Examination of the content of the 115 UK papers showed that the UK is characterised
by extremely diverse research genres—from the highly quantitative, economics-based,
positive US tradition, through to the qualitative, relativist/critical tradition, with all shades
in between. It is also clear that there has been a distinctive UK contribution made in
several research areas. However, given the relatively small amount of financial accounting
research undertaken in the UK, this distinctive contribution can often be traced to just a
few individual researchers.2