If the evidence based policy making project in auditing and financial accounting is to move forward I believe there are four key players in the world.  Accounting Horizons (USA), Accounting Perspectives (Canada), Accounting in Europe (i.e. Europe) and Australian Accounting Review.  Each of those journals has the mandate from its publishers to be a link between practice and academic research.

Imagine if each of those journals committed to publish a research synthesis that meets the criteria of the Centre for Evidence Based Management   in each issue of their journals.  That would mean we would quickly have proof of concept of the utility of the research synthesis as the unit of knowledge transfer to standard setters and regulators.  The criteria for such research syntheses would have to be set high, but it is not as if there is not lots of help available to make those evaluations.  In particular the Campbell Collaborative   has a robust set of tools that Hoang, Luo and Salterio (2019) have shown transfer well to the audit standard setting domain.

For a discussion of what an evidence based research synthesis would look like, see Hoang, Salterio and Sylph (2018) in Accounting Perspectives  and Salterio, Hoang and Luo on SSRN .

To see the creation of a research synthesis in real time, see our video

In less than 45 minutes I am giving my first workshop on the third paper in a three paper series that has consumed me in the last few years.  Yes, Kris, Yi and I finally have a working paper to accompany the video that we unveiled last fall.  The paper reports the formal results of the real time simulation we ran on evidence based policymaking in the audit standard setting domain with former standard setters.   Presenting it at one of the most rigorous U’s in at least the Southern Hemisphere if not the world, the University of Sydney!

The paper is so fresh that there is still a spelling error in my name!!!!

Finally, a shout out to readers in Canada,  THANK goodness for the sake of evidence informed policy making that we got a government that believes in research even if they do not always follow it.  Better than a government that thinks a census should be voluntary (da, the dictionary states that is impossible).

From beautiful Sydney, its showtime.

As my spouse pointed out, this is a way too long of a paragraph to be a mission statement.  Nonetheless, in academic terms it is about the closest you get.  I believe that the mission of BRIA was last updated in 1989 with some minor tweaks in the Hatfield years.

So without further ado:

Sponsored by the Accounting, Behavior and Organizations Section of the American Accounting Association, Behavioral Research in Accounting publishes original research about how accounting (broadly conceived) affects and is affected by individuals, organizations, and society. The primary audience is the international community of behavioral, organizational, and social researchers in accounting. Behavioral Research in Accounting seeks original empirical research (e.g., field, survey, experimental, experimental economics) in all areas of accounting. The journal also seeks to be the venue of choice for literature reviews of underlying discipline theories; methodological and methods papers; and scale validation papers that are relevant to the journal’s scope and to its readers. Behavioral Research in Accounting also encourages replications of influential behavioral articles in order to build a robust base of knowledge about the behavioral, organizational, and social aspects of accounting. The international set of editors and reviewers collectively have expertise in all the domains that the journal seeks to influence, and promises prompt and fair reviews by subject matter experts.

Now apparently my verbs and nouns do not agree and this will be corrected in due course. Otherwise, mission accomplished!!! We have a revised mission statement!