The field researcher as author-writer

The Authors

Jane Baxter, School of Accounting, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Wai Fong Chua, School of Accounting, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the two reviewers for their comments and encouragement. The authors would also like to thank Sven Modell and Kim Langfield-Smith.

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the literary authority of qualitative management accounting field research (QMAFR) and its interconnectedness with the scientific authority of this form of research.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a non-positivist perspective on the writing/authoring of QMAFR. The paper illustrates its arguments by analysing how the field is written/authored in two well-known examples of qualitative management accounting research, using Golden-Biddle and Locke's framework as a way of initiating an understanding of how field research attains its “convincingness”.

Findings – The paper finds that these two examples of QMAFR attain their convincingness by authoring a strong sense of authenticity and plausibility, adopting writing strategies that signal the authority of the researcher and their figuration of the “facts”.

Research limitations/implications – The paper argues for a more aesthetically informed consideration of the “goodness” of non-positivist QMAFR, arguing that its scientific and aesthetic forms of authority are ultimately intertwined.

Practical implications – This paper has practical implications for informing the ways in which QMAFR is read and written, arguing for greater experimentation in terms of its narration.

Originality/value – The value of this paper lies in its recognition of the authorial and aesthetic nature of QMAFR, as well as it potential to encourage debate, reflection and changed practices within the community of scholars interested in this form of research.

Article Type:

Research paper

Keyword(s):

Qualitative research; Management accounting; Narratives; Accounting research.

Journal:

Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management

Volume:

Number:

Year:

2008

pp:

101-121

Copyright ©

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

ISSN:

1176-6093

The end

Excessive concern, which in practice usually means any concern at all, with how ethnographic texts are constructed seems like an unhealthy self-absorption – time-wasting at best, hypochondriacal at worst (Geertz, 1988, p. 1, emphasis added).

It is a little unconventional to start at the end, but this paper is about an “end” – the end of the “literary innocence” (Geertz, 1988, p. 24) of qualitative management accounting field research (QMAFR). For too long we have been writing the field without giving active consideration to the authorial accomplishments informing our research[1]. However, as readers can never re-visit and re-experience the field in ways that the researchers were able – and given that researchers can never fully represent the field (Quattrone, 2006) – our judgments about the quality of QMAFR turn, in great part, on how the field has been narrated. In short, authorial accomplishments are integral to the constitution of QMAFR. But how do we author the field, and what implicit norms are emerging in this regard?

These are not easy questions to answer as only intermittent attention has been paid to the textuality of accounting research (Arrington, 2004; Lowe, 2004; Lukka and Kasanen, 1995; Power, 1991; Quattrone, 2004). Moreover, much of the debate which has taken place has done so within the framework of a realist, scientific epistemology (Madill et al., 2000), in which the authorial accomplishments of accounting field researchers are inevitably constituted by and assessed in terms of their representational “reliability” and “validity” (Atkinson and Shaffir, 1998; McKinnon, 1998). And whilst the authoring of such “scientific maxims” may be appropriate within the context of so-called mainstream accounting research in which these norms have been “institutionalised” (Abernethy et al., 1999, p. 24), much QMAFR does not ascribe to the realist epistemology of the mainstream (Ahrens et al., 2007; Chua, 1986). Indeed, the type of QMAFR that we will concentrate on in this paper is positioned as an antidote and alternative (Baxter and Chua, 2003; Baxter et al., 2007) to the mainstream and its epistemic assumptions (Dent, 1991; Chua, 1995). Drawing on post-positivist notions of epistemology in which the reflexive and interpretive nature of research is acknowledged (Hammersley, 1983; Fanzosi, 1998; Latour, 2005; Law, 2004; Quattrone, 2004), the notion of authoring the field in ways that “reliably” and “validly” mirror practice is questioned and challenged by constructivist and critical perspectives on field research (Hammersley, 1983; Madill et al., 2000; Maxwell, 1992; Stiles, 1993). This, nonetheless, raises the issue as to how such research, including QMAFR, achieves its narrative “convincingness” (Maxwell, 1992).

Accordingly, there has been a growing stream of debate within the broader social sciences as to how qualitative research is rhetorically constituted (Clifford and Marcus, 1986) and, correspondingly, how such textual accomplishments may be assessed. As a result, various “assessment criteria” have been proposed, with one approach focusing on retaining but re-working notions of reliability and validity within the framework of qualitative research (Maxwell, 1992; Hammersley, 1983), and another aiming to institute different criteria – such as “trustworthiness” (Stiles, 1993), “methodological rigour”, “interpretive rigour” (Fossey et al., 2002), and “convincingness” (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993), for example – with a view to outlining a literary aesthetic for considering the narrative constitution of field research.

