Fifty years of accounting research in Brazil: main contributions and future directions

ABSTRACT This study identifies the characteristics of the most impactful Brazilian scientific contributions to the qualified international accounting literature, 50 years after the creation of their first graduate program. A historical assessment is relevant for revealing the main Brazilian research contributions to the accounting sciences in 50 years, allowing reflections on structures and events, a better understanding of social transformations, enabling evaluation and reflection of the area, and the detection of indicators, trends, and biases. The focus on local issues suggests an international interest in accounting practices in emerging economies such as Brazil. This research is relevant as a landmark of the main Brazilian contributions to accounting science, allowing local actors to reflect on successful research approaches and the contributions and topics with the greatest impact. This analysis can benefit accounting researchers in Latin countries and/or emerging economies with a research agenda that expands the impact of research performed in the Brazilian context and motivates new international partnerships. This review was performed on papers published from 1970 to 2020 in Scopus and Web of Science databases. These articles were subjected to a systematic literature review to identify their characteristics, the main topics covered, the most representative thematic areas, their main contributions and directions for future research. Brazil has published 39 articles with a relevant impact on international literature, mostly in the 2000s. Significant contributions were found in controllership, management accounting, and financial accounting. Topics such as performance management, costs and agribusiness, earnings management, disclosure and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption were particularly noteworthy. Partnerships with authors from developed countries have been important in enabling publications with international impact.