Concentration in Publishing at Top-Tier Business Journals: Evidence and Potential Explanations*

Accepted by Gordon Richardson. Earlier versions of the paper were titled “Concentration in the Major Business Journals: Evidence and Consequences for Accounting, Finance, Management, and Marketing”. The paper has been greatly improved by detailed comments by two anonymous reviewers, Gord Richardson (who served as a discussant at the 2004 Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA) annual meeting and as the editor of Contemporary Accounting Research), Terry Shevlin (who served as a discussant at the 2004 CAAA annual meeting and later provided comments on a revised draft), and Bob Strawser. We want to thank participants at a workshop at the University of Connecticut and at the 2006 American Accounting Association (AAA) annual meeting. Discussions with numerous people have helped shape our views. We are particularly indebted to feedback by members of the AAA Journal Task Force, chaired by Judy Rayburn and Jane Mutchler. Seppo Pynnonen provided valuable statistical assistance. Jap Efendi, Janet McDonald, James Pimpedly, and Anup Srivastava supplied many hours of research assistance.