Critical Perspectives on Accounting (1999) 10, 65᎐88

Article No. cpac.1998.0196

Available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

THEATRE AND INTOLERANCE IN FINANCIAL

ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
F. L. CLARKEU , R. J. CRAIG† AND J. H. AMERNIC‡
U
Department of Commerce, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle,
Australia; †Department of Commerce, The Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia; ‡Faculty of Management, University of
Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Much of the process of financial accounting research is merely theatre, a

ritual with a façade of sophistication and scientism. This paper outlines
the causes, manifestations and outcomes of such theatricality and pro-
vides a critical, introspective assessment of the state of contemporary
financial accounting research. The view that financial accounting research
is worthy and scientific only if it imitates research methods in the
physical sciences is contested. The need to re-think the way the financial
accounting research community selects research topics, motivates re-
search and directs doctoral education is emphasised. How influential, but
rather narrow and dubiously-conceived attitudes towards contemporary
financial accounting research are associated with an onset of cultural
illiteracy is the subject of speculation. The paper calls for greater toler-
ance by financial accounting researchers of scholarly work which em-
braces subject matter, research modes and guiding paradigms, other
than their own.
䊚 1999 Academic Press

Authors’ Prefatory Note. The authors freely admit that at one time or
another they have more than likely been guilty of theatricality and
intolerance and of the other allegedly inapt behavior mentioned herein.
They do not claim that their personal behaviors in respect to value sets
and research priorities have been irreproachable. This paper is offered as
a form of cathartic mea culpa, intended to stimulate reflection and
debate.

Research Theatre and its Rhetoric

Virtually nothing stirs the emotions of accounting academics and their

higher degree candidates as much as reference to research. It is inter-

Address for Correspondence: R. J. Craig, Professor of Accounting, Department of

Commerce, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
Received 10 December 1996; revised 12 June 1997; accepted 11 August 1997

65
1045-2354/ 99 / 010065+ 24 $30.00 / 0 䊚 1999 Academic Press
66 F. L. Clarke et al.

esting to observe adult, experienced and sophisticated scholars going

limp at the mere mention of research. When their research is the
subject of discussion, some assume a grave countenance, often accom-
panied by a buckling of the knees and a simultaneous affectation of an
expression of sanctimony similar to that chiselled by Bernini for St.
Teresa1. The analogy seems apt. Our experience of academic life leads
us to conclude that for many accounting academics merely thinking
even vaguely about research is almost a religious experience. Somewhat
uncharitably perhaps, we submit that the contrived emotion which re-
search engenders is not the stuff of true religious experience, but rather
that it is grande pose. It is theatre at its best.
The contention that theatre is a part of day-to-day life in accounting
academe should not be regarded as a bizarre, unique revelation. The
image of ‘‘ theatre’’ has been used frequently as a construct in studies
of social and organizational life. Rosen (1985), for example, has referred
to the ‘‘social drama’’ of the business breakfast. Hopfl (1995, p. 48) has
drawn attention to ‘‘ the theatrical analogy in description of organisatio-
nal life’’, which she asserts has enjoyed a prominent position over many
years and ‘‘continues to offer insights into behaviour in a wide variety
of roles and contexts’’. Berg (1995) extends the theatrical image to
research activity and argues that interview-based qualitative research
methods benefit from a dramaturgical perspective. Thus, it is not theatre
itself with which we take issue, but the theatrical excess which currently
characterises the management of financial accounting research.
What follows analyses the causes of theatricality in financial account-
ing research, questioning whether research theatre is healthy for re-
searchers who purport to address problems in financial accounting.
Within this analysis, attention is drawn to the current research climate
in which contestable motives too often influence research efforts, too
often direct what is researched, too often dictate what research will be
funded, and too often define what is alleged to be good, worthwhile
research. These are all matters which appear to increase confidence in
the view that a considerable portion of endorsed research in financial
accounting may not fulfil a worthy social role. The paper is a cri de
coeur, but one in which we suspect we are not alone.

Manifestations of Accounting Research Theatre

Theatre in the accounting research domain has many observable mani-

festations. A pervading characteristic is that being a performer in the
theatre often attracts more acclaim than actually completing a produc-
tion. Cameo, rather than completion, is paramount. For many, the process
of doing research assumes greater importance than achievement of
research outcomes likely to sustain and extend horizons of knowledge.
All too often we have heard colleagues cite the following claims as alibi
for their unavailability for pressing tasks involving extra curricular activi-
ties in their Faculty or Departmentᎏ ‘‘ too busy, I’m doing my research’’
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 67

or ‘‘ too busy, I’m trying to finish my Ph.D’’. These are touted as some
apparently Divine exculpation and absolution for not doing the other
sorts of things the community expects of academicsᎏ being good in
teaching, being active in university administration and student advising
and interacting with the business and general community.
Much of the behaviour of accounting research ‘‘actors’’, described
above, is a result of the ‘‘publish or perish’’ culture which encourages
many in academe to seek to publish even the shallowest of pieces. The
act of publication, not the content or impact, often becomes an academic
badge of honour. Those in the academic research theatre, who don’t
really believe in what they’re doing, who go through the motions and
satisfy themselves with the act of publication, are invariably bad actors,
making for really bad theatre. Their productions (i.e. the articles they
publish) usually play to empty houses.
Emberly (1996) captured this cruel aspect of the academic drama very
well in referring to the ‘‘powerful conformist pressures’’ on academics
being considered for appointments, tenure, promotions and grants:

