Transformation of the accounting agenda in journals Q1: bibliometric analysis and thematic mapping of scientific production

Accounting is often seen as a quiet backroom of numbers, a neutral record of what a company has spent and earned. But in recent years, the discipline has undergone a massive shift. It is no longer just about keeping the books; it has become a strategic tool for managing risk, creating value, and navigating a world obsessed with sustainability and digital speed. This transformation is driven by two powerful forces: the rapid rise of advanced computer analytics that can predict future trends, and intense global pressure to report on environmental and social impacts. As these changes ripple through the business world, they have sparked a surge in academic research. Universities and journals are producing more studies than ever before, but a critical question remains: does this explosion of new papers mean the field is actually exploring new ideas, or is it simply repeating the same old stories in a louder voice?

To answer this, a team of researchers from universities in Peru and beyond decided to map the entire landscape of high-level accounting research. They focused their attention on the most prestigious journals, known as "Q1" journals, which represent the top tier of the field. These are the publications where the most influential ideas are supposed to appear. The team gathered nearly 29,000 documents published between 2020 and 2025, a period that saw the creation of new global standards for sustainability reporting and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. Using specialized software, they did not just count the papers; they analyzed who wrote them, where they came from, how often they were cited, and what topics they covered. Their goal was to see if the field was truly diversifying or if it was becoming more rigid and concentrated in the hands of a few.

The results revealed a field that is growing fast but staying the same. The number of papers published in these top journals increased by about 13 percent every year, a steady and significant climb. However, this growth was not evenly distributed. A small group of open-access journals, which allow anyone to read their articles for free, produced a massive volume of work, accounting for nearly 30 percent of all the papers. Yet, despite publishing so much, these high-volume journals did not necessarily have the highest scientific impact. The most cited and influential papers still came from traditional, subscription-based journals that published fewer articles. This suggests that in the world of top-tier accounting, publishing more does not automatically mean being more influential. The label of being a top journal acts as a stamp of legitimacy, but it does not guarantee that the content inside is equally powerful or widely read.

When the researchers looked at who was doing the writing, a clear picture of global inequality emerged. The research was heavily concentrated in a few wealthy nations. The United States and the United Kingdom acted as the central hubs of the entire global network, controlling more than 64 percent of the connections between researchers. While countries like China and Australia also produced a large number of papers, many other nations found themselves on the edges. For instance, Indonesia published a high number of articles, yet it had very little influence in connecting different research communities. In contrast, Malaysia, with far fewer total papers, played a much larger role in linking researchers across its region. The data showed that the ability to shape the conversation was not just about how many papers a country produced, but about who held the keys to the network. Latin American and African nations were barely visible in this high-impact landscape, often excluded by language barriers and a lack of access to the funding and networks that drive international collaboration.

Perhaps the most surprising finding concerned the actual topics being studied. Despite the massive regulatory pressure to focus on sustainability and the environment, these themes remained on the outskirts of the research agenda. The core of accounting research stayed firmly rooted in traditional subjects like corporate governance, earnings management, and audit quality. These topics form a stable, unchanging center that has dominated the field for decades. New technologies, such as machine learning, did enter the conversation, but they did so by serving the old questions rather than replacing them. Researchers began using artificial intelligence to better detect fraud or improve audits, but they did not use it to fundamentally rethink what accounting is for. Even the urgent global push for sustainability reporting failed to dislodge the traditional focus; instead, the new concepts were absorbed into the old framework, often discussed only in the context of how they affected corporate governance.

The study concludes that the accounting field has transformed its tools and its geography, but not its soul. The infrastructure of research has changed, with new digital methods and a wider, though unequal, global participation. Yet, the questions researchers ask remain remarkably stable. The field has expanded its volume without proportionally expanding its curiosity. The drive to publish in top journals, combined with the pressure to conform to established norms, has created a situation where the most influential voices continue to reinforce the same core ideas. While the world outside demands new answers for a digital and sustainable future, the academic conversation inside the most prestigious journals remains anchored in the past, proving that a field can grow in size without necessarily growing in scope.