Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Accounting Review Conflict of Interest Policy

Abstract

The majority of research examining the peer review process in accounting as well as other disciplines have focused on its perceived fairness from the perspective of the author. Balancing the process from the editorial board perspective, academic journals employ conflict of interest policies to mitigate biases. Specific relationships included in conflict policies are acquaintances, colleagues, co-authors, dissertation committee chair or committee membership, and the editorial board. Using a sample of 568 manuscripts collected from The Accounting Review from 2010 to 2019, we examine the efficacy of the journal’s conflict of interest policy. Using days under review as a measure of bias with control variables, our findings suggest that the policy is effective in mitigating relationship from colleagues, co-authors, and members of the editorial board. Dissertation committees with editorial board membership report a potential bias based. In addition, 52% of all manuscripts were conflicted at the time of submission, review, or acceptance. A secondary analysis is performed examining the impacts of citation counts, senior editors, and conference attendance on days under review. Control variables appear to remain significant except for conference attendance.

Keywords: peer review, days under review, insider publishing, publishing bias

JEL Classification: M41; N01