Research patterns of successful accounting academics in Spain

Accounting research in Spain has substantially improved in quality, visibility and quantity, due to the implementation of research assessment processes. However, the literature warns on adverse effects of such evaluations, which rely heavily on restricted journal lists (increased focus on a unique output, discarding less valued topics, methodologies or media; careerism and gamesmanship as academics pay more attention to where-to-publish than to what-to-research; increase of the research gap, etc.). The objective of this paper is to analyse the research outputs of Spanish accounting academics that successfully passed a research accreditation, and therefore, could be taken as models to follow by entry-level academics. In addition to the focus on successful academics, this paper covers a longer and more recent period, uses more detailed classifications of outputs including different indexes and considers a longitudinal perspective; allowing a better observation of changes in publishing patterns induced by the assessment systems. Our results indicate a concentration in the most valued output (articles in listed journals, preferably in top positions) at the expense of practitioner-oriented journals, participation in books and even journals listed in less valued databases. Given the scarcity of accounting journals in relevant positions, highest impact papers are published in related areas journals.