Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 124–129

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Management Accounting Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mar

Bridging the paradigm divide in management accounting research:

The role of mixed methods approaches
Sven Modell ∗
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This paper discusses the role of mixed methods research in management accounting and
Mixed methods research how it may help researchers bridge the divide between the economics-based, functionalist
Paradigms
‘mainstream’ and the ‘alternative’ paradigm informed by interpretive and critical perspec-
Management accounting
tives. Whilst noting the considerable barriers to dialogue across these paradigms, I outline
Triangulation
how mixed methods research can be mobilized as part of a strategy of meta-triangulation
to engender inter-paradigmatic engagement.
© 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction tion and to facilitate the mobilization of multiple theories in

This paper will discuss the role of mixed meth-
ods research in management accounting with particular
emphasis on how it may help bridging the divide currently
separating the primarily economics-based ‘mainstream’
from ‘alternative’, sociology-based approaches informed
by interpretive and critical perspectives (cf. Ryan et al.,
2002). Examining this issue is important for stimulating
more widespread dialogue across these paradigms. Mixed
methods research, combining qualitative and quantitative
approaches, has recently been extensively discussed in the
management accounting literature and is growing in popu-
larity (e.g., Anderson and Widener, 2007; Lillis and Mundy,
2005; Modell, 2005). However, much of this debate has had
a rather technical emphasis and has only rarely addressed
the deeper paradigmatic implications of conducting such
research (Brown and Brignall, 2007; Modell, 2007, 2009).
The case for mixed methods research has generally been
stated in terms of its propensity to enable researchers
to combine breadth and depth in empirical inquiries, to
enhance the validity of research findings through triangula-
∗ Correspondence address: Accounting and Finance Group, Manchester
Business School, University of Manchester, Crawford House, Booth Street
West, Manchester M15 6PB, United Kingdom.
E-mail address: Sven.Modell@mbs.ac.uk.
examining management accounting practices. Little atten-
tion has been paid to whether mixed methods research,
as such, may spearhead research endeavours encouraging
dialogue across the aforementioned paradigm divide. This
is the over-riding concern of this paper.
I will start by briefly accounting for my own personal
experiences of doing and writing about mixed meth-
ods research in management accounting with an eye to
some paradigmatic issues encountered along the way. This
anchors the discussion in some first-hand observations of
potential barriers to bridging paradigms, which are further
examined in the ensuing section. Finally, I examine how
mixed methods research may be used as part of a strategy
of meta-triangulation to overcome these barriers.
2. Doing and writing about mixed methods
research: some personal experiences
My interest in mixed methods research started with
an empirical study in the Norwegian health care sector
(Modell and Lee, 2001). The study started with a survey-
based phase exploring the influence of decentralization
on reliance on the controllability principle at the middle
management level of a large, public sector hospital. Whilst
our initial hypothesis and the design of the survey instru-
ment were primarily informed by functionalist approaches

1044-5005/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mar.2010.02.005
 S. Modell / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 124–129
(e.g., agency theory), we retained some openness to alter-
native theoretical perspectives and combined the survey
with semi-structured interviews. This proved very help-
ful since our survey findings only provided weak and
far from conclusive support for our a priori expectations.
However, the interview data strongly indicated that insti-
tutional and political factors, to some extent unique to the
Norwegian health care sector, had an important, mediat-
ing influence on the relationship between decentralization
and reliance on the controllability principle. These rela-
tionships were further theorized by complementing our
original model with insights from neo-institutional soci-
ology. Hence, interview data enabled us to extend extant
theories of the possibilities of implementing the controlla-
bility principle in conjunction with budgetary control. The
paper was well-received by reviewers and was accepted
for publication after minor revisions. To our delight, it was
eventually awarded the John Perrin Prize for Best Paper
in Financial Accountability and Management in 2001. In
hindsight, both I and my co-author saw the study as a
great learning experience opening up new perspectives and
helping us develop new methodological skills.
