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This poem aims to present a satirical critique and a defence of the role of accounting historians.

The approach takes the form of traditional Italian ottava rima poetic form of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This features eight‐line stanzas with six, 11‐syllable (hendecasyllable) lines of alternating rhymes, concluding with a rhyming couplet.

The work explores common stereotypes and misconceptions about accounting historians and addresses these by explaining the value of the accounting historian in providing “insights into accounting's present and future through its past”.

By using a poetic form developed around the time (and place) of the “birth” of double entry accounting, there is a resonance of form with theme, given the focus on the endeavours of accounting historians.

The paper has a dual purpose, being to report on an interrogation of concepts and contexts of accountability used in the accounting literature and to illustrate the application of a qualitative data analysis software tool in this interrogation.

A content analysis was undertaken of 114 journal articles related to accountability and published in highly ranked accounting journals from 2000 to 2007.

Accountability is a concept used in a variety of contexts, particularly in connection with public accountabilities and accountability in the public sector, as well as within social contexts. The emphasis appears to be on accountability reporting in these settings, with less concern for the management perspective. The variety of contextual usage and categorisations of the term “accountability” indicate it has not become more precise over the period in question.

Since only 21 accounting journals are sampled, there is scope for investigating accountability concepts across a broader base of publication outlets. The findings suggest that greater effort should be devoted to developing frameworks of accountability, researching accountability in relatively under‐explored contexts and settings, and considerable scope for researchers to more frequently utilise computer‐assisted qualitative data analysis in content analysis studies concerning accounting and accountability.

While there is anecdotal evidence of the elusive nature of accountability, this paper provides a window on conceptions of accountability employed by accounting scholars and the contexts in which accountability is discussed and researched. Further, the use of the Leximancer software tool in qualitative content analysis is demonstrated, noting that the accounting literature is currently devoid of examples of applications of this software.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an analysis of 137 articles concerning accounting in the People's Republic of China (PRC) published in 25 of the mainstream English language accounting journals from 1999 to 2008.

Within the tradition of bibliometric evaluation of literature in scholarly accounting journals, a content analysis is undertaken of the journal articles to identify and evaluate a range of features and trends in relation to publication outlets, authorship, research design and methods and subject matter.

While prior studies have suggested the literature on accounting in the PRC is relatively immature, the analysis reveals an increased sophistication in relation to the subject matter, research paradigms and methods and characteristics of authorship of this literature within mainstream accounting journals.

Since a sample of only 25 mainstream international accounting journals is utilised, there remains obvious potential for examining the literature published in other types and other rankings of journals.

Results of the analysis reveal apparent scope for researchers of accounting in China to investigate a broader range of topics, utilise an extended panoply of research perspectives and methods, and encourage new and emerging researchers to the area.

The paper represents a follow‐up to an earlier study on the topic, providing comparisons and contrasts with that earlier work. Further, the current review also explores significant issues arising from the analysis and provides several suggestions for furthering the research effort in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Modell’s arguments regarding the relative usefulness of critical realist philosophy in relation to actor-network theory.

The authors outline the challenges in applying critical realism to critical accounting. The authors then consider Modell’s criticisms of actor-network theory, providing a counterargument highlighting the methodological choices distinguishing actor-network theory from critical realism.

The authors argue that critical realism, whilst providing an interesting addition to the critical accounting research project, confronts challenges disentangling intransitive and transitive forms of knowledge. Actor-network theory is presented as a way of examining accounting practices as local associations, providing practical opportunities to study (the assembly of) “the social”.

Methodological diversity is to be explored, acknowledging the ontological politics of our choices.

This paper is an original commentary contributing to critical accounting research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the historiographic writings for accounting concerned with the craft of researching and writing history, published in the English-language, across a period of 30 years from 1983 to 2012. The study's aim is three-fold: first, to review the literature pertaining to the writing of accounting history and to identify key developments and trends; second, to identify the contributors to this literature and their publication outlets and third, to analyze citations to identify individuals or groups who have gained traction in accounting historiography.

An essay focusing on developments in the accounting historiography literature as well as a review of some key thoughts or issues in present-day accounting historiography.

The study shows that a key development in the accounting historiography literature during this period has been the advent of new accounting history, which has contributed much theoretical and topical diversity in historical accounting research and an acceptance of the role of oral history as a means of expanding the archive.

The present study, with its focus on contributions on the craft of researching and writing history, does not itself examine actual research studies which have been undertaken on accounting's past across the same period of time.

The study may assist in making the contributions examined more generally assessable and comprehensible to researchers to both explore and re-explore and may even contribute to the development of further contributions on accounting historiography to guide the approaches to, and direction of, historical accounting research in future.