If you struggle to understand the narrowness of publications in the American Three journals, I suggest you read the articles in the journal Critical Perspectives on Accounting.  Yes, I know many of my readers are only remotely aware of CPA (the journal not the designation) but the March 2018 issue is one that we can learn from.

Where else would you see commentaries by Chris Chapman (former AOS EIC), Steve Kachelmier (former Senior Editor at TAR) and Steve Salterio (former CAR EIC) discussing one paper from their varied perspectives (also with others including Tim Fogarty, Dana Hermanson).   The focus of their comments is on an article by Endenich and Trapp entitled “Signaling effects of scholarly profiles – The editorial teams of North American accounting association journals”  in Volume 51 2018.  The article suggests that what senior editors or EIC’s do matters on the margins of publishing when it comes to attracting a more diverse methodological set of literature in accounting (but does not have any affect on substantive accounting topics or subareas).

The commentary makes for fascinating reading, and not just because I am one of the commentators.  A careful reading of the paper and the three comments by Chapman, and the two Steve’s will give you a lot of insight into what goes on in the accounting journal publishing world.  Congrats to Yves Gendron (one of the Co-EIC’s of CPA) for pulling such a diverse project together.