It is the purpose of this paper to acknowledge and characterise the role of the field researcher as author-writer, and to consider the ways in which his or her authorial accomplishments are constituted within the context of the contemporary (management accounting) research community. Moreover, we will aim to demonstrate the textual strategies embedded in published QMAFR by deconstructing two examples of such research. We conclude by recognising the literary authority of field research and its interconnectedness with scientific authority also.

Now let us go back to the beginning.

Writing the field

[…] the characteristic literary figure of our age is a bastard type, the “author-writer”: the professional intellectual caught between wanting to create a bewitching verbal structure, to enter what he [Barthes] calls the “theater of language,” and wanting to communicate facts and ideas, to merchandise information; and indulging fitfully the one desire or the other (Geertz, 1988, p. 20).

Qualitative field research is about writing. While the most common impressions of field research tend to centre on the collection of “naturalistic” data, writing is central to field research (Rose, 1990). Perhaps, it is so obvious that even researchers experienced in the field have failed to recognise the pervasiveness and importance of writing (Geertz, 1988). Yet writing is everywhere in field research. Field researchers write all the time: we write project proposals to clarify our thinking and to persuade others as to the viability of our work; we write to gain access to the field; we write to secure funding for our research; as observers we write notes in the field; as dutiful researchers we write field notes during our time-outs from the field; as reflexive researchers we write analytical memos to theorise the field (Strauss, 1987; Strauss and Corbin, 1990); and as honest scholars we begin writing up when we have retreated from the field. On reflection, therefore, it is not so far-flung to associate the field researcher with “writerly” activities. Writing is embedded throughout the entire process of doing QMAFR.

But field research is not just about writing, the “writings down” and the “writings up” (Atkinson, 1990; Watson, 1990)[2]. There is an authorial or creative and imaginative aspect to field research as well. That is, we author the field (Baxter and Chua, 1998; Clifford, 1986; Marcus and Cushman, 1982) by fashioning “fictions”, “translations” or “inscriptions” of practice (Bates, 1997; Clifford, 1986; Denzin, 1989; Latour, 1987), interpreting and emplotting the data we have written/collected. On reflection, the authorial function in field research should be quite apparent to those who have tried it. Why do we have so much trouble when it comes to “writing up”? Why does “the sea of data”, which once seemed so comforting, now seem so confronting? In writing the field we acknowledge that the field does not come with an immanent form of coherence; there are only “disconnected” (Hammersley, 1983, p. 24) activities which the authorial imagination configures into a convincing account of the field (Agar and Hobbs, 1982; White, 1978; Iggers, 1997). As such, field work is an essentially textual enterprise (Atkinson, 1992; Bates, 1997; Jeffcutt, 1994; Rose, 1990; Watson, 1990), combining both writerly and authorial activities. This has led Geertz (cited above) to characterise the field researcher as an “author-writer” (1988, p. 20).

Whilst van Maanen (1988) has indicated that this sentiment may result in positivist colleagues exclaiming, “The bastards are making it up!” (van Maanen, 1988, p. 134), such an accusation about field research is incorrect. Field research is “made” by field researchers. Generally, however, it is not “made up” (Clifford, 1986, p. 6; van Maanen, 1988, p. 134)[3]. Writing the field is not about the mere seduction of the written word. Even when “literary authority” replaces “scientific authority” (Fabian, 1992), field research embodies truth claims, albeit of a more “fallibalistic” and “limited” type (Hammersley, 1983, p. 27). There are referents to our writings of the field – certain things happened, certain things were said[4]. It is just that truth becomes a (potentially polyvocal and even multiplicitous) reflexive, authorial accomplishment (Law, 2004; Slack, 1996). As Bates (1997) indicates, truth is about both the style and content of field research. In short, what we know about the field is constrained and enabled by what it is that we can write about and the ways in which we can and do write (Atkinson, 1992; Denzin, 1989; Worden, 1998)[5]. It is more appropriate, we believe, to describe qualitative field work as “fictual” and not as fictional. But how is a convincing literary aesthetic being achieved in QMAFR?

Writing “convincing” field research

“Being There” authorially, palpably on the page, is in any case as difficult a trick to bring off as “being there” personally […] The advantage of shifting at least part of our attention from the fascinations of field work, which have held us so long in thrall, to those of writing is not only that this difficulty will become more clearly understood, but also that we will learn to read with a more percipient eye (Geertz, 1988, p. 24).

