From the BRIA Editor’s Desk – One year out

The first year of my term as editor of Behavioral Research in Accounting has flown by. Many people comment to me that the job of editor must be a lot of work. While I can’t disagree, I also must say that it is some of the most interesting, intellectually challenging and satisfying work I have done so far in my career. During the first year, I was supported by a highly committed editorial board and a large group of dedicated reviewers. Thanks go to all of you who have supported the journal over the last year! In addition, I would like to thank the authors who submitted over 50 papers to the journal last year and provided me with much interesting food for thought.

I am also often asked about the number of submissions in any one year and how the review process tends to unfold. To answer these questions, I provide the following journal statistics:

By March 31, 2009, I had received 10 new paper submissions - somewhat less than last year where I had received 16 new papers by the end of March. Remember that the journal is now published in two issues a year. To ensure two full and interesting issues each year, you need to keep those papers coming!

From my end, I have also been taking the opportunity to talk up the journal and encourage new submissions wherever possible. I chatted with many of you at the ABO Section Mid-year Meeting and saw a number of really interesting papers presented there. In addition, I enjoyed the talk given by Mike Shields while accepting his Lifetime Contribution Award. For those of you who couldn’t attend, I encourage you to read Mike’s comments entitled “It’s Been-an-All-Too-Short Interesting Trip through the Behavioral Accounting Literature: A Personal Perspective” which will be published in the next issue of BRIA. In today’s world where no one really seems to care much about anything that happened more than 5 minutes ago, I think reflections like Mike’s are extremely rare and provide much insight into what we do today, why we do it that way and how we might want to proceed in the future.

Another really interesting thing I did in the last year was to sit on an editors’ panel at the Management Accounting Section Mid-year Meeting. The audience had many questions about the publication process and the panel tried to dispel the many myths surrounding that process that seem to develop over time. The main message that the panel and I hoped to get across is the same message I would send out to ABO section members:

• If you write a good paper, it will get published. There is really no magic, just a lot of hard work.
• Choose an interesting topic that makes a contribution to the literature. Talk to your colleagues about the issue to make sure they find it interesting too.
• Design is key – spend a lot of time on the design of your study to make sure things are working the way they should and the operationalization of the theory into your study design really makes sense.
• Write a draft and then present, present, present! The more feedback you receive BEFORE you send the paper to a journal the better. Reviewers are busy, not always patient and the journal review process is not the place to “clean up” your paper. Make sure what you send in is the best it can be.
• Be persistent and don’t take the reviewer’s comments personally. They really are trying to help improve your paper! Take their advice, do what they suggest and my bet is you will end up with a much better paper in the end.

Finally, I want to dispel one more myth about BRIA. That is, BRIA is NOT only an “experimental journal.” While many behavioral researchers utilize the experimental method, there are a whole variety of methodologies that can be applied to better understand how accounting “affects and is affected by individuals and organizations…theoretical papers and papers based upon empirical research (e.g. field, survey and experimental research) are appropriate.” (see BRIA’s Editorial Policy). In addition to methodological variety, the editorial policy is wide open in terms of theoretical grounding. While many papers submitted to BRIA are grounded in social and cognitive psychology, papers applying sociological theories for example, would also be appropriate. There are exciting opportunities to explore the breadth of accounting research allowed by the structure of the ABO section and the editorial policy of BRIA. I am looking forward to exploring as many of these opportunities as possible over the course of my term as editor. Stay tuned!

Theresa Libby
Editor, Behavioral Research in Accounting