The Influence of Positive Accounting in Postgraduate Programs in Accounting: a bibliometric analysis of Brazilian academic production from 2002 through 2005

This paper analyzes the influence of positive accounting theory on the scientific output of postgraduate accounting programs in Brazil, by examining the scientific production reported by these programs to the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), an arm of the Education Ministry that works to improve the quality of college education. We only considered works published in periodicals and annals of scientific events classified by CAPES as “National A” or “International A”. We employed the descriptive documental method and then applied statistical tools commonly used in bibliometric studies to evaluate the authors’ productivity and the level of concentration of the works on the positive accounting approach. The results show that there was undeniable growth of positive approach research in Brazil during the period studied (2002-2005), but that this research was mainly concentrated in only two postgraduate programs, those of the University of São Paulo (USP) and of FUCAPE. The results also show a high concentration among authors.


LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1.Positive Approach Watts and Zimmerman (1986) systematized the positive theory approach in accounting research and stated that the objective of this theory is to explain and predict accounting practiceexplain in the sense of evidence the reasons for the practices observed, and predict in the sense of anticipating accounting trends, with these predictions being testable.This theoretical view is denominated in economics as positive theory to distinguish it from normative prescriptions and arguments.
Friedman (1967) observed that the term positive was introduced by the English economist John Neville Keynes, father of John Maynard Keynes.In discussing the distinction among positive and normative science and art, Keynes (1891, p.21) illustrated his argumentation with an analysis of tax regulation.He observed that the investigation of the incidence of taxation is a positive inquiry, the determination of the ideal level of taxation belongs to normative (or regulative) science, while the way to reach this ideal level is not a science at all, but an art.

Studies of Brazilian Scientific Production in Accountancy
One of the first works to address the subject of Brazilian scientific output in the field of accounting was Germano (1982).This study classified the theses and dissertations produced in the postgraduate accounting program of FEA/USP in the 1970-1988 period, according to the theme covered.In this same line, but encompassing a much broader universe and using a multidimensional analysis, Riccio, Carastan and Sakata (1999) examined the tendency of all theses and dissertations presented in Brazilian postgraduate degree programs between 1962 and 1999, covering a total of 386 works.
Regarding Brazilian accounting periodicals, Oliveira (2002) examined the published output of an intentionally selected sample covering the 1990-1999 period.The results indicated that the majority of authors were faculty members, which in the author's opinion suggests that accounting research is carried out inside universities and reflects the relative lack of accounting research centers, the absence of incentive mechanisms and the pressure exercised by the postgraduate programs to publish research.Another author who studied the accounting research published in scientific periodicals is Martins (2002), who analyzed over a 12-year period (1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001) the production published in the then entitled Caderno de Estudos and current Revista Contabilidade e Finanças USP.Based on an analysis of the bibliographies referenced in the articles, the author concluded there is "a certain accommodation" of the researchers, characterized by the use of only a few common bibliographical sources, the predominance of bibliographical studies and the small participation of empirical studies.Cardoso, Pereira and Guerreiro (2004) analyzed the scientific production in management and cost accounting of the works presented at the Encontros Anuais da Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração -ENANPADs (Annual Meetings of the National Association of Postgraduate Study and Research in Administration) in the period from 1998 to 2003.The results indicate a sharp increase in the themes related to accounting in general and management and cost accounting in particular.The authors stress that this quantitative growth was not accompanied by qualitative growth.
A detailed analysis of Brazilian scientific production in accountancy is presented by Theóphilo (2004) in his doctoral thesis.In this work, which is a sequence to his earlier studies (Theóphilo 1998 and2000), the author examines the theses and dissertations submitted in postgraduate accounting programs along with works published in the annals of scientific events and specialized periodicals, finding a favorable evolution in the methodological quality of the works over the period analyzed (1994 to 2003).These results suggest there was a paradigm shift starting at the end of the 1990s, when works began to predominate with an empirical focus.
Using an essentially bibliometric approach, Cardoso, Mendonça Neto, Riccio and Sakata (2005), analyzed Brazilian scientific output in accountancy published in periodicals classified as A level by CAPES in the period from 1990 to 2003.The study concludes by pointing out the low output by Brazilian researchers in accounting when compared with authors publishing in English and when compared with Brazilian authors in the area of finance.
Batista da Silva, Oliveira and Ribeiro Filho (2005) analyzed the transformations occurring in the Revista Contabilidade e Finanças USP since the study conducted by Martins (2002).They found authors from a greater diversity of institutions and also growth in the 2001-2004 period in articles published of an empirical nature.
BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev. (Engl.ed., Online), Vitória, v. 4, n. 2, Art. 5, p. 149-161, may.-aug. 2007 www.bbronline.com.brAlso using a bibliometric approach, but focusing on the participation of studies with a positive approach, Mendonça Neto, Riccio and Sakata (2006) reviewed the production in accountancy presented at the ENANPADs during the 1981-2005 period.The authors affirm that the works using a positive approach made up 79.14% of the total, while those using a normative approach accounted for 20.86%.Their results also show that starting in 2002 the participation of the positive approach was never below 80%.These results are in line with those obtained by Theóphilo (2004) for the Brazilian case and by Fülbier and Sellhorn (2006) in a similar study of works presented at the annual congresses of the European Accounting Association (EAA).