As author-writers we aspire to produce “well-made” texts (White, 1987, p. 177), but this is no easy task. Each field researcher, sooner or later, must confront their community of active and critical readership: thesis supervisors and examiners, editors, reviewers, conference participants, colleagues, and so-on. And every individual that reads qualitative research formulates their own aesthetic response to our writings of the field (Iser, 1978); an author-writer can never be “the absolute ruler” of the “imaginary kingdom” that her or his readers inhabit (Clive, 1989, p. 34)[6]. Nonetheless, we would like to confirm that reports of the death of the field researcher as author-writer are exaggerated. Field researchers are readers too, reflexively assuming the role of this other during their crafting of the field (Atkinson, 1990). As a consequence, the author-writer invokes selected rhetorical practices which, whilst re-producing communal norms for “good writing”, also guide and prestructure a reader's reaction to his or her construction of the field (Iser, 1978, p. 21)[7]. In short, we aim to write “convincing” texts (Arrington, 2004; Bates, 1997; Geertz, 1988; Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993; Lowe, 2004; Jeffcutt, 1994) that will persuade readers that our stories are credible and truthful. How then is convincingness authored? Moreover, as Quattrone (2006) indicates, such a question is of political importance to the field also: the ways in which we constitute convincingness shapes our responsibilities to the “others” whom we narrate[8].

For the purposes of this paper, we will confine our discussion to an illustrative but well-known characterisation of the “convincingness” of field research which aims to provide a way of framing the authored constitution of the field from a post-positivist and narratological perspective. As such, we rely on the work of Golden-Biddle and Locke (1993, 2007) for this purpose[9]. These authors characterise “convincingness” in terms of three dimensions, which they refer to as authenticity, plausibility, and criticality (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993)[10]. The first of these dimensions – authenticity – refers to the authoring of the so-called “been there” quality of field research (Geertz, 1988). A convincing text will provide some form of written assurance as to both the field researcher's presence in and understanding of the field (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993). Authenticity is about the inscription of ethnographic authority (Marcus and Cushman, 1982), which often involves some form of “calculative” reckoning narrating the number of days/months/years spent in the field, the number and type of informants and the quantum of data collected (Briers and Chua, 2001). Plausibility, the second dimension, is concerned with whether (or not) our renditions of the field make sense. Does an account of the field seem credible, given what readers know about their world? Is a field report coherent when assessed in terms of its structure (or genre) and its disciplinary context[11]? A text that persuades in terms of its plausibility has attained a form of literary authority referred to as vraisemblance (Atkinson, 1990, p. 39). Criticality, the third dimension of “convincingness”, is concerned with the imaginative possibilities that field research may provoke (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993). Can readers configure a larger and more enduring theoretical referent in the field (White, 1987)? Is the general well embedded and articulated in our accounts of the local (Ahrens and Chapman, 2006)? Do our accounts of the field “speak to our human and organizational conditions of existence in ways that we find useful and desirable” (Clegg, 2006, p. 861)? Field research is ultimately convincing because it also possesses an “allegorical register” (Clifford, 1986, p. 103; White, 1987, p. 172). It is the textual figuration of these three forms of “convincingness” which gives qualitative field research its “look of truth” (Geertz, 1988, p. 3).

It is our intention in the remainder of this paper to illustrate how “convincingness” has been fashioned in QMAFR. We examine actual writing practices which have been employed in extant research, thereby developing, detailing and illustrating the arguments of critical accounting commentators, such as Arrington (2004) and Lowe (2004), who have acknowledged the centrality of convincingness in writing QMAFR and the construction of its truth claims. We do so with the aim of promoting a more acute writing and reading of our discipline, as well as challenging our preconceptions of the authority of research narratives. As Atkinson (1990, p. 176) states:

The recognition of the textual conventions of [field research], then, does not rob it of its referential value, nor does it relegate it to a second division of non-sciences. If we comprehend how our understandings of the world are fashioned and conveyed, then we need not fear that self-understanding. Rather than detracting from our scholarly endeavours, an understanding of our textual practices can only strengthen the critical reflection of a mature discipline.

Deconstructing the field

Must we always murder the interesting story in service of an “objective” format? (Agar, 1996, p. 4).

In this section of the paper we have chosen two examples of QMAFR to “deconstruct” in terms of their “convincingness”[12]. The papers to be discussed are Preston (1987) and Miller and O'Leary (1997). These particular papers were selected for a number of reasons[13]. First, both papers were written by respected accounting researchers whose work is regarded in high esteem by peers – that is, these are examples of the work of accomplished researchers. Second, both papers have been published in what are regarded as “tier one” accounting research journals (Accounting, Organizations and Society and Journal of Accounting Research, respectively) which are argued to publish work of the highest standing (Chan et al., 2007). Third, the two papers arguably introduce an element of variety, given that they have been authored for two ostensibly different readerships – one European (Preston, 1987) and the other North American (Miller and O'Leary, 1997). There is sufficient debate within the accounting literature to indicate that different research values and practices distinguish the North American and more European-oriented management accounting research communities (Dillard, 2007; Merchant, 2007). Fourth and somewhat self-indulgently, focusing on these two papers also allows us to explore our own initial aesthetic reaction to these two papers. Why do we (and continue to) enjoy reading the paper by Preston[14]? Yet why are we more indifferent towards this particular publication by Miller and O'Leary? Our “deconstruction” of these two papers is followed by some reflections on the authoring of QMAFR.

