Accounting, Organizations and Society

About Accounting, Organizations and Society

Overview

Accounting, Organizations and Society (AOS) is a leading international interdisciplinary journal published by Elsevier in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1975, it is concerned with the relationships among accounting and human behaviour, organizational and institutional structures and processes, and the wider socio-political environment of the enterprise. Few journals in the accounting field command comparable prestige: AOS is consistently ranked among the very top accounting journals worldwide and is one of the small set of outlets that define excellence in accounting research across business schools internationally.

The journal's bibliographic identifier is the ISSN 0361-3682. It publishes eight issues per year in English. According to SCImago-based aggregators, the journal carries an SJR of approximately 2.118 and ranks in the first quartile (Q1) in no fewer than five subject categories — Accounting; Applied Psychology; Information Systems and Management; Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management; and Sociology and Political Science — with an h-index of approximately 164 and Scopus coverage recorded from 1976 onward. Its Journal Impact Factor was reported at 4.000 for 2020, a figure that should be verified against the current Journal Citation Reports.

AOS is unusual in that its audience deliberately extends beyond accounting. The journal seeks to publish work that draws on diverse methodologies and theoretical developments from across the social sciences, and it particularly wishes to attract innovative work that uses accounting phenomena to advance theory in psychology, social psychology, organizational science, sociology, and the human sciences. An AOS paper is as likely to be read by an organizational theorist or a sociologist as by an accounting scholar.

History and Development

The journal was established in 1975 at Pergamon Press by the late Anthony Hopwood, one of the most influential figures in the history of accounting thought. Hopwood took an active role as editor, promoting conferences and issuing editorial statements that helped identify emerging areas of accounting research. Together with colleagues, he defined the programmatic aims of the journal in its early years: to challenge narrow, technical conceptions of accounting and to open the field to behavioral, organizational, and social inquiry.

Under Hopwood's long editorship, AOS became the flagship journal of what came to be known as the behavioral and organizational tradition in accounting research. The journal provided a home for work that mainstream North American accounting journals of the era were often reluctant to publish — field studies, interpretive research, critical perspectives, and theoretically ambitious work drawing on sociology, psychology, and political science. In doing so, it reshaped the intellectual geography of accounting scholarship, particularly in Europe and the UK, where it became the defining journal of the field.

Following Hopwood's retirement at the end of 2009, Christopher Chapman was appointed editor-in-chief, serving from the beginning of 2010 until 2015, when Keith Robson took on the role. Robson served as sole editor-in-chief until September 2018, when Mark Peecher and Marcia Annisette were appointed as co-editors-in-chief. The current editors-in-chief are Marcia Annisette (Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada), Martin Messner (University of Innsbruck, Austria), and Hun-Tong Tan (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) — a leadership team spanning three continents, reflecting the journal's global reach.

Aims and Scope

The journal's official aims statement describes AOS as "a leading international interdisciplinary journal concerned with the relationships among accounting and human behaviour, organizational and institutional structures and processes, and the wider socio-political environment of the enterprise." It aims "to challenge and extend our understanding of the roles of accounting and related emergent and calculative practices in the construction of economic and societal actors, and their modes of economic organizing, including ways in which such practices influence and are influenced by the development of market and other infrastructures."

The journal seeks "high quality work which draws upon diverse methodologies and theoretical developments from across the social sciences, and which illuminates the development, processes and effects of accounting within its organizational, political, historical and social contexts." It particularly wishes to attract innovative work that analyses accounting phenomena to advance theory development in, for example, the psychological, social psychological, organizational, sociological, and human sciences.

The journal's distinctive topical coverage includes, but is not limited to:

• The roles of accounting in organizations and society;
• The contribution of accounting practices to the emergence, maintenance, and transformation of organizational and societal institutions;
• The roles of accounting in the development of new organizational and institutional forms, both public and private;
• The relationships between accounting, auditing, accountability, ethics, and social justice;
• Behavioural studies of accounting practices and of the providers, verifiers, and users of accounting information, including cognitive aspects of accounting, judgment and decision-making processes, and the behavioural aspects of planning, control, and valuation;
• Organizational process studies of the design, implementation, and use of accounting, information, and management control systems;
• The social role of accounting, social accounting, social audit, and accounting for scarce resources;
• Processes influencing accounting innovations and the social and political aspects of accounting standard setting;
• Human resource accounting and the behavioural aspects of budgeting, planning, and investment appraisal.

Methodologically, the journal is radically pluralist: field research, experiments, surveys, archival work, analytical modeling, and interpretive and critical studies all appear in its pages, united not by method but by theoretical ambition and by the illumination of accounting's organizational and social life.

