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Journal of Business Ethics (2010) 93:137160 Springer 2009 DOI 10.1007/s10551-009-0187-9
Business Ethics Research withan Accounting Focus: A BibliometricAnalysis from 1988 to 2007zgrzmen Uysal
ABSTRACT. This article uses bibliometric analysis to empirically examine research on business ethics published in a broad set of journals, focused over the period 1988 2007. We consider those journals with an emphasis on accounting. First, we determine the citation frequencies of documents to identify the core articles in accounting research with an ethics focus as well as the contributions of influential fields included in the research sphere of these journals. We also employ document co-citation analysis to analyze the scholarly communication patterns that exist within the realm of the specified articles. Second, we utilize social network analysis tools to profile the centrality features of the co-citation network of these documents.
KEY WORDS: citation analysis, document co-citation analysis, social network analysis, accounting ethics
Introduction
Business ethics research with an accounting focus has been conducted in diverse disciplines. The responsibility of academia and ethics researchers above all for the improvement of accounting practices and the accounting profession has been emphasized in the accounting literature (Gaa, 1996). The relentless escalation of corporate accounting scandals has spawned intensied concern for accounting ethics issues (Waddock, 2005; Young and Annisette, 2009). Recent legislation (e.g., the SarbanesOxley Act of 2002) along with a reawakening interest in business ethics has also instigated new avenues for accounting ethics research (Robertson, 2008). These critical events create space in which new research strategies can be introduced that differ in scope and
focus from prior approaches (Cooper et al., 2005). A great deal of recent research has concentrated on ethical decision-making processes and the role of inuencing factors (Gaa and Thorne, 2004).
This mounting body of recent accounting ethics research has either advanced prior research through relatively conventional approaches at various levels of integration with internal and external attributes (Dellaportas, 2006; Maroney and McDevitt, 2008) or extended alternative methodological strategies (Emerson et al., 2007; Patel, 2007). Still other research has problematized the limited view of ethics within the realm of professional dilemmas, individual decision-making models, and professional codes (Boyce, 2008; Cooper et al., 2005). Since accounting ethics education is acknowledged as one prospective cure for the professions ethical collapse (Jackling et al., 2007),...