Publication Records of Faculty Promoted to Professor: Evidence from the UK Accounting and Finance Academic Community

This study investigates the publication profiles of 140 accounting and finance faculty promoted to the senior rank of professor at UK and Irish universities during the period 1992 to 2007. On average, approximately 9 papers in Association of Business Schools (ABS) (2008)-listed journals, with 5 at the highest 3*/4* quality levels in a portfolio of 20 outputs are required for promotion to professor. Multivariate analysis provides evidence that publication requirements in terms of ABS ranked journal papers have increased over time, an effect attributed to the government research assessment exercise. There is no evidence that requirements differ for: internal versus external promotion, male versus female candidates; accounting versus finance professors, research intensity of institution peer group; or government research ranking of unit. There is also no evidence of a substitution effect in relation to increased recent publication history, quantity of non-ABS outputs or sole-authorship, all of which show a significant complementary effect. It is noted that there is very limited overlap in the UK and US publication journal sets, suggesting underlying geographically-based paradigm differences. The benchmarks provided in this study are informative in a range of decision settings: recruitment; those considering making an application for promotion to a chair and those involved in promotion panels; cross-disciplinary comparisons; and resource allocation. The evidence presented also contributes to the emerging policy debates concerning the aging demographic profile of accounting faculty, the management of academic labour and the Research Excellence Framework

Publication records of accounting and finance faculty promoted to professor: evidence from the UK

This study investigates publication profiles of 137 accounting and finance faculty promoted to professor at UK universities during 1992–2007. On average, nine papers in established academic journals, with 5 at the highest 3*/4* quality levels in a portfolio of 20 outputs are required for promotion. Based on various theoretical perspectives, multivariate models of key performance benchmarks (quality and quantity measures) are constructed and have good explanatory power (R 2 ≥ 0.7). Publication requirements seem to have increased over time, argued to be mainly attributable to government-initiated Research Assessment Exercises. For internal promotions, there is some evidence of higher hurdles but no evidence that quality requirements differ based on gender; sub-discipline; research intensity of institution peer group; or government-initiated research ranking of unit. Similarly, the quality benchmark is not reduced for those having an increased recent publication history, a high number of non-ABS outputs or sole-authored papers. Comparison with the US suggests underlying geographically-based paradigm differences. UK promotion benchmarks are argued to have evolved through a dynamic and complex interaction between university managers, the government and the accounting and finance academic community