Creating a Practitioner-Focused Research Synthesis: A New Skill for Accounting Researchers

Abstract

Accounting researchers are familiar with the traditional academic literature review for communicating state-of-the-art findings to other researchers. However, the traditional review is poorly suited for communicating to practitioners about research findings relevant to practice-related issues. In this paper, we first encourage researchers to shift their mindset towards research syntheses as the primary, more suitable approach to communicating research-based knowledge to practitioners. Then, we provide a step-by-step primer for how to create research syntheses. As an illustrative example, we draw from our own experience of creating a research synthesis that practitioners ex post validated as effective in transferring research knowledge. This paper addresses not only the practical “how-to”, but also the mindset development necessary to assemble and convey research findings relevant to practitioner issues. We hope to equip accounting researchers to produce research syntheses at a standard comparable to other disciplines that regularly use this vehicle to communicate to the practitioner community.

Keywords: research synthesis, knowledge transfer, how-to guide, accounting, audit, financial

JEL Classification: M40, M41, M42, M49