Having completed this empirical study, I set out to
compare my experiences with those of other manage-
ment accounting scholars conducting similar kinds of
research. This resulted in a comprehensive review of
management accounting research relying on triangulation
between survey- and case study-based methods published
in major accounting journals between 1970 and 2002
(Modell, 2005). The paper explored the issue of how various
forms of method triangulation may contribute to validate
research findings and resulted in the identification of three
distinct approaches to this end. I started out by somewhat
naïvely equating the use of qualitative and quantitative
methods with those of the interpretive and functional-
ist paradigms, respectively (cf. Burrell and Morgan, 1979).
Whilst a number of studies explicitly combining these
paradigms were identified, my positioning of triangulation
between them proved far from unproblematic and gener-
ated rather heated reactions in conference presentations.
In particular, some interpretive and critical researchers saw
this as an untenable position, arguing that triangulation is
not possible across paradigms as the notion of validity has
very different meanings which are embedded in diverging
ontological and epistemological assumptions (cf. Blaikie,
1991). My response to these criticisms, smacking of the
notion of paradigm incommensurability, was to re-position
the paper exclusively within the functionalist paradigm
whilst adopting the inherently pragmatist, but far from
undisputed, position that the choice of particular theories
and methods can be (and is often) emancipated from their
ontological roots (cf. Bryman, 2006, 2007). However, the
published paper ultimately eschewed ontological and epis-
temological issues related to mixed methods research.
Yet, on completing this paper I felt that there was
still some unfinished work to be done to develop a
consistent philosophical foundation for mixed methods
research combining elements of interpretive and func-
tionalist approaches. This led to some grappling with
pragmatism as a possible means to this end. However,
whilst pragmatism has emerged as the dominant philo-
125
sophical position behind mixed methods research, I was
disheartened by the rather loose and implicit manner in
which this position is often mobilized in empirical studies.
Instead, I started developing a paper grounded in critical
realism (Modell, 2009). I saw critical realism as a more
appealing foundation for mixed methods research provid-
ing some paradigmatic ‘middle ground’ entailing clearly
articulated analytical procedures for validating empirical
observations. As such, it provided a convincing basis for
tackling the philosophically tuned criticisms of the notion
of triangulation encountered in my earlier work. However,
it soon became clear that my ambition was by no means
seen as politically neutral. Whilst draft versions of the
paper met with some interest and encouraging comments
from colleagues generally associated with the interpretive
paradigm, some of them raised concerns that the essen-
tially realist approach being advocated might constitute
a ‘threat’ to this paradigm and that the ‘politics’ behind
the paper were not clearly articulated. On the other hand,
some colleagues with a more functionalist orientation saw
such approaches as a ‘strawman’ or ‘non-issue’, arguing
that positivist writers had already solved the problem of
how to validate mixed methods research. Such reactions
were typically combined with calls for ‘getting on’ with
empirical research without worrying too much about phi-
losophy and I generally found them more hostile than
those emerging from my interpretive colleagues. However,
I experienced little opposition to the usefulness of mixed
methods research as such.
To summarize these personal experiences of conduct-
ing mixed methods research in management accounting
it is clear that this is by no means an unproblematic or
uncontested endeavour. A casual observation, not dissim-
ilar to the experiences of other practitioners of mixed
methods research (see Bryman, 2006, 2007), is that doing
such research is more straightforward than writing about
it. This would especially seem to be the case as long as we
do not let philosophical issues ‘get in the way’ and con-
centrate on ‘getting on’ with empirical research. In what
follows, I elaborate on why such a stance may reinforce the
barriers to dialogue across paradigms.