Preston – writing “Johnny-on-the-spot”

Preston's (1987) seminal management accounting field study examines the ways in which managers from a plastics division of a large English manufacturing organisation were implicated in a process described as “informing”[15]. As our discussion outlines, Preston's writing strategies are convincing primarily because he has authored a very strong sense of “Johnny-on-the-spot”[16].

Authenticity

So what textual practices does Preston employ to establish the authenticity of his field research? The authenticity of Preston's work is secured, in part, by the ways in which he writes his “ethnographic presence” (Fetterman, 1989, p. 166). Preston's account testifies to his intimate “local knowledge” (Geertz, 1983) of every-day life in the plastics division. He weaves a number of “symbolic markers” (Marcus and Cushman, 1982, p. 33) throughout his text, embedding signature words and phrases in his account so that readers become familiar with idiomatic terms such as “getting genned up” (p. 523), “stroke rates” (p. 524) and “butcher books” (p. 538). Likewise, Preston demonstrates his presence by indicating the access which he secured to the minutiae of organisational life; we see that Preston ventured into the back-stage (Goffman, 1959) regions of the plastic division, reporting that certain events occurred during lunch breaks (p. 526), for example. He reports “confidential” utterances (p. 531) and moments of acute embarrassment (p. 534) too.

The authenticity of Preston's field work is buttressed by his characterisation of the extent of his “relationship with the field” (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993, p. 603). The first words that the reader encounters in his paper, “Based on a year long participant observation study … ”, are very persuasive indeed. The reader is further assured by Preston's claims that he was present at the research site “four days a week” (p. 522). Moreover, the reader is reminded of Preston's presence in the field by his use of the personal pronoun on occasions (“When I asked the Factory Managers … ”, p. 523) and references to his presence by the informants (“To be perfectly honest Alistair … ”, p. 523)[17]. Also by allowing informants to speak (for example, “Peter Travers explains the process:”, p. 526), Preston further provides evidence as to his research's authenticity[18].

Likewise, the authenticity of Preston's field work is also informed by the character and quality of the data that he collected. Other than the time-intensiveness of the overall data collection process, claims that multiple sources of data were collected (documents, interviews and participants observation) comprise a further form of textual assurance for the critical reader, alluding to a process of triangulation (Yin, 2003). Similarly, claims that data were gathered in situ and in real-time (“talked with them informally on the shop floor”, p. 522) serve to reinforce Preston's “presence”[19].

Finally, the authenticity of Preston's research is affirmed by the ways in which he was genuine to the field experience, changing the direction of his research and setting aside his predispositions:

The initial focus of the research was to study the design, implementation and use of the computerised production information system. This focus shifted, as will become clear, to a study of how the managers informed themselves and each other (Preston, 1987, p. 522).

Plausibility

What is it about the way in which Preston writes that makes his field research sensible and believable? First, Preston implicitly appeals to his readers' stocks of knowledge. As world-weary accountants we know that this sort of “funny-business” goes on in conjunction with the operation of formal information systems. Preston's research is not far-fetched or fanciful – this is real life, not a fairytale. Second, in the event that a naïve reader has not been drafted by the nature of Preston's empirical data, there are more conventional indications as to the plausibility of his account. Preston (1987, p. 538) states that this is an area of management accounting practice that “has largely gone unresearched” (so do not be alarmed, dear reader, at what you have read …). Third, Preston further persuades by providing corroborating and “strong evidence” (p. 537) from other disciplines. His practice of writing alternating empirical and theoretical sections in the narrative also serves to more closely link the local to the disciplinary. In short, plausibility is strongly influenced by practices of intertextuality – both personal and disciplinary.

Criticality

Does Preston, the field researcher as author-writer, encourage his readers to envision new possibilities for management accounting practice and research? Most probably. He establishes a degree of criticality in his text by summoning the standard rhetoric of an “implications” section (pp. 537-9). Preston signposts the significance of his work – even if it is somewhat pessimistic in its presage (“Despite all attempts to design more timely, detailed and accurate information systems … ”, p. 537). Additionally, he alludes to possibilities for future management accounting research (“What is required now, to advance our understanding and design of information systems … ”, p. 539). Nonetheless, it is the novel and engaging quality of Preston's empirical data that remains with readers, although his text may be read as an enduring allegory for the social construction of accounting work.

