We are not alone: qualitative management accounting research
Rationale, pitfalls and potential
The Authors
Christopher S. Chapman, Tanaka Business School, Imperial College, London, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Qualitative management accounting research: rationale, pitfalls and potential”, a paper by Juhani Vaivio.
Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of a critical reading of Vaivio's paper.
Findings – The paper emphasises the role of other groups interested in the practice and study of management accounting. Whilst frequently an individual activity, the research can be stronger through an awareness, at all stages, of how one's interests might engage with the interests of others – not in a quest for uniformity, but rather for mutual learning.
Originality/value – The paper offers a unifying theme for approaching and understanding the wide-ranging issues raised by Vaivio.
Article Type:
Viewpoint
Keyword(s):
Qualitative research; Management accounting.
Journal:
Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management
Volume:
5
Number:
3
Year:
2008
pp:
247-252
Copyright ©
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN:
1176-6093
In his piece, Juhani undertakes to motivate us to continue (and to begin) the endeavour of qualitative management accounting research. It would be easy to assume that in a journal dedicated to precisely this form of research that such an effort was scarcely necessary. However, in answering his opening question of “does qualitative research in management accounting really matter?” the piece offers more than a line of self-justificatory argument. Far more substantively, it sets qualitative management accounting research in a wider arena of actors and interests. In doing so, the piece is vitally instructive on the ways in which qualitative management accounting research can actively be made (by us) to matter.
As is inevitable in any piece of writing so ambitious in scope, there are of course many points and issues along the way that merit further discussion and debate. Important though debate is (Ahrens et al., 2008) I am going to try here to draw out what I think is the consistent message, recurring again and again throughout the piece – namely that as qualitative management accounting researchers, we are not alone. Juhani sets out a series of potential interlocutors for our work. By way of motivational encouragement we are invited to “rescue” some of them with our insights. However, whilst this represents an exciting imperative for us to persist in our efforts, we must also look closely into the piece to uncover its lessons for how to motivate our research to these other groups. For, whilst Juhani's is an optimistic message, it is also a practical one. As the opening question suggests, work is required to establish the wider interest of own theoretical preoccupations and experiences in the field even amongst proponents of qualitative management accounting research. Understanding the potential of these other groups to help us to sharpen and communicate our own interests is essential if we are to live up to the potential presence and contribution set forth. Following through the manifold implications of the message that we are not alone will take us far beyond a rallying cry to undertake more qualitative research. Following Juhani's lead, however, let us also start there…
For a motivational piece, the opening paragraph is almost too effective in outlining the pitfalls. It begins with the observation that “Qualitative research is a messy and time-consuming affair”. Consistent with my chosen theme of “we are not alone” I would note that in my experience at least, this might be said of research in general. Initial perceptions of clarity, precision and ease rarely survive more than casual engagement in the research process. The rest of the paragraph however presents us with a comprehensive run down of far more specific (and painfully personally familiar) worries perhaps most tellingly “countless lonely hours in front of the computer screen”. There are many factors that contribute to the sense of individual isolation conjured up here. We are frequently told that one of the comparative advantages of a qualitative approach lies in its ability to explore novel unexplored areas. In discussing Qualitative Research and Theory Development later on in his piece, Juhani likens such work to “the explorer-adventurer, who sails off into uncharted water”. Central to his discussion here, however, are the return from the unknown territory and the reporting back, the next steps to be taken in further investigation.
These later aspects of the research process deserve greater emphasis and attention. Too often, we spend so much of our time and effort in (to extend the metaphor) “surviving the voyage” that we have few reserves left for such subsequent activities. Constructed in the mould of the heroic “explorer-adventurer” we risk assuming the interest of our audience. Our calls for more research in the vein of our own can be hollow even to our own ears. The danger is that we may make these calls with only the loosest sense of interest as to whether or not they will be heeded as our attention and interest has moved on to our next adventure. Novelty (being the first to look at something) per se is often a poor basis for engaging the interests of others, as has been argued to be the case with Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (Chapman, 2005), for example.
Juhani's choice of the word counterweight to describe our relationship with the three alternative visions of management accounting that he presents is well chosen. The textbook, economics and consulting views all shed a particular light on our shared topic of management accounting. Yet, each does so from its own set of interests and through their own preferred modes of communication. Just as there is little point in critiquing qualitative research for its absence of statistical analysis, it is of little point assuming that other groups will simply see the light and adopt our own approaches and interests. Even if they were to be open to such an extreme epiphany, we might usefully ask ourselves whether or not this would be such a good thing. On closer inspection, we frequently find there is more behind what we might have taken to be a simplistic façade than we had first thought (Anderson and Widener, 2007). The notion of a counterweight nicely captures the simultaneously competitive yet mutually constitutive aspects of the relationship between ourselves and these various other groupings:
[…] [w] e must not make too much of these distinctions, however, for they are heavy with evaluative freight and lead to rigid conceptual categories devoid of nuance and shared features. Quantitative research is not the evil twin of qualitative research (van Maanen, 1998, p. xii).