Programs Selected
To carry out the study, we chose all the postgraduate programs having in their denomination the terms Accounting Sciences, Accountancy or Control and that are authorized and evaluated by CAPES (according to its site, accessed in January 2007).We relied on the information available from CAPES in the item on program results, which reports the scientific output declared by each institution.
The programs analyzed are listed in Table 1 below.This table also shows the result of the CAPES evaluation of each program.The CAPES ranking scale is 1 to 7 and the minimum grade for continuing recommendation is 3.Of the programs recommended by CAPES, the only one omitted is that of Rio de Janeiro State University, for lack of data.
The period studied is 2002 through 2005, the latter year being the last one with available data at the time of conducting this study, in early 2007.The option to use the declared production of each program is justified since the academic institution of the authors is not always specified in periodicals.Therefore, reservation made for the starting date of each program, as well as the limitation of access to the documentation on the scientific output of the program, the period analyzed of each program is shown in Table 2.

The Scientific Production Analyzed.
The scientific output analyzed is that indicated by the programs to CAPES and published in periodicals and annals of selected congresses and other events.The selection criterion for these periodicals and events was relevance and recognition by CAPES.Thus, we selected Revista Contabilidade e Finanças USP ("USP Accounting and Finance Review"), Anais do ENANPAD ("ENANPAD Annals") and Anais do Congresso USP de Controladoria e Contabilidade ("Annals of the USP Congress on Control and Accounting"), classified by the Qualis System of CAPES as National or International A, as shown in Table 3 below.There are some works by co-author from different programs.In these cases we decided to consider the participation of each individually, that is, each participation was considered for the institution to which the particular co-author belonged.Given the objective of this work and the small number of these occurrences, we believe this does not greatly affect the evaluation.
In the analysis of the works from event annals and the periodical indexes, there were cases where authors indicated they belonged to a certain program, but the work was not on the list reported to CAPES.In these cases, we decided not to consider the work, except in some cases of works disclosed at the USP Congress where the author's link to a certain program was evident and in some works published in the Revista Contabilidade e Finanças USP.These small adjustments were made aiming to give a better picture of the scientific output of the postgraduate accounting programs, which can be identified by the production of the program's students and faculty members.The need for these adjustments indicates that some programs do not correctly report their output to CAPES.

The Methodology of Analysis
The analytical procedure consisted of the following steps: (1) obtaining the list of declared production; (2) searching through and separating out for further analysis the works identified in the previous step based on the title; (3) classification of the approach (positive or normative) based on reading the work's abstract; (4) in case of doubt, reading the entire article to judge its emphasis (positive or normative).
Through these steps we identified 156 references, of which 8 were written by more than one author and 7 were published in more than one source, leaving a total of 140 works.As normal, the works were presented first at events and then accepted for publication in periodicals.This is perfectly logical, because scientific meetings have the role of generating criticisms of the works presented, which are often adjusted before final publication.We also noted that many works used the same database, but analyzed other aspects not included in the initial work.

Classification of the Methodological Approach Taken by the Authors
To classify the methodological approach (positive or normative), we used the same criterion employed by Mendonça Neto, Riccio and Sakata (2006) and by Fülbier and Sellhorn (2006), based on the explicit intention of the author, i.e., we considered as normative those works where the author declared the implications or relevance of the results obtained for the improvement of accounting practice, and as positive those where the author declares the results obtained contribute to the understanding of a determined accounting phenomenon.