Miller and O'Leary – writing “degree zero”

Miller and O'Leary's (1997) field study describes how the adoption of flexible manufacturing practices at Caterpillar Inc. became embedded in a new set of capital budgeting practices described as “investment bundling”[20]. Overall, we contend that Miller and O'Leary's field research convinces through its “degree zero” writerly style – a sparse, unembellished and quasi-scientific mode of textualisation[21].

Authenticity

How then is authenticity achieved in Miller and O'Leary's field work? Miller and O'Leary clearly indicate to us that they were “there” by nominating the location of their research site (“This paper provides a descriptive and qualitative study of how capital budgeting practices at Caterpillar Inc … ”, p. 257), identifying the particular plants in which the research was conducted (“plants in Aurora and Decatur, Illinois … ”, p. 263), and thanking a number of Caterpillar's employees by name in the acknowledgement section. Authenticity is conferred through textual practices enabling authentication of their research. As an extension of this, Miller and O'Leary also demonstrate their “presence” through the occasional use of emic terminology, such as “bundle monitors”, p. 261) and “concept reviews” (p. 262).

Miller and O'Leary are also convincing because of the narration of the extended nature of their study: “our study covered June 1990 to May 1994” (p. 258). They reinforce this by cataloguing their data collection activities. Not only do they state the types of data that were collected, but also they quantify the nature of their data:

We used four research methods: interviews, analysis of internal documents, observation of manufacturing processes, and study of public record.

Thirty-three semistructured interviews were held with 29 persons identified as key participants in managing the firm's transition to modern manufacture. These included one group president, three vice presidents, three business-unit directors and ten assistant directors, seven other managers, and five shop-floor workers (Miller and O'Leary, 1997, pp. 258-9).

This “count” is convincing because it conveys the utilisation of multiple sources of data, indicates an impressive number of interviews, testifies to the extensiveness of their access to all echelons of Caterpillar Inc., and reveals the care and exactitude informing their research. A sense of precision is integral to the authenticity of this study.

Plausibility

What makes their field research seem sensible and believable? Miller and O'Leary have achieved plausibility by adopting the conventions of technical, scientific texts – their field research seem plausible “in terms of more orthodox research standards by adopting the latter's form and devices” (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993, p. 605). But how have they achieved this clinical patina? First, Miller and O'Leary's work is consistent with the structural expectations of a science report (Hammersley, 1998). There are sections dealing with the introduction, method, description, analysis and conclusions. Second, they adopt a realist (van Maanen, 1988; Madill et al., 2000) style of writing. Their text is descriptive, economical, and unadorned. Their narrative is highly controlled by their authorial voice (Hatch, 1996). Their text also resonates with the metaphors of the physical sciences, such as “flow”, “velocity” (p. 261), “synchronous” (p. 265) and “technologies” (p. 266). The process of anonymously referencing supporting interview data by a date and position (“Interview with a factory superintendent, September 24, 1991”, p. 265), rather than by a real or assumed name, is likewise suggestive of the classificatory schemata of scientific activity. Furthermore, the visualist element of their text (pp. 264-6) conforms to the representational tradition of technical drawing. In all, Miller and O'Leary push for and achieve plausibility by assuming the artifice of objectivity[22], [23].

Criticality

But is Miller and O'Leary's field study fecund with reflective and imaginative possibilities? Their style is matter-of-fact, their conclusions are mundane (“Our findings support Milgrom and Roberts”, p. 270), and the implications of their research are populist (“new capital budgeting mechanisms are needed”, p. 270). A “scientific” rather than “allegorical register” (Clifford, 1986) dominates this particular text by Miller and O'Leary[24].

“Convincingly” different or similar?

Whilst both Preston (1987) and Miller and O'Leary (1997) have authored published exemplars of QMAFR based on extended periods of data collection in the field, they have done so in different yet similar ways. In terms of these apparent differences, it may be stated that Preston's writing is much more dialogic-looking than Miller and O'Leary's. Preston has infused his narrative with voices from the field, liberally citing from various interviews with organisational participants. In comparison, Miller and O'Leary's writing is monologic in its style. As such, the metered precision of Miller and O'Leary's prose remains uninterrupted by the more profane and lusty utterances of everyday (rather than privileged academic) voices in the way that Preston's text has allowed. Preston's text is also less predictable in terms of its structure, vacillating between sections concerned with the field and then more general theoretical debates. Miller and O'Leary's work, in comparison, unfolds quite predictably – dictated by the linear sequence expected of a science report. Nevertheless, it needs also to be acknowledged that both Preston and Miller and O'Leary seek to write the “truth” and to demonstrate the authority of their presence in the field. To this end, both Preston and Miller and O'Leary author the field by referencing its artefacts and idioms to “stack” (Latour, 1987) their crafting of its coherence. The “convincingness” of both papers involves constructing a nexus between “the facts” and their narrations of the field. But as Latour (2005, p. 127) puts it, Miller and O'Leary have associated the narration of truth with a more bland and objective approach, whereas Preston has foregone some of the trappings of science-like writing in his quest for convincingness that is rooted in the shared (between the author and the reader) of the everyday social world[25], [26].

