How to Publish in Peer-Reviewed Practitioner Accounting Journals

The three of us devote a significant portion of our research time to publishing in peer-reviewed practitioner accounting journals, in addition to our focus on traditional academic journal publishing. In this article, we first discuss overall considerations when publishing for practitioners, including finding topics, writing, statistics, and implications. Then, we describe the five types of practitioner papers we typically produce and how we develop each type of paper: small literature reviews, empirical papers, thought pieces, skills papers, and current topic updates. We conclude with discussion of related educational opportunities and issues, including using practitioner articles in class, exposing doctoral students to practitioner publishing, and getting academic credit for practitioner publishing in tenure, promotion, and annual performance reviews. At a time when accounting academia is seeking to enhance the relevance and impact of research, we hope this paper will prompt other academics to begin or increase their contributions to practitioner journals.