Methodological Paper What counts as “good” qualitative accounting research? Researchers' perspectives on assessing and proving research quality
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 21 September 2022
Issue publication date: 4 April 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores the everyday experiences of researchers in assessing their own and others' research, highlighting what “good” qualitative accounting research is from their perspectives.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on interviews with accounting scholars from the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia, with diverse ethnic background and methodological preferences.
Findings
Interviewees pointed to a plurality of practical, and to some extent tacit, ways in which they demonstrate and assess the quality of research, concerning “contribution”, “consistency” and “confidence”, with generalizability being seen as more controversial and difficult to attain. In general, interviewees highlighted the underlying ambiguity on what constitutes good research in the qualitative accounting community, contrasting it to the perceived stronger clarity to be found in the quantitative accounting community. This was seen as potentially strengthening the positions of “gatekeepers” in the accounting communities, and encouraging conformance and “signaling” behaviors, at the risk of hampering innovation.
Originality/value
The main critical issues affecting qualitative research quality highlighted by interviewees concern the engagement with the world of practice, and with theory and literature, the importance of accounting for the analysis of qualitative data and for the messiness of the underlying process, and the implicit search for compliance with editors' and community's expectations and conventions. These findings suggest the need to continue debating how to assess the quality of qualitative research in everyday activities, and reflect on how to promote acceptance and openness to pluralism, in scientific communities, as well as in data collection, analysis, in the theorizing, and in connecting epistemology and methodology.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Lee Parker and James Guthrie for their encouragement in writing this paper, and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments. She would also like to express her gratitude to Shoaib Ahmed, Kari Lukka, Jan Pfister, MariaFrancesca Sicilia, for their invaluable discussions and comments on previous versions of this work, and the participants to the APIRA thought leadership event “Critical issues in the Qualitative Accounting Research Tradition”; the Research seminar Series at the Department of Management Science at University of Bergamo; and the Seminar in Interdisciplinary Accounting Research (University of Turku) for their suggestions. The author also acknowledges the great support by the colleagues who kindly accepted to be interviewed.
Citation
Steccolini, I. (2023), "Methodological Paper What counts as “good” qualitative accounting research? Researchers' perspectives on assessing and proving research quality", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 1032-1057. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-05-2022-5808
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited