ranks accounting departments overall and by topical area based on the number of articles their faculty have published in the most influential journals over periods of 6, 12 and 30 years (since the ranking began in 1990). Topical areas include accounting information systems, audit, managerial accounting, tax accounting and financial accounting. Financial accounting is the area of study pursued by the largest number of accounting researchers.

Foster’s Department of Accounting also registers at #16 in the world (#12 in the US) for overall research contributions over the past six years, and #20 (#18 in the US) since 1990.

Individual excellence

The BYU Accounting Rankings also track the contributions of individual researchers over three different time periods and in five different topical areas.

Six current Foster School faculty members stand among the world’s 150 most productive researchers in the area of financial accounting over the past six years:

Ed deHaan (#17)
Elizabeth Blankespoor (#32)
Frank Hodge (#86)
Sarah McVay (#86)
Asher Curtis (#143)
Phillip Quinn (#143)

Six Foster faculty members are listed among the top 150 financial accounting researchers over the past 12 years:

Sarah McVay (#25)
Ed deHaan (#58)
Frank Hodge (#58)
Weili Ge (#83)
Elizabeth Blankespoor (#126)
Dawn Matsumoto (#126)

And six Foster faculty members are listed among the top 200 financial accounting researchers since 1990:

Sarah McVay (#55)
Frank Hodge (#80)
Dawn Matsumoto (#80)
Weili Ge (#157)
Dave Burgstahler (#182)
Ed deHaan (#182)

Multiplier effect

Beyond the direct research impact of current Foster accounting faculty, the Department of Accounting has also educated a significant number of doctoral students who have become major producers of influential scholarship from their faculty posts at universities around the world.

Foster is ranked #4 in the world for the six-year research record of its accounting PhD graduates dating back to 1990, and #5 for research output of alumni since 2010.

In individual topic areas, Foster PhD alumni since 1990 collectively rank #3 in financial accounting research, #4 in tax accounting research, #11 in managerial accounting research and #39 in audit research. Foster grads since 2010 rank #2 in financial accounting research, #4 in tax accounting research, #21 in managerial accounting research and #28 in accounting information systems research.

The BYU index considers research in 11 journals. Six of them—Accounting, Organizations, and Society; Contemporary Accounting Research; Journal of Accounting & Economics; Journal of Accounting Research; Review of Accounting Studies; and The Accounting Review—are considered the most-influential peer-reviewed journals in the discipline of accounting. The other five—Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory; Behavioral Research in Accounting; Journal of Information Systems; Journal of Management Accounting Research; Accounting Horizons; and Journal of the American Taxation Association—are deemed the highest-rated accounting journals for non-financial topical areas.