Quantitative Analysis of the Scientific Production in Accountancy
For quantitative analysis of the scientific production in question, we used the model of Lotka.This model, widely used in the area of bibliometry and scientometry, permits evaluation of the productivity of authors and the degree of concentration of the knowledge in a given field of science.
is the number of authros with n publications and c  2 but not necessarily If c  2 , by Euler's Theorem 

=
 and the total number of articles Other programs that deserve mention are those of UNB and UNISINOS, the former showing steady growth since 2004 and the latter with constant output at satisfactory levels for the program's size, since 2003.This evolution of production of the four programs with highest production can be observed in Table 5.Table 6 below shows the evolution of production by periodical/event, where a consistent growth in works with a positive approach can be noted.It should be pointed out that in the study period covering four years, the production of works with a positive approach tripled, from 19 in 2002 to 61 in 2005.As would be expected, events are responsible for most of this output, since they are where the works are first presented while still in preliminary form, to be discussed and improved for later publication in periodicals.This suggests that in the next few years, there will be an impressive volume of articles with a positive apprach published in accounting periodicals.

Results of the Analysis of Scientific Production with a Positive Approach by Author
The 156 works analyzed had participation of 152 authors.Of these, only 29 works (18.6%) were by a single author, while the remaining 127 (81.4%) had more than one author.Regarding these authors, 86 of them appear a single time, as author or co-author.In all, the 156 works had 359 author participations, either individually or together with other authors.These figures can be seen in Table 7 below.The results above differ substantially from those obtained in previous bibliometric studies reported regarding Brazilian output in accounting and finance and approach that obtained by Chung, Cox and Pak, (1992) for output in English.
A comparison between the values estimated for the coefficient c in the present study and those obtained in previous studies is shown in Table 9.  2002 to 2005 1907 to 1916 1968 to 1988 1974 to 2001 1990 to 2003 1981 to 2005 Although these results at first glance suggest higher productivity by authors who take a positive approach, this difference can in large part be explained by the fact that this study, besides covering a relatively shorter period (four years) than the others, involves a more recent one as well, when accounting research in general grew impressively.
In any event, the results suggest that for the recent period there is high productivity by authors who take a positive approach and also a level of concentration of knowledge in this area greater than the empirical patterns observed by Lotka.
The authors who had the highest production or works addressing the positive approach are listed in Table 10.The above table shows that 19 authors who had up to five participation in the study period represent 12.5% of the total of 152 authors and were responsible for 160 participations (45% of the total).

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
The results indicate there has been an unquestionable growth in the influence of positive accounting theory in the scientific output of Brazilian postgraduate accounting programs.
It is worth observing, however, that this influence is still quite concentrated in the programs of FEA/USP and FUCAPE, which were together responsible for 59% of the accumulated output in the period from 2002 to 2005.Besides being concentrated in these two programs, the production was also more concentrated in relation to authors than the empirical patterns observed by Lotka.However, it is reasonable to assume that the tendency in coming years will be for this type of approach to become less concentrated as students receive their degrees from these two leading programs and take up teaching positions at other institutions.Two recent works based on positive accounting should significantly contribute to this diffusion, those of Iudícibus and Lopes (2004) and Lopes and Martins (2005) As stated by Camargo, Coutinho and Fernandes (2005) for the finance area, preliminary indications suggest that most studies follow in the footsteps of of models developed in more advanced academic centers, principally in the United States, which may not contribute to the formulation of theories suitable for Brazilian reality.This can be justified, however, because of the initial stage of this approach in Brazil.Nevertheless, it is hoped that in the near future the studies carried out by Brazilian researchers based on positive accounting will start to focus on specific aspects of Brazilian reality.
From a practical standpoint, we suggest that additional efforts be aimed at systemizing the cataloging of studies, with an expanded database and sharper focus on the themes involved.It would also be good to analyze the process of institutionalization of the positive approach in Brazilian accounting research and use other approaches than the normative and positive, such as the critical approach, widely disseminated in European academic circles, as well as the behavioral approach.

Table 1 . Master's and Doctoral Programs in Accounting Recommended by CAPES.
Source: CAPES, 2006.