Accounting Horizons – Tips from Editors to Authors and Reviewers

Open Access Transition Pressures

Accounting Horizons, a quarterly journal of the American Accounting Association (AAA), has long aimed to publish rigorous academic research alongside perspectives that speak directly to accounting practitioners, regulators, and educators. Its impact factor stands at 2.2 (with CiteScore 4.5), and it maintains a relatively swift review process—averaging 62 days to first decision and 32 days from acceptance to publication.

The pivotal change arrives on January 1, 2026, when the journal introduces hybrid gold open access publishing under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license. Authors can choose to pay for immediate open access, making articles freely readable worldwide without subscription barriers, while the traditional subscription model remains available. This mirrors broader shifts across academia, where funders, universities, and governments push for open science to accelerate knowledge transfer and public accountability.

In accounting, where research often informs auditing standards, financial regulation, and corporate reporting, wider access carries concrete implications. Practitioners and regulators gain faster insight into emerging issues like disclosure practices or governance, potentially influencing rule-making at bodies such as the FASB or SEC. Yet the trade-off is stark: article processing charges (APCs), though not yet specified for this journal, typically range from $2,000–$4,000 in similar hybrid models, creating barriers for independent researchers, those at under-resourced institutions, or in regions with limited grant support.

Timing adds urgency. The journal has issued a call for papers on 'Broadening Research Methods to Bridge the Gap between Research and Practice,' signaling an intent to welcome diverse approaches beyond traditional archival or experimental methods. A dedicated Accounting Horizons Conference on Bridging Accounting Research and Practice is set for May 21–22, 2026, at George Mason University. These initiatives coincide with the open access pivot, suggesting editors are trying to boost submission volume and quality ahead of the new model. The current editorial team—including Senior Editor Jennifer Wu Tucker and Editors Susanna Gallani and Henock Louis—is emphasizing manuscript preparation and review standards, likely to maintain rigor as submission incentives and expectations evolve.

Non-obvious tensions include the risk of 'pay-to-publish' skewing toward well-funded topics or institutions, potentially narrowing the diversity of voices in a field that prides itself on bridging academy and practice. Acceptance remains competitive, and the journal's page limits (generally 20 pages of text for accepted papers) enforce conciseness, but the open access choice could alter post-publication impact metrics and citation patterns.