Contemporary international and Arab trends of accounting research published in peer-reviewed accounting journals and lessons learned for Arab countries

This research aims to use the content analysis method to examine 1766 research papers carried out by 3378 authors, to identify the nature of the accounting research published at the international level and the Arab countries level. The accounting research trends published in The Accounting Review, The Arab Journal of Accounting, The Journal of Accounting Research, and The Journal of Accounting Thought were studied during the years 2001-2017. Emphasis was placed on studying the characteristics of the authors of accounting research, in addition to the characteristics of these researches. The results of the research indicated that there is a large gap between number of authors of accounting research at the international level and Arab countries. The average scientific production of authors at the international level was 2.41 author per research, while it reached only 1.28 in the Arab countries. The accounting papers published internationally are multi-author. Conversely, accounting research published in Arab countries depends on a single-author. It was found that interest in financial accounting issues was greater at the international level compared to Arab countries. Interestingly, it was found that methods of analytical models, archival studies, and laboratory experiments represent 92% of the accounting research published internationally, compared to only 28% at the level of Arab countries. On the contrary, survey methods, field studies/case studies, analytical studies, working papers, and proposed frameworks represent 72% at the level of Arab countries, compared to only 7% internationally. The research ended with lessons learned for Arab countries.