No, not the beginning to a lewd joke, at least not as far as I know, but yet another academic paper being presented at this year's American Accounting Association annual conference.

The Virgin and the Dynamo: An Empirical Evaluation of Knowledge Production in Academic Accounting is by Timothy J. Fogarty (Case Western Reserve University).  And it covers the following:

ABSTRACT: How accounting knowledge is created is a question of endless fascination. The paper grapples with one primary issue. Is accounting research properly characterized as the scholarly work of a single academic? Or is it a team process such that the efforts of individuals are only an input to a larger dynamic. For these purposes, the mainstream accounting literature is contrasted with critical accounting. The results show that whereas critical accounting remains the handicraft of individuals, mainstream accounting has adopted more machine-like characteristics. This is reflected in the size of author groups and how credit is distributed across groups. Changes over a relatively short time are documented, and is consistent with this divergent development.

What this has to do with either dynamos or virgins is left as an exercise for the reader.  Unfortunately there's no full text available, so you'll just have to e-mail Fogarty - unspoonerise fimothy.togarty@case.edu - and ask him for yourself if you're curious.

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Filed under: Academic research with tags american accounting association, timothy fogarty