Critical Perspectives on Accounting

Citation

Cooper, C. and Annisette, M. (2012), "Critical Perspectives on Accounting", Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Vol. 9 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/qram.2012.31409caa.005

Critical Perspectives on Accounting

Article Type: Commentary From: Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Volume 9, Issue 3

The concern that management accounting research, or indeed any research, should be relevant to practice[1] is both important and interesting and we look forward to reading the special issue of Qualitative Research in Accounting and Management. In our opinion, when the role of academics as educators, rather than as simply writers of academic papers for peer-reviewed journals, is thrown into the debate, the issue of “practical relevance” becomes more complex. The ideas that are adopted and developed in universities can have a dialectical relationship with practice through our graduates and others influenced by our work; and it is clear that sometimes research, if not driven by, is interested in, changes in management accounting practice.

The development of what is now generally considered to be research in accounting which is “scientific” or which meets scientific criteria, came about, in part, due to the success of applied mathematics in dealing with military problems during the Second World War. Whitley (1986) argues that the victory wrought by mathematical models encouraged the belief in the late 1940s and 1950s that “science” could be applied to managerial and business problems, and that the methods used in the hard sciences were directly transferable to management. Interestingly, at this stage, mathematical modelling was reinforced by the models used in economics. Therefore, the highly mathematical, formal, abstract, esoteric “scientific method”, which has now become “mainstream”, was not always so. Yet, this is not the whole story; new (“positive”) management technologies were also partly a product of the dialectical relationship between academia and the business community.

There was a strong relationship between the scientification of management and broader changes and growth in financial markets. The growth of intermediaries, pension funds, corporate treasury and portfolio management provided the context for the growth of teaching and research in finance, using skill sets also in demand by employers. However, Whitley (1986) did not believe that there was a transfer of theory from academia to the rapidly expanding finance industry but rather a transfer of “technical procedures and skills”. Nevertheless, an academic theorisation underpinned these practices and thus it is difficult to separate theory and practice in a meaningful sense, especially when our students, informed by the theoretical perspectives developed at university, become management accountants.

Nevertheless, while recognising the importance of theoretical work, there are many issues of contemporary importance that can only be understood through close analysis of the workings of management accounting within organisations. There is a paucity of work of this nature. There are perhaps two reasons for this. The first is that gaining access to organisations is difficult. Second, there is significant pressure on researchers to churn out refereed journal articles[2]. Papers with significant amounts of field work are extremely time-consuming. For these reasons, doing theoretical research or “research at a distance”, is a safer career option for academics.

That said, Critical Perspectives on Accounting (CPA) would really like to encourage submissions that consider management accounting from the perspective of the economic crisis. It would be particularly interesting to understand the technologies of management accounting systems of companies that are managing to survive the current financial crisis, especially in relation to their treatment of staff. An excellent example of this type of research, although not carried out in the context of the twenty-first century crisis, would be Armstrong’s (2011) work on a medium-sized shoe and slipper factory. Among many important insights, Armstrong suggests that budgetary targets and information offer a highly effective means of achieving and maintaining the psychological ascendancy of the bullying manager over the bullied workforce. In earlier work, Armstrong (2000) noted that modern systems of budgetary control are implicated in the exploitation and production of insecure forms of employment.

While CPA would like to see more “hands-on” research, we recognise the importance of theory and methodology and very much appreciate and would like to continue publishing debates within the journal over each of these. In effect, within CPA there have been significant theoretical debates about modes of theorising. For example, there are some interesting papers that have been developed in CPA about how to conceptualize agency and structure in management accounting research. CPA also published some pieces on the future of interpretive accounting research, which we believe has a great deal to contribute to our understanding of how accounting is actually performed.

In summary, CPA recognises the importance of theoretical debate but would very much like to see more work based upon a close analysis of management accounting in practice. CPA has been publishing critical work on management accounting for over 20 years and yet we still have very little understanding of how accountants go about the production of management accounting, and how management accounting reports are used in practice. As Armstrong (2008, p. 879) reminds us:

[…] [b]ecause of the economic power wielded through the medium of accounting, understandings of this kind may turn out to be the most practically consequential knowledge of accounting we can obtain.

Notes

1. 1.

   Although, of course, the issue of practical-relevance raises the question of whom the research is relevant to. Those management accounting techniques that are designed to control, dehumanize and deskill labour, which are relevant to some forms of management, are not going to be developed in CPA.

2. 2.

   In the UK, for example, academics are expected to publish at least one high quality paper a year.

Christine Cooper and Marcia Annisette