The construction of Chinese modernization requires the concerted support of the independent knowledge system of philosophy and social sciences including accounting. The construction of China’s independent accounting knowledge system relies on the knowledge production and innovation activities conducted by accounting theoretical research. Taking the impact of academic research activities on discipline development as a perspective, to analyze the law and the driving factors of the evolution of accounting research topics is of great significance for revealing the logic of knowledge production, optimizing the paths for discipline development, and thus advancing the construction of China’s independent accounting knowledge system.

Taking academic papers published in CSSCI journals by representative accounting scholars as a carrier, this paper reviews and analyzes the evolution of research topics in Chinese accounting since the reform and opening up. It reveals that Chinese accounting theory research has generally undergone three stages: research focused on the restoration and reconstruction of accounting systems; research focused on the market-oriented economic reform and the development of capital markets; research focused on the comprehensively deepening reform and high-quality development. The evolution of research topics in Chinese accounting has been profoundly affected by development of the economy and the society, improvement in the quality of education, development of capital markets, progress in technology, and disciplinary institutions. To construct a high-level independent accounting knowledge system that adapts to Chinese modernization, accounting scholars need to root their research in Chinese management practices, adhere to academic innovation and practical application, unify goal orientation with problem orientation, and ensure that research methods align with the nature of research topics.

The main contributions of this paper are as follows: First, it analyzes the evolutionary characteristics of accounting research topics based on the papers published by representative accounting scholars, and innovatively summarizes the development trends of accounting research by taking accounting scholars as the entry point. Second, it demonstrates the evolution of accounting research topics in a more comprehensive way by combining scientific measurement and manual search methods to systematically analyze the trends of research topics and key words. Third, it uses statistical data to explore the impact of scholar background and research methods on the evolution of research topics, so as to reveal the relationship between discipline development and scholar research.