3. Barriers to inter-paradigmatic dialogue in
management accounting research
The above discussion suggests that the barriers to
mixed methods research as a way of stimulating dialogue
between the ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ paradigms are
particularly entrenched in the former. This impression
is reinforced by prevailing ‘mainstream’ conceptions of
the possibilities (and desirability) of such dialogue and
can partly be traced to the intellectual roots of much
research within this paradigm, notably articulated in Posi-
tive Accounting Theory (PAT). The preferred logic of inquiry
in PAT places a strong emphasis on explaining and pre-
dicting substantive accounting phenomena and favours a
hypothetico-deductive mode of theorizing and relatively
one-sided reliance on quantitative methods using large
samples (Watts and Zimmerman, 1986; see Williams, 1989
for an early critique). However, whilst generally seen as
rooted in a realist ontology and positivist epistemology
126 S. Modell / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 124–129
(see Ryan et al., 2002; Whitley, 1988), key proponents of
PAT have shown little interest in debating its philosoph-
ical foundations and have tended to resort to the idea of
paradigm incommensurability as a reason for not doing so.
For instance, in responding to emerging criticisms of the
ontological and epistemological premises of PAT, Watts and
Zimmerman (1990, p. 149) argued that:
‘. . .to most researchers, debating methodology is a “no
win” situation because each side argues from a different
paradigm with different rules and no common ground.’
Rather than debating abstract philosophical issues,
Watts and Zimmerman (1990) saw the pathway to scien-
tific progress as a matter of addressing the limitations of
earlier research in repeated studies to enhance the explana-
tory and predictive capacity of theories as these relate
to specific, substantive accounting phenomena. Hence, a
strong emphasis on ‘getting on’ with empirical research
is discernible. Whilst this resonates with my personal
experiences of interacting with colleagues within the
‘mainstream’, ‘getting on’ with research in all likelihood
implies heavy reliance on economic theories and quanti-
tative methods. As indicated by Merchant (this issue), this
may be the only possible strategy for scholars aspiring to
elite status within the ‘mainstream’ (especially in North
America) even if they are sympathetic to a broader range
of theories and methods.
Whatever role, if any, positive accounting theorists
might see for mixed methods research it is likely to be a
rather peripheral one informed by a very narrow range
of theories. This is not least clear from Zimmerman’s
(2001) lamenting of the state of contemporary manage-
ment accounting research for encompassing too much
descriptive and exploratory work informed by theoreti-
cal approaches other than economics. The lack of training
in and incentives for conducting qualitative research in
North American accounting academe (see e.g., Lee, 1995;
Panozzo, 1997) would also seem to work against a wider
acceptance of mixed methods approaches as a legiti-
mate research strategy. Recent review articles, extending
economics-based thinking to demonstrate the value of
combining it with other theories, have mostly been based
on the positivist epistemology under-pinning the ‘main-
stream’ (Covaleski et al., 2003; Merchant et al., 2003).
It is possible that preserving such commonalities with
economics-based research is necessary to stimulate some
form of dialogue between economic and other social theo-
ries. However, these advances have tended to bracket wider
ontological and epistemological issues and thus offer few
insights into the challenges involved in fostering inter-
paradigmatic dialogue.
Similarly, the considerably more pluralist, ‘alternative’,
or ‘inter-disciplinary’, accounting research community,
primarily populated by interpretive and critical scholars (cf.
Roslender and Dillard, 2003), is not automatically in favour
of mixed methods research as a means of stimulating inter-
paradigmatic exchange of ideas.1 Many leading scholars
1
Although inter-disciplinary research can take place across paradig-
matic boundaries, the notion of inter-disciplinarity is here equated with
within this community subscribe to a notion of inter-
disciplinarity which would not seem conducive to dialogue
with the economics-based ‘mainstream’. Indeed, attempts
to define the inter-disciplinary accounting research agenda
have largely excluded research based on neo-classical
(financial) economics (e.g., Guthrie and Parker, 2004; Milne
et al., 2008; Parker and Guthrie, 2009), sometimes in favour
of mostly sociological theories (Roslender and Dillard,
2003). Recent celebrations of the achievements of such
research also reveal pronounced concerns with the hege-
monizing strivings of the economics-based ‘mainstream’
(e.g., Hopwood, 2007, 2008), although there is also some
unease with the conception of it as little more than the
‘alternative’ to the ‘mainstream’ (Ahrens et al., 2008).