Ironically, it seems that whilst we may have chosen to engage with these other groups through our expectation that they shared our interest in management accounting, we become side-tracked by the different ways in which they express and pursue such interest to the extent of forgetting to look for those very common interests that encouraged us to seek them out in the first place. So, yes, there will be things that they (other groups) can learn from our insights, however simply saying that they have missed the point is unlikely to be persuasive. Whilst ideas may be constructed as offering alternatives (Baxter and Chua, 2003), this does not preclude the potential interest in constructing bridges between the interests of these other groups and our own (Ahrens and Chapman, 2004; Chua and Mahama, 2007)
One further section of Juhani's argument where I see again this central message is in his discussion of challenges and pitfalls of qualitative management accounting research – such as “The mixed salad”, “It fits it fits!” and “The Windsurfer” problems, for example. On working through them and attempting to offer some direct advice as to how they may be mitigated we find again the value of first remembering, and then acting on the knowledge that as qualitative researchers in management accounting, we are not alone.
In highlighting these various problems, Juhani draws our attention to the central role of theory and theorising in qualitative management accounting research (Ahrens and Chapman, 2006). We know that there should be some connection between our literature review and the presented field material, yet the “Heavy theoretical ‘frontload’” and the “meandering storyline” are indeed all too familiar from “disappointing” studies. As Juhani notes the role of theory up front is to prepare the reader. But, even before this, theory plays a valuable role in guiding fieldwork. Proponents of grounded theory emphasise the importance of “theoretical sampling” and “theoretical saturation”, for example. Grounded theory is not an excuse to ignore the literature, since it does not allow for the presentation of “raw” data from the field (Suddaby, 2006). There is no escape here from the central role of the researcher in selecting a theoretical framing and in subsequently writing that framing and its consequences into our papers. However, because it cannot simply hide behind the data, interpretation need not be undisciplined and thereby untrustworthy (Ahrens and Chapman, 2006).
Again, from personal and painful experience, actually producing such a disciplined connection requires extensive and extended effort in rewriting (and rewriting, and rewriting, and …). For in qualitative management accounting research the process of writing is intimately bound up with an ongoing process of thinking and understanding. Social theory tends towards the complex and detailed, yet space in our papers is limited. We must choose which are the most salient aspects of such theories to present to the reader to establish our sensitivities and interests. These should prepare the reader to engage with the significance of the even more heavily selective aspects of our fieldwork for which space may be found. As we craft our theoretical argument, we must constantly revisit the choices we are making with regards to our field material. Are our selections as illuminating as we had initially supposed? If not, is that because we have chosen our field material poorly, or has our choice of theoretical framing focussed attention poorly on aspects of our fieldwork that we persist in finding intriguing?
Whilst this iterative process of writing and questioning may be undertaken through “countless lonely hours”, perhaps the most important challenge lies in stepping outside of our own familiarity with our theoretical and empirical pre-occupations to remember that we are not alone. The point is not simply to craft our text to our own satisfaction. In his excellent commentary on the nature of the journal review process, Kachelmeier (2004) highlights in particular the significance of errors of communication. Whilst it is natural on receiving a review to express disbelief that a reviewer has failed to grasp the subtlety and significance of our argument, it is important to remember that the reviewer has probably spent more time than the average reader will on understanding our work. If they do not understand it is likely our fault and not theirs. Warning signs of our failure to effectively communicate may arise long before a paper is submitted to a journal, however.
Questions from audiences of early stage papers frequently take the form of “Nice field study, shame about the theory”. This can be particularly frustrating since many well-intentioned suggestions of “better” theoretical framings are the result of at best cursory familiarity with our research focus, theoretical choices and activities in the field. Worse still, they may fly in the face of weeks of effort on our part to explore exactly the suggested theory, only to find that it is not nearly as fruitful or appropriate as we ourselves had first hoped. One of the common mistakes highlighted in Zimmerman (1989) is the writing of papers as “diaries” however, and so the best response to such questions is not to lay out and thereby seek to eliminate these theoretical dead ends in our papers. Given the limited space and attention available to us, we are better served by positive explanations of the point we are trying to make rather than elaborations of points we that we either do not want to, or, cannot make. More often than we would like to admit, errors of communication arise from a failure to establish clearly in our own minds the interest and thrust of our own argument.