A research method “with a future”

But as the reader will presumably gather from the text, I will not be able to read or write ethnography in quite the same way anymore (van Maanen, 1988, p. xiii).

Given the issues raised in our discussion of the Preston (1987) and Miller and O'Leary (1997) papers, it is our intention, at this point, to consider these issues within the broader context of the writing QMAFR and the challenges that such a consideration presents for the field researcher as author-writer in our discipline.

The first issue raised by our discussion is to consider critically the ways in which we write QMAFR. Whilst QMAFR has emerged, in part, to mobilise non-positivist epistemologies in accounting research (Chua, 1986), it may be contended, to varying degrees, that the narration of QMAFR continues to pay homage to authorial strategies institutionalising mainstream forms of scientific authority in the field (Armstrong, 2007). Even though some exemplars of field research dispense with the ostensible trappings of the “science report” (for example, the statement of research questions/hypotheses and the inclusion of separate data and analyses sections) (Covaleski and Dirsmith, 1986; Preston, 1987; Mouritsen, 1999; Quattrone and Hopper, 2001), such writing conventions are still adopted to confer disciplinary “respectability” (Atkinson and Shaffir, 1998, p. 43) on QMAFR (Miller and O'Leary, 1997; Malina and Selto, 2001). Likewise, the emphasis placed on triangulation through the use of multiple forms of data collection and the increasingly exaggerated cataloguing of researcher engagement with the field (Briers and Chua, 2001; Vaivio, 1999), speak also to a lingering desire (perhaps, prudently) to establish the credibility of qualitative data in quasi-positivistic terms, invoking the “bankable guarantees” (Law, 2004, p. 9) of more mainstream research.

If it is accepted, however, that notions such as objectivity and reliability attain their workability within a naïve, scientific, realist type of framework (Madill et al., 2000), and that other types of “good” research are possible (Latour, 2005; Law, 2004; Quattrone, 2006), then it may be justifiably asked why QMAFR enshrines vestiges of positivist forms of research. We need to remind ourselves that social constructivist QMAFR (Mouritsen, 1999) aims to articulate and understand a range of diverse perspectives informing accounting practice (Madill et al., 2000 l; Maxwell, 1992). Likewise, more critical forms of QMAFR (Knights and Collinson, 1987) are positioned within a world view aiming to facilitate political awareness and action (Madill et al., 2000). This then suggests a need to shift the narratological emphasis in QMAFR towards the “honouring” of alternative perspectives on accounting practice and/or a capacity to facilitate change and growth in readers, research participants and the research community (Stiles, 1993). As Hammersley (1983) comments, we then become less concerned with reliability and validity (as conventionally defined) and more concerned with the aesthetics and political/instrumental effects of research narratives. The challenge, therefore, is to find a voice (or voices) which better express a non-positivist episteme.

One implication of this is that there should be some collective preparedness to innovate in relation to the writing of QMAFR, treating texts as experiments (some of which may fail) in characterising the complexity, fluidity and diversity of the field (Latour, 2005). Overall, the management accounting field researcher as author-writer is not very adventurous. There is little diversity in the ways that we write research (Pinch et al., 1989)[27], even though a number of experimental research genres are being promoted more broadly within the social sciences for writing the field[28], [29]. Tinkering with alternative forms of writing in QMAFR may enable scholars to write about things differently and to write about different things. One particular form of authorial experimentation which may be worth further consideration within QMAFR, given its concern for characterising and understanding multiple perspectives (and even multiple realities) (Law, 2004) and their potential growth/change implications, concerns the narration of more “dispersed” (Marcus and Cushman, 1982, p. 43) forms of authority in field research which explore the border and intermingling of indigenous and authoritative field work (Gubrium and Holstein, 1999; Law, 2004)[30]. As Marcus and Cushman have pointed out, qualitative research is dominated by texts which are “domesticated” by controlling author-writers. Even when different voices from the field are permitted to speak (through the use of verbatim quotations, for instance)[31], these voices become a medium to narrate and reinforce the authority of the author-writer and the implicit conventions of academic writing which enable researchers to assert “their” claims as “facts”. This has led more radical commentators to lament the subversion of lay forms of knowledge in the writing of the field (Aguinaldo, 2004; Law, 2004), prompting an opportunity for reflection on the political implications of extant authorial practices in relation to QMAFR. Both social constructivist and more critical field researchers may benefit from acknowledging how our textual practices may foreclose the constitution of knowledge(s) (Aguinaldo, 2004) about accounting practices[32].

