Toward a consciencism of accounting research on the African continent: A review of the international literature[Pour un consciencisme de la recherche comptable sur le continent africain : un état des lieux de la littérature internationale]

Accounting research on the African continent is indeed present in the international accounting literature. It remains relatively invisible because it is part of the field of accounting research in emerging economies, which itself does not feature in the dominant streams of accounting research. This study aims to understand the state of accounting knowledge on the African continent through a systematic analysis of 326 research articles published in 38 international accounting journals over a period of 43 years (1980–2022). Our results show that accounting research on Africa represents only 1.2% of studies published in international academic accounting journals over the period 1980–2022. The results also detail the accounting domains and the methodological and theoretical approaches of the international accounting literature on African countries. Furthermore, our results provide an understanding of the forms of theorization that structure African accounting knowledge in the international literature, namely the theorization of the political and historical connection on the one hand, and the theorization of the epistemic connection, on the other. Additionally, this study proposes, in the light of consciencism, a discussion of positive, transformative accounting actions, in resistance to negative accounting actions of subjugation. Finally, a research program made up of eight (8) avenues for future research that address various gaps in the literature is proposed.