Author Description

Criticism about the practical usefulness of academic accounting research produced in university business schools has been growing for some time. Due to accounting being an applied social science, many stakeholders question the relevance and value of research published in accounting journals to the accounting profession, practitioners and society in general. This paper highlights the various areas of criticism and discusses factors which underline the issue. While most of the criticism is anecdotal, this study sets about to empirically explore practitioners' perception of academia, and research published in academic accounting journals. The findings lead to the conclusion that academic accounting researchers are now nearly totally divorced from the real-world profession of accounting. The conclusions of this paper propose a series of thought provoking questions about the current state of accounting research, in the hope it will stimulate debate and generate responses from the accounting community and other stakeholders.