Radical Developments in Accounting Thought? Reflections on Positivism, the Impact of Rankings and Research Diversity

Abstract

Accounting research is dominated by three philosophical paradigms—positivism, interpretivism, and critique. Positivistic research dominates “top ranked” accounting journals. This paper argues that this is not because such research succeeds in discovering invariant “scientific laws” that enable prediction and control but because it is aligned with key beliefs and values in liberal democracies. Despite this inability to generate law-like generalizations, the perceived status of positivistic research could be entrenched by the rise of university rankings, thus reducing research diversity. This paper proposes that there are countervailing forces: differences in stakeholder interests in different national jurisdictions, some emergent diversity in North American journals, and the use of “mixed” research methods or qualitative research methods for positivistic purposes. These enable the ongoing development of interpretive and critical research. Through greater engagement with the complexities of practice, it is hoped that deeper research collaboration will occur, and I outline how this could happen.