Whilst these agenda-setting efforts are largely mute as far
as the potential of mixed methods research is concerned,
it is questionable whether such research will contribute to
bridging paradigms unless it explicates how research find-
ings informed by sociological and other theories contribute
to and modify those dominating the economics-based
‘mainstream’ and vice versa. Merely ‘getting on’ with mixed
methods research within a narrow, sociology-based defini-
tion of inter-disciplinarity is unhelpful. As noted by Vollmer
(2009), more explicit attempts to examine the social within
the economic are necessary for management accounting
research to encompass a more reciprocal exchange of ideas
between sociology and economics.
This brief outline of recent debates within the
‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ paradigms reveals a pre-
vailing silence about the potential of mixed methods
research in stimulating inter-paradigmatic dialogue and
what premises need to be filled for this to material-
ize. Leading ‘mainstream’ scholars have largely eschewed
these issues as a result of their reluctance to engage
in inter-paradigmatic debates. Similarly, propagators of
‘alternative’, or ‘inter-disciplinary’, accounting research
have carried on the quest to position such research in
opposition to the ‘mainstream’ and offer little advice as
to whether mixed methods research may nurture some
paradigmatic ‘middle ground’. The main challenge ahead
is thus to develop mixed methods approaches which
may foster inter-paradigmatic engagement and compel
researchers to articulate the premises for more systematic
exchange of ideas across paradigmatic boundaries. I now
turn to examine this issue in greater detail.
4. Mixed methods research as a strategy of
inter-paradigmatic engagement
In pondering how mixed methods research may be
used as a strategy for inter-paradigmatic engagement it
is important to emphasize that this neither implies dis-
mantling paradigmatic boundaries nor forces researchers
to subscribe to some readily available, ‘hybrid’ paradigm
combining elements of the ‘mainstream’ and ‘alterna-
tive’ paradigms. Insisting on such changes would, at best,
the ‘alternative’ paradigm (see Roslender and Dillard, 2003). Whilst
empirical research within this paradigm has tended to be predominantly
qualitative, it does not preclude mixed methods research.
 S. Modell / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 124–129
seem naïve and at worst, counter-productive, as this may
provoke politically motivated reactions and ultimately
alienate potential allies of paradigm-bridging approaches
(cf. Symon et al., 2008). Whilst I have previously advo-
cated critical realism as a paradigmatic ‘middle ground’
for mixed methods research in management accounting
(Modell, 2009), it is still too early to tell whether such
a position will gather a strong enough following to form
a ‘hybrid’ paradigm encouraging more widespread and
reciprocal exchange of ideas between the ‘mainstream’ and
‘alternative’ paradigms (cf. Kuhn, 1962). Hence, the fol-
lowing discussion concentrates on how mixed methods
research can bring together scholars and ideas associated
with these paradigms, but leaves the question of what
paradigmatic position might ultimately emerge from such
endeavours open-ended.
A useful approach for stimulating inter-paradigmatic
dialogue is that of meta-triangulation (Lewis and Grimes,
1999; Wolfram Cox and Hassard, 2005). The basic idea of
meta-triangulation is to mobilize multiple paradigms in
examining a particular social phenomenon and at least
initially preserve their integrity (rather than modifying
and integrating them) whilst remaining aware of the
potential transition zones between them. Differences and
similarities in research findings may then be systemat-
ically analyzed at the levels of ontology, epistemology
and methodology. For instances, a particular accounting
issue may be examined with the aid of both quantitative
and qualitative methods informed by theories and philo-
sophical assumptions associated with the ‘mainstream’
and the ‘alternative’ paradigm, respectively, using a team
of researchers affiliated with both paradigms. This might
reveal whether research findings converge or diverge
as a result of methodological artefacts or due to more
fundamental similarities and differences in philosophical
assumptions. Such research may also be extended by pay-
ing explicit attention to the positions adopted by various
researchers as a result of differences in their backgrounds,
such as research training, institutional affiliations and
paradigmatic commitments (cf. Wolfram Cox and Hassard,
2005).
