Content area
Full Text
There has been a great deal of discussion over the past several years about whether--or how well--academic accounting research meets the needs of the accounting profession. Usually the discussion is framed in terms of the "relevance" of accounting research to accounting practice. Our purpose is to offer some thoughts from the "practitioner's" perspective about the issue of the relevance of academic research (in this context, we mean "practitioner" in its broadest sense as essentially any accountant other than an academic). The views we express herein reflect our perceptions about the attitudes of practitioners as seen from our vantage point in the standard-setting arena. However, the relevance of accounting research is an issue about which it would be hard for us to plead complete ignorance.
We at the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have talked internally about the relevance of academic research a number of times over the years. In fact, our chairman, Denny Beresford, has commented several times on the issue in his column in FASB Status Report. Although we may not share all of his views on the subject, we believe his efforts to stimulate debate and advance the dialogue have been both timely and appropriate.
We tend to approach the issue of the relevance of academic research from the perspective of accounting standard setting. That means we tend to think of "relevant to practice" as being "relevant to standard setting." It also means that our comments about research are directed at external financial reporting and not to tax, audit, or internal accounting.
Those of us in standard setting probably have greater access to academic research than most practitioners and tend to see more of it on a day-to-day basis. The FASB subscribes to virtually all of the major academic research journals (as well as to all the major professional journals in business, finance, and accounting, the specialized finance and accounting newsletters, and the major newspapers that have a business focus). As each issue arrives in the office, certain staff members review the table of contents and bring any articles that they think might be pertinent to our work to the attention of the project staff assigned to that effort, as well as to Board members, as appropriate. Then, a routing list is appended...