Another area for reflection concerns the importance of theoretical resonances in our writings of the field (Ahrens and Chapman, 2006). How is a “secondary” or “allegorical” referent embedded in field research (Clifford, 1986; White, 1987)? How does the here and now connect to other times and places? How may the field point to larger understandings of the interweaving of organisations, machines and accounting technologies? As such, recognition of the convincingness of field research, especially its criticality (Golden-Biddle and Locke, 1993), encourages a more active consideration of the non-literal implications of our writings of the field, but in ways that are not limited to factually- and statistically-bound notions of external validity. In short, we are arguing for QMAFR which connects the ethnographic (Atkinson, 1990) and sociological (Mills, 1959) forms of imagination. In doing so, we would argue, it is possible to constitute the “beef” (Zimmerman, 2001, p. 412) and rigour of QMAFR. Rigour, as such, is not something which can be “purchased with techniques” (McGrath quoted in Maxwell, 1992, p. 281; Eisenhardt, 1991) but through the development of a capacity to consider what it is that we have learned about accounting and organisational/societal functioning as a result of QMAFR[33].

This leads us inevitably to a consideration of how it is that we evaluate the “goodness” of QMAFR. If we choose also to recognise a literary, rather than exclusively scientific form of authority for this type of research, we begin to acknowledge the limitations of espoused ways of evaluating field research. Take the argument offered by Atkinson and Shaffir (1998, p. 60), for example, in which it is proposed that management accounting field research should be evaluated on the basis of two “standards”, namely “validity” and “reliability”[34]. Validity and reliability are only two forms of rhetorical assurance about the goodness of research – and then only particular (science-like) types of convincingness[35]. We need to consider a far broader range of acceptable convincing strategies. As our consideration of Preston (1987) and Miller and O'Leary's (1997) work suggests, there are “house norms” (van Maanen, 1988, p. 27) for writing and authoring field research – even if we are unable, at this point in time, to find an appropriate register to articulate them. As Geertz (1988, p. 6) states:

In discovering how, in this monograph or that article, such an impression is created, we shall discover, at the same time, the criteria by which to judge them. As the criticism of fiction and poetry grows best out of an imaginative engagement with fiction and poetry themselves, not out of imported notions about what they should be, the criticism of anthropological writing […] ought to grow out of a similar engagement with it, not out of preconceptions of what it must look like to qualify as science.

Following Geertz (quoted above), accepting evaluative criteria emerging from, and being informed by the figurative dimensions of our writings of the field, arguably encourages and perpetuates our authorial imagination. Given that QMAFR is rarely conducted with a view to producing standardised results that may be replicated by another researcher, but is rather undertaken with a view to producing a compelling and illuminating narrative (Wainwright, 1997), a desire for immutable a priori “standards” in management accounting field research may be misplaced. As such, Marshall's (1985, p. 357) warning is both timely and appropriate for those seeking the comfort of standardisation in QMAFR:

Rigidly trustworthy research may be limited by the methods devised to ensure trustworthiness. It could make qualitative researchers into nothing more than objective observers and coding specialists. It could lead to premature coding, forcing data within theoretical framework, closing off alternate conceptualizations and precluding discovery of hidden, secret, unrecognized, subtle, “unimportant” data, connections, and processes.

Notwithstanding, there is a need for further debate about the goodness, or otherwise, of the writing/authorial practices constituting QMAFR. And the challenge is to consider how it is that we accredit well-made and truthful stories of the field. In doing so, however, it is necessary to confront the aesthetic (Iser, 1978) dimensions of field research. Basically some researchers write the field in more competent and persuasive ways; we are drawn into their crafting of the field, transported to other imaginary spaces. In short, there is an intrinsic aesthetic dimension to field research which needs to be acknowledged, considered and discussed within the context of QMAFR.

