Even though it is now widely established, almost to the point of cliché, that there is a lot to be gained from attempting to understand accounting practices and techniques in their context, the practices of the accounting academy itself have remained relatively immune from such endeavours.  Just as the development of accounting practices are no longer seen (at least in some research traditions) as the progressive and functional refinement of techniques aimed to faithfully represent financial realities, accounting knowledge could be subjected to the same scrutiny.  This special issue aims to stimulate a discussion about the production and dissemination of accounting knowledge.  We are particularly interested in papers that can integrate insights into institutional features of academia, the production of power, and practices of theorising.

The European Accounting Review is soliciting submissions for a special issue on the accounting academy. Papers may have an analytical, theoretical, empirical or methodological focus and they should be innovative, rigorous, and contribute to our understanding of accounting as an academic discipline. Reflective pieces on the organisation of the academy in the form of auto-sociologies/ethnographies that reflect on our communities within the accounting academe as organisations and knowledge systems are encouraged.  We encourage submissions that relate, but are not restricted to: 

• What constitutes accounting academia as a knowledge system and how is the academy different to other institutions/systems.

• External broader social, economic and political pressures and their impact on the academy, as well as internal institutional elements, such as, sex, race, gatekeepers, journals ranking, internal hierarchies, and the interplay between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ factors.

• Power, networks and ethics: issues of equity and fairness of knowledge systems.  How equitable and fair is the academy as an institution? How certain networks develop and how different types of ethics come to bind those networks.  How do groups, individuals, establish power bases? How do others become exploited.

• How institutional arrangements of academia, such as recruiting, promotion, teaching and research evaluations and other impinge on what counts as good/bad accounting research.

• The extent to which issues of ethics, trust, respect and obligation guide accounting knowledge systems and their output in teaching and research.

• Systems of control over accounting scholars, being formal or informal and their effect on knowledge production and career trajectories.

• How do different networks within the accounting academy emerge and what binds their constituents? How does power work within networks and how do individuals or groups establish power bases and how do others become marginalized and exploited? And how do these affect the trends in accounting research?

• Research, teaching and administration and their role within the accounting academy.

• Doctoral and research students, hierarchies within academic networks and systemic exploitation and their role in the institutionalization of knowledge.

Submitted papers considered for this special issue will be subject to a double blind review process. Authors are encouraged to contact the guest editors in advance should there be any matters on which they require clarification or guidance. Authors should strictly follow EAR submission guidelines which can be found at this address: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/ authors/rearauth.asp. Submissions in electronic format (MS Word) should be sent to the Editorial Office of the EAR in Madrid, via an email to: ear@ie.edu. The subject of the message should include a reference to “Special Section on Accounting and Academia”. Additionally, one hard-copy of the paper should be sent to: Professor Salvador Carmona.- Editor. EAR.- Calle María de Molina, 12-4.- 28006 Madrid (Spain). The deadline for submissions is the 15^th January 2007.  Please click here to download a copy of call for papers in word format.