Editorial Leadership

The journal's editors-in-chief are Marcia Annisette (Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada), Martin Messner (University of Innsbruck, Austria), and Hun-Tong Tan (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore). Professor Annisette's research addresses the social and institutional dimensions of the accounting profession; Professor Messner works on management control and accounting practices in organizations; Professor Tan is known for research on auditing and judgment and decision making. Together they embody the journal's interdisciplinary span, from institutional sociology to behavioral accounting research.

Authors and readers should consult the journal's Elsevier page for the current full editorial board roster, as appointments change over time. The board is large and international, befitting a journal that receives submissions from across the social sciences.

Peer Review Process

AOS operates a demanding peer review process consistent with its standing. Manuscripts submitted through Elsevier's editorial system are first screened by the editors for fit with the journal's aims and scope — a significant hurdle, as the editors are known for desk-rejecting papers that, however technically competent, do not promise a theoretical contribution of the kind the journal seeks. Papers that pass screening are sent to expert referees.

User-reported data on the SciRev platform (which collects authors' self-reported experiences and is not an official source) suggests a thorough process: an average first review round of about 3.7 months, around three review reports per manuscript, and multiple review rounds for papers that progress. Authors should treat these figures as indicative only. What is well established is that AOS has a reputation for developmental but demanding reviewing, with high standards for theoretical contribution — reviewers and editors expect papers to speak to broader debates in the social sciences, not only to narrow accounting literatures.

The journal follows Elsevier's publishing ethics policies, which are aligned with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines, covering originality, authorship, conflicts of interest, and the handling of corrections and retractions.

Indexing and Abstracting

Accounting, Organizations and Society is indexed in Scopus (coverage from 1976) and in the Web of Science, including the Social Sciences Citation Index. Its standard abbreviation is Account. Organ. Soc. (ISO 4). The journal's classification across five Q1 subject categories in SCImago — spanning accounting, psychology, information systems, organizational behavior, and sociology — is a quantitative reflection of its interdisciplinary mission.

Impact Metrics

All metrics below are drawn from third-party aggregators and should be verified against the primary sources (Journal Citation Reports, Scopus, SCImago) for the current year:

• Journal Impact Factor: 4.000 for 2020 (source: Wikipedia, citing Journal Citation Reports; verify current JCR).
• SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): 2.118; best quartile Q1 in Accounting, Applied Psychology, Information Systems and Management, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, and Sociology and Political Science (source: SCImago via Resurchify).
• h-index: 164 per Resurchify; other aggregators report figures up to the 180s depending on document set.
• Scopus-based impact score: approximately 4.67 (source: Resurchify).
• Overall rank: approximately 1292 of all Scopus journals (source: Resurchify).

AOS is routinely listed among the top handful of accounting journals in the world in business school rankings and journal quality lists, and publication in the journal is widely treated as a signal of research excellence in accounting departments internationally.

Publication Ethics

As an Elsevier journal, AOS adheres to Elsevier's publishing ethics policies, aligned with COPE guidelines. These cover authorship criteria, plagiarism and duplicate publication, data fabrication and falsification, disclosure of funding and competing interests, and procedures for corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions. Elsevier is a member of COPE, and its journals follow COPE flowcharts when ethical issues arise.

Open Access Policy

Accounting, Organizations and Society is a hybrid journal. Authors may publish via the traditional subscription route or choose Elsevier's gold open access option for their article on payment of an article publishing charge (APC). Elsevier also supports green open access: authors may self-archive their accepted manuscripts in institutional repositories, subject to embargo periods that vary by journal. Elsevier participates in institutional open access agreements under which affiliated authors may publish open access at no direct cost. Authors should check the current APC and embargo terms on the journal's Elsevier page, as these are updated periodically.

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts are submitted through Elsevier's online editorial system linked from the journal's homepage. Given the journal's selectivity, prospective authors should pay particular attention to:

• Fit: the paper must engage the relationships among accounting, organizations, and society — purely technical accounting papers without organizational or social theoretical framing are unlikely to survive desk review;
• Theoretical contribution: the editors look for work that advances theory, whether in accounting or in the neighboring social sciences the journal addresses;
• Methodological rigor: whatever the method, its execution must meet the standards of the relevant research tradition;
• Originality and ethics: the work must be original, not under consideration elsewhere, with all sources properly attributed and funding and conflicts disclosed.

The journal's Guide for Authors on the Elsevier site is the authoritative source for formatting, reference style, and current requirements and should be consulted immediately before submission.

