Poetry, prose, literature and insights

Purpose: The purpose of this accounting poem is to draw attention to the destruction of value and passion of research by presenting the various elements that are ruining this passion. The inspiration of this was Guthrie et al.’s (2019) comment that accounting research suffered when universities privileged the science and medicine focussed impact factors, and most of the accounting journals were not even included in the citations. Method: The poem is written in free verse, which mimics the nuances and cadences of spoken English. Findings: Frequent media coverage of university rankings and outcomes of research assessment exercises and the monitoring of academic research grants and publications have become fashionable clichés. The poem is an outcome of careful collection and coordination of different research papers that have highlighted the impact of research assessment exercises. The ideas shared in the poem ring so true to the hearts of the authors who are accounting scholars themselves. Originality: Poetry is not generally associated with accountancy. Poetry is powerful and this poem empowers the message that research has no value if it becomes just a tick-the-box exercise. Keywords: Accounting Scholar, Government Research Evaluations, Metric, Ranking, Universities.