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Introduction
The year 2017 marks the 30th year of publication of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal (AAAJ) under the foundation joint editorship of James Guthrie and Lee Parker. It is indeed a publishing milestone to be recognised and celebrated. The first issue of AAAJ, Volume 1, Number 1, was published in 1988 by MCB University Press (later Emerald). On initial publication, the journal was known as Accounting, Auditing and Accountability (AAA) and two issues were published under this name[1]. Before the publication of Volume 2, Number 1, the journal’s name was amended to Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) “to avoid any possible confusion with the American Accounting Association (AAA)” (Guthrie and Parker, 1989b, p. 4).
In the first editorial, Guthrie and Parker (1988, p. 3) pointed out that AAAJ would be “an international research journal” and would “publish studies of accounting and auditing in terms of concepts, practice and policy”. Guthrie and Parker (1988, p. 3) stated their ambition for the journal as follows:
We plan to encourage research which focuses upon the interaction between the accounting and auditing disciplines and their regulatory, institutional, economic, political and social environments. Our journal is intended to deepen our understanding of the development, current and potential state of our discipline, both as a product of its environment and as a powerful influence which shapes its environment as well.
In the 25th anniversary issue, the editors reflected that “these sentiments still hold true today” while acknowledging that, on launching the journal, they had concerns about “servicing a relatively small interdisciplinary accounting research community” (Guthrie and Parker, 2012, p. 7).
At the time of writing, the “aims and scope” still remain firm and are stated in similar terms on the journal website as follows:
Dedicated to the advancement of accounting knowledge, the Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal publishes high quality manuscripts concerning the interaction between accounting/auditing and their socio-economic and political environments, encouraging critical analysis of policy and practice in these areas. The journal also seeks to encourage debate about the philosophies and traditions which underpin the accounting profession, the implications of new policy alternatives and the impact of accountancy on the socio-economic and political environment[2].
Today, the interdisciplinary accounting research community...