Citation Indexing and Its Uses in Accounting: An Awareness Survey and Departmental Ranking.

Because of the earlier success of the Science Citation Index for the natural sciences, the Social Science Citation Index was started in 1973. Accounting researchers now have a powerful bibliographic research tool as well as a new evaluative tool. The evaluative aspect of citation indexing rests on the premise that the more a paper is cited, the greater is its impact on others' research. This notion of quality will be discussed in the paper after citation indexing and the Social Science Citation Index are first introduced. Two studies then are presented. One study presents and examines the results of a survey of Accounting Department chairmen concerning their own awareness and their faculties' awareness of citation indexing, including its current and anticipated use for faculty evaluation. The second study presents a list of accounting departments, ranked using citation counts as the evaluative criterion.