Readership and Significance

Accounting, Organizations and Society is, for many scholars, the defining journal of socially and organizationally oriented accounting research. To publish in AOS is to join a conversation that has shaped how the field understands accounting — not as a neutral technical practice, but as a social and institutional force. The journal's fiftieth anniversary in 2025 marked half a century in which it consistently championed theoretical ambition and methodological pluralism. For researchers working on the behavioral, organizational, sociological, or critical dimensions of accounting, it remains the premier international outlet; for business schools and promotion committees worldwide, an AOS publication is among the strongest signals of scholarly distinction in accounting.

Hopwood's Intellectual Program

To understand AOS, one must understand what Anthony Hopwood built. When he founded the journal in 1975, mainstream accounting research — particularly in North America — was dominated by economics-based, capital-markets-oriented work that treated accounting as a more-or-less neutral information technology. Hopwood's programmatic vision was radically different: accounting, he argued, could only be understood by studying it "in action" — in the organizations where it is produced and used, in the institutional contexts that shape it, and in the social and political processes through which it gains its authority and its effects.

This vision made AOS the natural home for several intellectual movements that transformed accounting scholarship. Field research — intensive, qualitative study of accounting practices inside organizations — found in AOS its most prestigious outlet, legitimizing methods that more technically oriented journals would not publish. Institutional theory, which examines how organizational practices are shaped by social norms, professional pressures, and state regulation, became a signature theoretical lens of the journal. The sociology of science and technology, including actor-network theory, provided tools for tracing how accounting numbers are constructed and how they travel. Foucauldian perspectives illuminated accounting as a disciplinary technology of power. Behavioral research examined how accounting information shapes judgment and decision making. Critical perspectives interrogated accounting's role in sustaining inequality and injustice. No single one of these traditions defines AOS; what defines it is the insistence that accounting be studied as a social and organizational phenomenon, with whatever theoretical and methodological tools best illuminate it.

AOS at Fifty

The journal's fiftieth anniversary in 2025 marked half a century of continuous publication — a remarkable run for any scholarly journal, and especially for one founded on a heterodox intellectual program. Over those five decades, AOS published work that changed how accounting is taught, researched, and understood. It provided the venue where the behavioral and organizational traditions in accounting matured from insurgent critiques into established, internationally recognized research programs. It trained generations of scholars — many of today's leading accounting academics published their formative work in its pages. And it demonstrated, year after year, that theoretically ambitious, methodologically diverse scholarship could sustain a top-ranked journal.

The anniversary also underscores the journal's remarkable editorial continuity of purpose. Across five decades and multiple editorial teams — from Hopwood through Chapman, Robson, and the current editors — the core mission has remained recognizably the same: to challenge and extend our understanding of accounting's roles in organizations and society. Few journals can claim such sustained fidelity to a founding vision while remaining at the forefront of their field.

Theoretical Traditions in AOS

For prospective readers and authors, it is useful to sketch the main theoretical traditions that have flourished in the journal's pages. Institutional theory examines how accounting practices spread across organizations and fields through coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures, and how they become taken-for-granted. Behavioral accounting research uses psychology — increasingly experimental methods — to study how accounting information affects judgment, decisions, and behavior. Practice-based and process studies follow accounting work as it unfolds in real time, revealing the messy, situated character of calculative practices. Critical and interpretive perspectives draw on sociology, philosophy, and political economy to question accounting's claims to neutrality and to expose its distributional consequences. Historical studies trace the emergence of accounting techniques and institutions over time. The journal's distinctive achievement is to hold these traditions in productive conversation rather than allowing them to fragment into separate subfields.

For Prospective Authors: What the Editors Look For

AOS is among the most selective journals in accounting, and prospective authors should understand what distinguishes successful submissions. First and foremost is theoretical ambition: the paper must promise to change how scholars think — about accounting, about organizations, or about the social processes the paper examines. Competent empirical work without a theoretical payoff will not survive. Second is engagement with the journal's conversation: successful papers position themselves relative to debates that AOS readers care about, whether in accounting or in the neighboring social sciences. Third is methodological integrity: whatever the method, it must be executed to the standards of its tradition — a field study must be deeply grounded, an experiment carefully designed, an archival study thoroughly sourced.

Authors should also be prepared for a demanding review process. User-reported accounts describe multiple rounds of review with detailed, theoretically engaged referee reports. This is developmental reviewing at its most serious: referees and editors invest heavily in papers they believe can make a contribution, but they expect authors to rise to the challenge. Papers that emerge from the AOS review process are typically much stronger than when they entered it — which is one reason the journal's publications carry such weight.

Journal at a Glance