The first contribution of our paper is to provide insight into the construction of
accounting academic articles in highly ranked interdisciplinary journals. In particular,
we have introduced the simplified concept of the five distinct major parts of an article
being “Introduction”, “Methodology”, “The Back End”, “Supporting evidence” and
“References” along with their contributing minor sections. Our analysis of the major
parts shows that it is not necessary to have all of the individual sections, or elements,
as each article is unique. The basic elements can vary and can even be absent, for
example, there are published articles without a specific “Method” section or a
“Conclusions” section. Apparently, there is no standard article structure, for example,
Czarniawska’s (2010) narrative AAAJ article using a photo as evidence is unique,
interesting, entertaining, pushes the boundaries, and challenges some
taken-for-granted views of how an accounting academic article should be constructed.