A comparative study on studies published in journals of accounting history

Accounting history journals, which are among the most important sources of accounting history, have been published since the early 1970s. Starting from that date, a total of seven accounting history journals have started their publication life and continue. The first three of these journals are considered to be pioneers in accounting history publishing. The last journal, which started its publication life in 2011, is the journal of accounting history published in Turkey. In this way, the aim of the study is to perform the bibliometric analysis of the articles published in the three leading accounting history journals in the field of accounting history dating back to the 1970s and the accounting history journal published in Turkey. For this purpose, 1,562 articles, which have a 53 percent share among the works in 2,968 titles, published between 1974-2021 in the four journals selected for this purpose, were identified. The articles in question; genre, subject authorship context (number, partnership and repetition), keywords, geography and time period examined in the articles were examined in detail by content analysis through the MAXQDA qualitative research program. Findings from the reviewed journals; that there are more than fifty percent archival research articles in all four accounting journals; It has been observed that the topics covered in the articles mostly focus on technical accounting practices, but the topics that are not related to accounting, classified as special fields, take up more space than even some basic accounting topics. A total of 3,708 author names were reached, and only 17 percent of the total authors are women. The rates of co-authorship and repeat authorship; It has been determined that it is lower than those who have done a single authorship and accounting history study only once. A total of 4,635 keywords were identified in the articles examined, and it was seen that only the word "accounting" was used more frequently as a keyword instead of "accounting date". In three foreign journals, the findings of which were examined in terms of the locations mentioned in the articles, USA, England, Italy, France; in the national journal, it focused on the Ottoman Empire, Russia and Turkey. While about a third of the articles do not indicate any time period, studies examining the 19th and 20th centuries are concentrated in all journals. The results of the research, within the scope of four journals published in the field of accounting history; It draws attention to the fact that the articles are mainly on archival research, but now accounting history studies should be separated from technical accounting applications and focus on accounting history-related issues. In addition, it is considered that the diversity in the field will increase with the increase of the authors' work in this field by sharing their accounting history knowledge with co-authors and increasing the participation of women writers. In order to increase visibility in scientific research, care should be taken to ensure that the selected keywords are related to the accounting history; It has been evaluated that accounting history researchers should show more tendency in terms of narrow country sample and going beyond limited time periods.