But how might this discussion about “good” writing in field research proceed if we abandon notions of “rigidly trustworthy research” (Marshall, 1985 cited above) and a desire to imitate the writing style of “hard sciences” (Latour, 2005, p. 125), focusing instead on the “criticality” or the imaginative and aesthetic pathways to truths in QMAFR? Arguably, corresponding debates within the social sciences (Latour, 2005; Law, 2004) provide germane points with which management accounting field researchers may usefully engage. In relation to this, Law (2004) argues that “good” research sustains the heart, imagination and the mind through its “messiness”. Rather than using messiness as a metaphor for poorly executed and written research, Law invokes this term as a way of encouraging researchers to address “multiplicities” as well as “singularities” (p. 82) in their narrations of the field. Criticality, as conceived from this viewpoint, is constituted by narratives highlighting the multiple realities which coexist in the field, rather than privileging a prevailing doxa. He provides illustrations of how, for example, “scientific”/geological explanations of “Ayers Rock” in Australia can reside with indigenous Aboriginal accounts of “Uluru” (2004, Chapter, 7)[36]. Law further contends that imaginative research not only characterises such multiple ontologies but also captures the changing or “shape shifting” (Law, 2004, p. 122) forms of these realities, creating fluid spaces to be apprehended and enjoyed, such as those found in the Aboriginal Dreamtime legends which invite chronic reinterpretation, development and elaboration[37].

Further to these themes, Latour (2005) argues that “well written” (p. 124) research enables the “social” to be “reassembled” by the reader (p. 138). Conceived from Latour's vantage point, imaginative criticality is imbued by research narratives which create a “circulating” (rather than static) entity (Latour, 2005, p. 128), being an account in which all actors (human and non-human) transform or mediate networks of practices in various ways. Latour (2005, p. 138) thereby contends that good research enables us, as readers, to reassemble how the world works – but in a way that enables non-singular forms of “world-making” (Law, 2004, p. 151) in which the scientific engages (and re-engages) with the personal and political through our aesthetic experiences. So, good research prompts an imagining and re-imagining of realities and possible futures.

Correspondingly, we argue that QMAFR is incapable of achieving a look of truth independently of this aesthetic dimension. That is, the writing of “facts” depends on the literary convincingness of QMAFR: our aesthetic response to a text's authenticity, plausibility and criticality helps to persuade us as to its “facts”. Yet, concomitantly, scientific authority is integral to the aesthetic and literary dimension of QMAFR! As a discipline we submit to quasi-scientific modes of writing, privileging a controlling authorial voice that constitutes its authority through calculative types of reckoning of the field, as well as structural predictability in our report of it. As such, truthful and well-made narratives necessarily invoke both literary and factual forms of convincingness. It is, therefore, the basic contention of this paper that future debates about the direction and quality of post-positivist QMAFR must acknowledge the hybrid accomplishment on which its constitution rests, contesting a modernist division between “truth” and “aesthetics” (Law, 2004, p. 143). How does the author-writer intertwine mutually informing scientific and literary forms of authority in narrations of the field? Accordingly, this paper represents an initial contribution to a debate about a hybrid identity for QMAFR. But irrespective of the outcomes of any future engagements with this debate, we can state now (like van Maanen, cited above) that we will read QMAFR with a more percipient eye. Our appreciation of the strengths and limitations of QMAFR has been heightened by an awareness of this duality of textual practices informing its constitution.

The end

This paper has discussed the textual constitution of QMAFR in terms of authoring-writing practices. In particular, we have outlined ways in which QMAFR achieves its literary convincingness, illustrating how two well-known examples of management accounting field research were narrated to achieve this. We concluded by arguing that QMAFR is constituted by a hybrid accomplishment in which both scientific and literary forms of authority are textually instantiated.

But by showing how the “rabbits have been pulled out of hats”, we do not wish to rob field research of its magic and attraction. Rather we argue that a recognition of the field researcher as author-writer makes QMAFR even more compelling in its thrall. The imaginative possibilities offered by an acknowledgement of our craftings of the field contribute to a more reflexive and critically-informed future direction for QMAFR.

To summarize briefly: A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit's fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable that they never risk crawling back up the fragile hairs again (Gaarder, 1994, p. 16).

References

Abernethy, M., Chua, W.F., Luckett, P.F., Selto, F.H. (1999), "Research in managerial accounting: learning from others' experiences", Accounting and Finance, Vol. 39 pp.1-27.

The field researcher as author-writer

The Authors

Jane Baxter, School of Accounting, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Wai Fong Chua, School of Accounting, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Acknowledgements

Abstract

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The end

Writing the field

Writing “convincing” field research

Deconstructing the field

Preston – writing “Johnny-on-the-spot”

Authenticity

Plausibility

Criticality

Miller and O'Leary – writing “degree zero”

Authenticity

Plausibility

Criticality

“Convincingly” different or similar?

A research method “with a future”

The end

References

Appendix 1

“Interactions and arrangements in the process of informing” by Alistair Preston

Appendix 2

“Capital budgeting practices and complementarity relations in the transition to modern manufacture: a field-based analysis” by Peter Miller and Ted O'Leary

About the authors