Four Decades of Audit Committee Research: A Bibliometric Analysis (1977–2018)

Abstract

In the post-SOX era, research on audit committees (AC) has evolved into a distinct scientific domain devoted to the analysis of corporate oversight and its effect on financial reporting and internal control quality. Numerous studies have contributed to the identification of potential determinants of AC effectiveness and possible performance effects associated with the AC oversight process. Nevertheless, the scarcity of studies that offer a holistic view on AC research impedes a profound understanding of the antecedent elements and emerging themes in this field within recent decades. Applying a combination of citation, co-citation, and social network analysis to 92 articles published in six leading accounting journals, we comprehensively map the intellectual structure of AC research. Thus, we contribute to the literature by offering insights on major publication trends, chronological developments, and underlying relationships between different strands of the AC literature as part of the accounting discipline. Our findings reveal a high level of homogeneity in AC-related studies published in the leading accounting journals, especially when it comes to sample selection and methodological approaches.