This paper explores how undergraduate accounting education in Kazakhstan, is adapting to challenges posed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). It investigates the integration of new technologies and societal changes into educational practices. Using an activity system analysis, the study reveals that Kazakhstani accounting programmes have not fully adopted 4IR technologies despite global discussions, highlighting a gap between planning and implementation in education. The study, based on semi-structured interviews with faculty, students, and an employer representative, identifies ongoing challenges such as faculty resistance and differing perceptions of essential skills between educators and students. Addressing these issues requires institutional support for faculty development and leadership in technology integration. This research aims to contribute to the body of literature in the field of accounting education. Future studies could expand on these insights globally across multiple institutions.Keywords: Activity theory; accounting education; curriculum development; digital skills; graduate employabilityPart of the Special Issue Activity theory in technology enhanced learning research (part 2)

Kazakhstan’s integration into the global scientific landscape is closely tied to the growth and transformation of its publication activity in economics-related disciplines. This study aims to evaluate the evolution of Kazakhstan’s publication activity in economics-related disciplines from 2010 to 2023, with a particular focus on growth in output, the emergence of dominant research themes, changes in international collaboration patterns, and the extent of global citation visibility. Using bibliometric methods applied to a dataset of 3,914 Scopus-indexed publications, the analysis focuses on three subject areas: business, management and accounting; decision sciences; and economics, econometrics and finance. The results reveal a sharp increase in publications, from 18 papers in 2010 to over 500 in 2023, with a peak of 538 in 2022. The findings show sustained growth in research output, particularly after higher education and science reforms. Keyword analysis reveals a shift from locally focused topics, such as development and policy, toward internationally relevant themes, including technology and energy. Citation analysis confirms increasing visibility, with 19,967 citations across 2,860 publications, led by China (2,444), Russia (1,430), and the United States (1,186). These findings indicate that Kazakhstan’s academic community is gradually transitioning from knowledge consumption to production, pointing to its potential for regional leadership. Future research should assess the quality of international collaborations, expand the disciplinary scope beyond Scopus, and incorporate qualitative approaches to capture the depth of research partnerships more effectively.

This study examines the evolution of Kazakhstani research in the fields of economics and business research. We analyzed Scopus and Dimensions records for 2019–2023 following a PRISMA-like workflow with fully reproducible queries and time-stamped data extractions. We implemented both Bradford’s law of scattering and collaboration analysis. We report both journal-level (Scopus) and publication-level (Dimensions) results as complementary perspectives. Results show the applicability of Bradford’s law of scattering to research publications in Economics, Econometrics, and Finance, Business, Management, and Accounting, and Decision Sciences in Kazakhstan and globally. Collaboration analysis highlights strong regional ties and diversification. Authorship analysis reveals that 85.1% of publications have a Kazakhstan-affiliated first author. Publications were classified into three categories: Kazakhstan-Only (59.0%, N = 1585), International Collaboration with Kazakhstan-led authorship (31.5%, N = 845), and International Collaboration with Non-Kazakhstan-led authorship (9.5%, N = 255). International collaborations had 69–92% higher citation impact than domestic-only publications. The expansion of citing countries doubled in 2023 compared with 2019. Our contributions to bibliometric analysis and science policy are two-fold. First, we provide a comprehensive comparative analysis of publication patterns between Kazakhstani and global journals in economics and business-related fields, revealing specific areas requiring development. Second, we identify collaboration patterns, including citation analysis of studied fields. The analysis revealed strategies that can be applied in other emerging economies.