tar-workflow

The Accounting Review Workflow (tar-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It does not replace any specialized skill; it tells you which tar- skill to use right now* for your TAR manuscript.

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as The Accounting Review (TAR) — the flagship journal of the American Accounting Association (AAA, aaahq.org), covering archival/empirical and analytical accounting across financial accounting, capital markets, auditing and assurance, management accounting, taxation, and accounting information systems. TAR's stated policy is explicitly open to all rigorous research methods and names no preferred methodology; the single overriding publication criterion is the significance of the contribution to the accounting literature. In practice the published mix is dominated by large-sample archival/empirical work, alongside a substantial experimental stream and analytical/theory papers (待核实 as a characterization, not policy). The action editor and a minimum of two reviewers will ask "what do we learn about accounting that we did not know?" as hard as "is identification clean?"

Editorial team: Senior Editor Mohan Venkatachalam (Duke, Fuqua) — sitting since June 2026, succeeding Kathryn Kadous (Emory); named Lead Editors (Hribar, Maydew, Mittendorf, Rennekamp) handle assignments, decision letters, desk rejections, and appeals; Ad hoc Editors cover specialized topics/methods. Submission fee ($270 member / $645 non-member) and full roster — 待核实; confirm on the official AAA pages.

When to trigger

• "What should I do next?" with a half-built TAR manuscript
• You have a clean archival sample and a result but no sharp accounting contribution
• A reviewer pushes on identification, the data-authenticity/code-access policy, or contribution and you are unsure which stage is the bottleneck
• You received a TAR decision letter and need to switch into response mode
• You keep bouncing between identification, theory/model, and writing without a plan

Routing table

Current symptom	Next skill
Idea is vague; not sure it is contribution-driven or TAR-fit	tar-topic-selection
Predictions are descriptive; no economic mechanism or model	tar-theory-development
Front end reads as gap-spotting; the accounting conversation not joined	tar-literature-positioning
Design may not identify the effect (endogeneity, selection, timing)	tar-methods
Have data; unsure about estimator, clustering, FE, robustness	tar-data-analysis
Results exist but the "so what for accounting" is thin	tar-contribution-framing
Tables/figures cluttered, off Chicago style, or not self-explanatory	tar-tables-figures
Prose is jargon-heavy, passive, or buries the result	tar-writing-style
Ready to submit; need the Editorial Manager preflight	tar-submission
Want to understand how TAR double-blind review/decisions work	tar-review-process
Received an R&R; need to plan and draft the response	tar-rebuttal

Default order

1. tar-topic-selection — lock a contribution-driven question with TAR fit
2. tar-theory-development — build the economic mechanism / analytical model and predictions
3. tar-literature-positioning — engage the focal accounting literature; state the conversation
4. tar-methods — design identification (DiD, IV, RDD, setting, shock) matched to the question
5. tar-data-analysis — estimator, fixed effects, clustering, robustness, data-authenticity code
6. tar-contribution-framing — turn results into an explicit accounting contribution
7. tar-tables-figures — finalize main exhibits in Chicago house style
8. tar-writing-style — full-manuscript prose polish (result front-loaded, active voice)
9. tar-submission — Editorial Manager preflight (anonymization, AI disclosure, ORCID, files)
10. tar-review-process — set expectations for double-blind, multi-round review
11. tar-rebuttal — after an R&R, plan revisions then draft the response letter

tar-tables-figures and tar-writing-style are late-stage polish. Do not invoke them while identification or the contribution is still unsettled — you will polish an argument you may still have to rebuild.

Decision shortcuts

• "I have a finding but no accounting story" → tar-topic-selection then tar-contribution-framing
• "My intro says 'no one has studied X'" (gap-spotting) → tar-literature-positioning
• "My treatment is endogenous / staggered adoption" → tar-methods then tar-data-analysis
• "Reviewer asks for the code that builds my Compustat sample" → tar-data-analysis (data-authenticity)
• "An analytical model needs comparative statics" → tar-theory-development
• "Submitting this week" → tar-submission
• "Got an R&R with two reviewers + the editor" → tar-review-process then tar-rebuttal

Difference vs. JAR / JAE and the AAA family

• TAR: AAA flagship; open to all rigorous methods, contribution-to-the-literature is the bar; double-blind review; Editorial Manager at editorialmanager.com/accr; 55-page initial limit; Chicago Manual of Style.
• JAR (Journal of Accounting Research, Chicago Booth) and JAE (Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier) are the other two "top-3" archival accounting journals but are separately owned and run their own review and style norms — use a venue-specific stack.
• Journal of Financial Reporting is the one AAA journal using single-blind review; TAR is double-blind.

If your study is purely a methods demonstration with no accounting contribution, TAR is the wrong venue.

Anti-patterns

• Do not skip tar-theory-development and report a correlation — TAR rejects atheoretical "regression-mining."
• Do not let tar-tables-figures beautify exhibits before identification and the contribution are settled.
• Do not let tar-rebuttal draft a response letter before you have actually revised the manuscript and the code.
• Do not treat tar-writing-style as a substitute for a clean identification strategy or a real contribution.