Consistent with the emergent view of paradigms out-
lined at the beginning of this section, a useful starting
point for mixed methods research following a strategy
of meta-triangulation would be to momentarily bracket
ontological and epistemological assumptions whilst striv-
ing to discover how such assumptions are played out in
action. Instead, a team of researchers representing ‘main-
stream’ as well as the ‘alternative’ paradigms would be
encouraged to empirically examine a substantive man-
agement accounting issue of interest to both paradigms
based on their respective, preferred research methods. An
initial challenge would be to identify such a substantive
issue, since researchers from different paradigms have a
propensity to focus on slightly different aspects of the
‘same’ issue and ask different research questions (cf. Brown
and Brignall, 2007). However, this could be enlightening
in its own right as it may compel researchers to confront
their respective priors with alternative views. Whilst it
would be unrealistic to expect researchers primarily work-
ing within a particular paradigm to readily abandon their
127
priors, this may help them delineate the boundaries of par-
ticular theoretical explanations and their interfaces with
complementary or competing explanations. Openness to
insights from other paradigms might lead researchers from
different paradigms to articulate the assumptions and con-
tingent conditions under which their priors are likely to
hold. It would seem particularly important to maintain
some openness to insights from both sides at the ear-
lier stages of the research process to prevent one or the
other from becoming too dominant and suppress findings
with important implications for later stages. Hence, appro-
priate arenas for researchers to continuously share their
views need to be established and maintained throughout
the research process.
Whilst it is premature to predict what the outcomes
of research projects such as that outlined above might
be, they may shed light on the ontological and epis-
temological premises effectively enacted by researchers
espousing different paradigms. For instance, they may
reveal whether ‘mainstream’ researchers genuinely sub-
scribe to an ontological position of extreme empirical
realism and a positivist epistemology, according to which
the world is so stable, predictable and readily observable
that context-specific differences are of little consequence
for explaining particular accounting phenomena. There is
some reason for doubting that this is always the case. Even
though PAT advocates have expressed their aversion to
excessive reliance on exploratory research as a way of situ-
ating research findings, they have repeatedly emphasized
the importance of investigating emerging anomalies as a
basis for theory development (e.g., Watts and Zimmerman,
1986; Zimmerman, 2001). Recognizing such anomalies,
or atypical ‘anecdotal evidence’ (Watts and Zimmerman,
1986, p. 11), has been seen as a stepping stone for refining
theories and enhancing their explanatory and predictive
capacity across various research settings. In addition, the
critique of exploratory research as a means of situating
research findings should perhaps not be taken too lit-
erally. Even Zimmerman (2001) identified a number of
economics-based studies where innovative insights were
said to be gained by confronting extant theories with
unique, context-specific issues and data. Mixed methods
research following a strategy of meta-triangulation can
‘test’ how far ‘mainstream’ researchers are prepared to go
in exploring anomalies and what this implies in terms of
acting out paradigmatic assumptions.
On the other hand, mixed methods research can
show whether researchers associated with the ‘alternative’
paradigm invariably follow ontological and epistemolog-
ical premises characterized by pronounced subjectivism,
or whether they are open to explaining and even gen-
eralizing about various accounting phenomena. Recent
debates about the nature of interpretive research in man-
agement accounting indicate that the latter may indeed be
the case (Ahrens, 2008; Kakkuri-Knuuttila et al., 2008a,b).
