In Section 5 we revealed that – despite the recent changes in doctoral education pointing to a clear career path in the spirit
of the US model - different views exist about the desirable state of the future accounting academy in the German-speaking
area. Arguably, the view most clearly articulated is the one promoting the US model of accounting research. For instance, in
his presentation at the annual meeting of the accounting section of the VHB, Robert Go¨x (a management accounting
professor at the University of Zurich) revealed a very clear preference for a certain range of (quantitative) methods which
correspond closely to those dominating in the US. To increase publications by German-speaking authors in US journals, Go¨x
(2012), p. 26, recommended the ‘professionalisation of doctoral education’ (translation by the authors), consolidation and
extension of the comparative advantage in analytical (modelling) accounting research and improved education in empiricalarchival
and experimental accounting research.
At this point, it might be fair to ask whether there is any evidence that the commitment to follow the US approach has
proven to be a clear success in terms of how its proponents would define success. For this purpose we analysed publications
by German-speaking scholars in the top three US journals (TAR, JAR, JAE) and the Review of Accounting Studies (RAST)27
between 1996 and 2013. We found 16 articles authored or co-authored by researchers who currently hold a position in the
German-speaking accounting academy. The results are provided in Table 1.
About 8.7% of current full professors in the German-speaking area have published at least once in their career in this set of
journals during the last two decades (the rate decreases to 5.3% if RAST is excluded).28As eight of the 16 papers appeared
since 2010, this is evidence that German-speaking researchers increasingly focus on these journals and – while the overall
rate of 8.7% still seems rather modest – possibly also shows that this strategy has enabled some recent successes. The fact