Our failure to be clear in our own minds of the point we are trying to make can frequently lead to papers with very brief discussions and conclusions also. Our field material cannot be relied up to speak for itself; our job is not done once we have finished presenting it. We must work to explain further for the reader why they should have cared to invest their time and effort in reading our papers, and what are the implications for their own work. Here again, the iterative nature of writing means that that by the time we have worked our way through from elaborating a research issue, developing an appropriate theoretical lens for examining it with in the context of the specific field work that informs the paper, and then drawing some substantial conclusions, it may well be that our initially framed research issue is no longer in neat alignment with the conclusions that we have worked our way through to making at the end of the paper. Thus, the process begins again, requiring us to rework the linkages between the various parts of our paper until it does communicate effectively and coherently to an audience concerning a problem that they may be persuaded to care about. The “interest” of our work is not inherent; rather it is something that we must work painstakingly to construct.
The good news is that with practice this effort of construction is something that we can learn to do better. In his commentary on the review process Kachelmeier (2004) observes that carrying out the work of a reviewer may be thought of as a public good since the benefits of this labour accrue to authors and journal editors rather than reviewers themselves. To try and recapture my optimistic opening, I would finish with the observation that acting as a reviewer can improve our own work. This begins with the observation that is it often easier to see the errors and miscommunications in the work of others than in our own work. Working as a reviewer can help to sharpen our sensitivity to such problems in our own work. That said, the role of the reviewer is not simply to critique, rather to help to construct. Very often, the reviewer is in a better position to understand the potential contribution and significance of a study by virtue of their distance from it. Here again, working as a reviewer can help to develop our skills at seeing specific arguments and field experiences in a wider context.
In this brief commentary, I have tried to provide a simple framing of many of the interesting and important issues raised by Juhani in his paper (adding in a few of my own along the way). I wholeheartedly agree with him in his prognosis that our work does matter, and is important. I also find attractive the aspects of novelty and exploration that are traditionally associated with it. I hope here, however, to reinforce the point that novelty and exploration draw strength from a more directly articulated understanding in our work that in pursuing and developing our individual ideas and interests we neither are, nor should we seek to be, alone.
References
Ahrens, T., Chapman, C.S. (2004), "Accounting for flexibility and efficiency: a field study of management control systems in a restaurant chain", Contemporary Accounting Research, Vol. 21 No.2, pp.271-301.
Ahrens, T., Chapman, C.S. (2006), "Doing qualitative accounting research: positioning data to contribute to theory", Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 31 No.8, pp.819-41.
Ahrens, T., Becker, A., Burns, J., Chapman, C.S., Granlund, M., Habersam, M., Hansen, A., Khalifa, R., Malmi, T., Mennicken, A., Mikes, A., Panozzo, F., Piber, M., Quattrone, P., Scheytt, T. (2008), "The future of interpretive accounting research – a debate", Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 19 No.6, pp.840-66.
Anderson, S., Widener, S. (2007), "Doing quantitative field studies", in Chapman, C.S., Hopwood, A.G., Shields, M.D. (Eds),Handbook of Management Accounting Research, Elsevier, Oxford, Vol. Vol. 1 pp.319-41.
Baxter, J., Chua, W.F. (2003), "Alternative management accounting research – whence and whither", Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 28 No.2/3, pp.97-126.
Chapman, C.S. (2005), "Not because they are new: developing the contribution of enterprise resource planning systems to management control research", Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 30 No.7/8, pp.685-9.
Chua, W.F., Mahama, H. (2007), "The effect of network ties on accounting controls in a supply alliance: field study evidence", Contemporary Accounting Research, Vol. 24 No.1, pp.47-92.
Kachelmeier, S.J. (2004), "Reviewing the review process", Journal of the American Tax Association, Vol. 26 pp.143-54.
Rowe, C., Birnberg, J., Shields, M.D. (2008), "Effects of organizational process change on responsibility accounting and manager's revelations of private knowledge", Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 33 No.2/3, pp.164-98.
Suddaby, R. (2006), "From the editors: what grounded theory is not", Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 49 No.4, pp.633-42.
van Maanen, J. (1998), "Editor's introduction: different strokes", in Van Maanen, J. (Eds),Qualitative Studies of Organizations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp.ix-xxxii.
Zimmerman, J. (1989), "Improving a manuscript's readability and likelihood of publication", Issues in Accounting Education, Vol. 4 No.2, pp.458-67.
Corresponding author
Christopher S. Chapman can be contacted at: christopher.chapman@imperial.ac.uk