Towards a taxonomy of accounting

Abstract

The homological transfer research method was used to derive a tentative taxonomy of the discipline of Accounting from the Nolan and Wetherbe taxonomy of the related discipline Management Information Systems. First the Nolan and Wetherbe taxonomy was updated to reflect recent developments in MIS. Then its concepts were replaced by equivalent accounting concepts to yield a homologous taxonomy of Accounting. Finally the proposed taxonomy was validated empirically by classifying 151 articles from three Accounting Journals and by evaluating the resulting classification in terms of five success criteria.