Analysis of the scientific stream of management accounting research in the Web of Science database

The Scientific flow analysis plays a key role in identifying important research areas that reflect developments, challenges and solutions in a scientific field. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to identify the current research areas in management accounting in global research. This is a descriptive applied research that has been done by content analysis and scientometric method. The sample of this study is 6305 articles in the field of management accounting that are indexed on  Web of Science database from beginning to 2019. Data analysis was performed using Vosviewer and overview softwares. The findings indicate that research in this field can be classified into 9 clusters: agency theory, corporate governance, performance evaluation, institutional theory, game theory, management control systems and capital budgeting. The evolution of key theories can also be classified into seven stages: (1) stewardship theory (2) structuration theory (3) contingency theory (4) representation theory (5) institutional theory (6) Transaction costs (7) Game theory (8) New institutional theory (9) Evolutionary game theory (10) Actor network theory.