Healthcare Accounting Research: An Analysis, Review, and Suggestions for Future Work

Abstract

This paper analyzes and reviews healthcare-related accounting literature, with a focus on research published between 1990 and 2020. We systematically collect a global sample of 413 papers and categorize each paper along several dimensions, including accounting sub-discipline, research methodology, journal quality, and geographic origin. We find that high-quality accounting journals publish healthcare-related research throughout the period, but publication in the most elite (i.e., “top 3”) journals is declining. Further, we find that archival accounting research in healthcare is primarily a North American undertaking, while field studies and case studies are more popular internationally. We review the sampled research along with additional (pre-1990 and post-2020) literature in an inclusive summary of extant healthcare-related accounting research, organized by topic and focused on identifying avenues for additional research. We then discuss several healthcare-related public data sources.