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Article
Publication date: 20 March 2023

Brian A. Rutherford

This paper offers a way of revivifying classical accounting research in the form of a pragmatist neoclassical programme with a sound epistemological underpinning.

Abstract

Purpose

This paper offers a way of revivifying classical accounting research in the form of a pragmatist neoclassical programme with a sound epistemological underpinning.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on a pragmatist perspective on financial accounting and accounting research springing from John Dewey's theory of inquiry.

Findings

Although a pragmatist underpinning does not entail specific methodological prescriptions, it can provide fruitful insights in research design. The paper discusses the structure and content of a research programme drawing on a pragmatist underpinning and sets out proposals for a practical research agenda. Although the agenda is shaped around the topic of identifiable intangibles, much of the paper has substantially wider relevance.

Research limitations/implications

The approach justifies a revival in scholarly research employing classical methods and directed at improving accounting methods and standards.

Practical implications

The approach would promote closer engagement between scholarly accounting and practitioners such as standard-setters, making some contribution to closing the widely acknowledged gap between research and practice.

Originality/value

The paper offers a neoclassical programme of research drawing considerably more extensively on pragmatist philosophy than did theorisation in the classical period.

Details

Journal of Applied Accounting Research, vol. 24 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0967-5426

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