Interpretive researchers can do considerably more than
simply describe and explore subjectively held meanings;
often they can advance theoretically informed explana-
tions. However, such explanations also tend to be highly
context- and time-specific and are deeply embedded in
the socially constructed meanings of researched individ-
128 S. Modell / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 124–129
uals. Consequently, explaining accounting phenomena is
not reducible to finding co-variances corroborating a priori
hypotheses and requires much deeper empirical probing to
be regarded as valid. Yet, validating explanations in inter-
pretive management accounting research is ultimately a
matter of establishing their plausibility against the back-
ground assumptions dominating a particular community
of scholars at various points in time (Lukka and Modell, in
press). Hence, there may be at least some scope for general-
izing from a particular research setting to what is held to be
‘true’ within and across such communities (cf. Hellström,
2008). Mixed methods research following a strategy of
meta-triangulation can tell us something about the bound-
aries of such truth claims and how these are conditioned by
the ontological and epistemological assumptions of various
communities of scholars (which may or may not coincide
with various paradigms).2
If research similar to that outlined above reveals more
widespread divergences between what researchers on
both sides of the paradigm divide are prepared to accept
and the conventional conceptions of paradigms, then there
are reasons to question the latter. So far, there have been
few, if any, attempts at meta-triangulation in individual
empirical studies in the management accounting liter-
ature and we may only speculate as to whether such
attempts will lead to some modification of the philosoph-
ical assumptions effectively enacted by researchers and
foster the emergence of ‘hybrid’ paradigms. The strategy
outlined above should be viewed as one small step in this
process—not a giant leap towards a ‘new’ paradigm. Much
empirical work remains to be done to add momentum to
this process.
Acknowledgement
This paper is based on my panel presentation at the
2009 EAA Annual Congress in Tampere. I am grateful to
Kari Lukka, Ken Merchant and Bob Scapens for their con-
structive comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
References
Ahrens, T., 2008. Overcoming the subjective–objective divide in interpre-
tive management accounting research. Accounting, Organizations and
Society 33, 292–297.
Ahrens, T., Becker, A., Burns, J., Chapman, C., 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 interpre-
tive accounting research—a polyphonic debate. Critical Perspectives
on Accounting 19, 840–866.
Anderson, S.W., Widener, S.K., 2007. Doing quantitative field research in
management accounting. In: Chapman, C.S., Hopwood, A.G., Shields,
M.D. (Eds.), Handbook of Management Accounting Research, vol. 1.
Elsevier, Oxford.
Blaikie, N.W.H., 1991. A critique of the use of triangulation in social
research. Quality and Quantity 25, 115–136.
Brown, R., Brignall, S., 2007. Reflections on the use of a dual-methodology
research design to evaluate accounting and management practice in
2 ology in Finance and Accounting, 2nd ed. Thomson, Padstow.
Whilst it is convenient to equate different paradigms in accounting
research with distinct communities of scholars, there are diverging views
about the homogeneity of ‘mainstream’ accounting researchers guided by
uniform paradigmatic assumptions (Ahrens et al., 2008 vs. Dillard, 2008).
UK university central administrative services. Management Account-
ing Research 18, 32–48.
Bryman, A., 2006. Paradigm peace and the implications for quality. Inter-
national Journal of Social Research Methodology 9, 111–126.
Bryman, A., 2007. Barriers to integrating quantitative and qualitative
research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research 1, 8–22.
Burrell, G., Morgan, G., 1979. Sociological Paradigms and Organisational
Analysis. Heinemann, London.
Covaleski, M.A., Evans III, J.H., Luft, J.L., Shields, M.D., 2003. Budgeting
research: three theoretical perspectives and criteria for selective inte-
gration. Journal of Management Accounting Research 15, 3–49.
Dillard, J., 2008. A political base for a polyphonic debate. Critical Perspec-
tives on Accounting 19, 894–900.
Guthrie, J., Parker, L., 2004. Editorial. Diversity and AAAJ: interdisciplinary
perspectives on accounting, auditing and accountability. Accounting,
Auditing and Accountability Journal 17, 7–16.
Hellström, T., 2008. Transferability and naturalistic generalization: new
generalizability concepts for social science or old wine in new bottles.
Quality and Quantity 42, 321–337.
Hopwood, A.G., 2007. Whither accounting research? The Accounting
Review 82, 1365–1374.
Hopwood, A.G., 2008. Management accounting research in a changing
world. Journal of Management Accounting Research 20, 3–13.
