Recently Action Research (AR) in acconting has been implemented in order to decrease the gap between the theory and practice. The major purpose of this study is to investigate AR characteristics and mechanisms and to identify its various applications in accounting. The research method is based upon "One-shot Ex-post Design", and the period of the study consists of the recent 13 years (1998-2010) in which most studies have been conducted during this time. By exerting "Archieval Method" and "Content Analysis" technique, and searching through various important domestic and international websites, three main areas of AR applications in accounting were found- managerial accounting, accounting information systems, and accounting educations. No AR research was found in such other accounting areas as auditing or financial accounting. Among the AR accounting reseraches, more than 59% of the studies is devoted to management accounting.
The findings of the study also reveals that, on the average, during recent 6 years in comparison with the previous 7 years, the growth of AR studies in foreign AR researches, has been equal to 44%. Furthermore, managerial accounting generally, with 53% growth in AR studies, exhibits the greatest amount of the growth in AR studies. In searching for domestic AR studies, no study was found, and unfortunately, no accounting researcher was exerting this significant and efficient method distinctly; and whenever the elements of AR mechanism has been actually implemented in the studies, it is not unambiguously specified.