Kakkuri-Knuuttila, M.-L., Lukka, K., Kuorikoski, J., 2008a. Straddling
between paradigms: a naturalistic philosophical case study on
interpretive research in management accounting. Accounting, Orga-
nizations and Society 33, 267–291.
Kakkuri-Knuuttila, M.-L., Lukka, K., Kuorikoski, J., 2008b. No premature
closures of debates, please: a response to Ahrens. Accounting, Orga-
nizations and Society 33, 298–301.
Kuhn, T.S., 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lee, T., 1995. Shaping the US academic accounting research profession:
the American Accounting Association and the social construction
of a professional elite. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 6, 241–
261.
Lewis, M.W., Grimes, A.J., 1999. Metatriangulation: building theories
from multiple paradigms. Academy of Management Review 24, 672–
690.
Lillis, A.M., Mundy, J., 2005. Cross-sectional field studies in management
accounting research—closing the gap between surveys and case stud-
ies. Journal of Management Accounting Research 17, 119–141.
Lukka, K., Modell, S. Validation in interpretive management accounting
research. Accounting, Organizations and Society, in press.
Merchant, K.A. Paradigms in accounting research: a view from North
America. Management Accounting Research, this issue.
Merchant, K.A., Van der Stede, W.A., Zheng, L., 2003. Disciplinary
constraints on the advancement of knowledge: the case of organi-
zational incentive systems. Accounting, Organizations and Society 28,
251–286.
Milne, M., Guthrie, J., Parker, L., 2008. Editorial. Into the light and engage-
ment. Two decades of interdisciplinary perspectives on accounting,
auditing and accountability research. Accounting, Auditing and
Accountability Journal 21, 117–128.
Modell, S., 2005. Triangulation between case study and survey methods
in management accounting research: an assessment of validity impli-
cations. Management Accounting Research 16, 231–254.
Modell, S., 2007. Mixed methods research in management accounting:
opportunities and obstacles. In: Granlund, M. (Ed.), Total Quality in
Academic Accounting. Essays in Honour of Kari Lukka. Publications of
Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Turku.
Modell, S., 2009. In defence of triangulation: a critical realist approach
to mixed methods research in management accounting. Management
Accounting Research 20, 208–221.
Modell, S., Lee, A., 2001. Decentralization and reliance on the control-
lability principle in the public sector. Financial Accountability and
Management 17, 191–218.
Panozzo, F., 1997. The making of good academic accountants. Accounting,
Organizations and Society 22, 447–480.
Parker, L., Guthrie, J., 2009. Editorial. Championing intellectual pluralism.
Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 22, 5–12.
Roslender, R., Dillard, J.F., 2003. Reflections on the interdisciplinary per-
spectives on accounting project. Critical Perspectives on Accounting
14, 325–351.
Ryan, B., Scapens, R.W., Theobald, M., 2002. Research Method and Method-
Symon, G., Buehring, A., Johnson, P., Cassell, C., 2008. Positioning qualita-
tive research as resistance to the institutionalization of the academic
labour process. Organization Studies 29, 1315–1336.
 S. Modell / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 124–129 129

Vollmer, H., 2009. Management accounting as normal science. Accounting,
Organizations and Society 34, 141–150.
Watts, R.L., Zimmerman, J.L., 1986. Positive Accounting Theory. Prentice-
Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Watts, R.L., Zimmerman, J.L., 1990. Positive accounting theory: a ten year
perspective. The Accounting Review 65, 131–156.
Whitley, R.D., 1988. The possibility and utility of positive accounting the-
ory. Accounting, Organizations and Society 13, 631– 645.
Williams, P.F., 1989. The logic of positive accounting research. Accounting,
Organizations and Society 14, 455–468.
Wolfram Cox, J., Hassard, J., 2005. Triangulation in organizational
research: a re-presentation. Organization 12, 109–133.
Zimmerman, J., 2001. Conjectures regarding empirical management
accounting research. Journal of Accounting and Economics 32,
411–427.