‘‘Bean counting of articles published replaces substantive assessment of

contribution to the scholarly culture... much ‘scholarly’ writing is less an
exploration of the world of predicaments and adventures than commen-
tary on commentary and witty repartee on ‘in’ references and allusions.
(pp. 68᎐69)
...academic careers are built on the bean counting of publications... one
of the more destructive directions taken in recent times in the evaluation
of faculty performance has been the move from peer review to ‘objec-
tive measures’ like citation analysis... In the humanities and social sci-
ences, however, citation counts say much about the composition of an
in-group or the current fashion, but very little about importance.’’ (p. 85)

Thus, by ‘‘completing a production’’, we mean producing a research

outcome which is likely to sustain and extend horizons of knowledge, or
to provoke thought and substantive debate (Passmore, 1967). Mere publi-
cation (often in the form of reiteration of a paradigm already well
evidenced and accepted) whilst the objective measure so often touted as
research success, may be just another of Emberly’s ‘‘beans’’. ‘‘Events’’
studies, in their myriad forms appear, at times, to have this function.
Clearly, Emberly has many supporters. One commentator recently argued
that much contemporary research is mere ‘‘dross, churned out to ad-
vance an academic’s career’’ (The Economist, 1996). Earlier, Subotnik
claimed that the ‘‘sheer emphasis on the quantity of publication’’ arose
from endorsement of the ‘‘Production Quota Principle’’: that our academic
scholarship has forgotten its original purpose, for ‘‘ours are no longer
reading-articles, they are writing-(and-citing)-articles’’ (1988, pp. 100᎐101,
emphasis added).
There are several other manifestations of research theatre in account-
ing. First, from some of our colleagues, we have heard the classic
utterance, ‘‘ I’m a researcher, not a teacher’’ One wonders whether this
incantation is intoned in the hope it will be self-fulfilling2. The utterers
68 F. L. Clarke et al.

seem to be inviting axiomatic belief that there is no relationship between

good university teaching and researching; and that being a good teacher
is in some way in competition with being a good researcher. Curiously,
nobody appears to have sustained either proposition. It is as if research-
ing and teaching serve opposing social ends. There is no apparent
acceptance of the presumption that teaching and research should both
be intended to help build a better society. It is as if teaching and
researching each call upon unrelated skills, entail opposing foci, engen-
der contradictory attitudes, or pursue incompatible objectives. This is
curious, for at the University level one might reasonably expect the
attitudes and methods of enquiry entailed in research to be present
equally in the preparation and presentation of teaching material. How-
ever, those who claim to be ‘‘researchers rather than teachers’’ seem to
prefer teaching material and curriculum design to be quarantined from
contemporary research findings. Consequently, the excitement and neces-
sary vitality of university teaching achieved through a trickle-down effect
from research activity all too often is absent.
The sanctimonious diffidence of those actors engaged in the grand
pose of the ‘‘I’m a researcher not a teacher’’ ethos is captured in
Neimark’s (1996, p. 1) anecdote from the 1979 AAA Doctoral Consortium:

‘‘I had the temerity to ask a question about teaching. After the laughter
subsided, the distinguished faculty member explained that what mattered
for tenure and promotion was publications; he had nothing further to
say about teaching. I don’t remember the subject coming up again at
the consortium.’’

To assert, as we do, that teaching and research are intimately bound is

a rejection of what Boyer (1992, p. 88) called ‘‘ the tired old teaching
versus research debate’’3. The dichotomy this debate has created [that
is, ‘‘research’’ versus ‘‘not-research’’ (teaching)] has moved some en-
lightened academic administrators such as Emberly (1996, p. 262) to
argue

‘‘The studies that show no correlation between teaching and research

are counterintuitive to the experience and common sense of the real
scholar. They demand a causal relationship in the learning processᎏ as
if the components were not extricably bound up with one another in a
culture of scholarship. Teachers do not put on a different hat for teaching
and research [emphasis added].’’

A case can be made also that the connection between research and
teaching flows in both directions, rather than only from the former to
the latter. Of course, some teaching (for example, of skills) can likely
best proceed independently of any research experience of the teacher.
However, university teaching should not be just ordinary teaching. As
with all teaching it is intended to inform, but most importantly, it is
intended to enlighten and to inspire students such that they will become
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 69

wedded to their disciplines and committed to improving the practice of

them. Emberly (1996, p. 262), drawing upon the ideas of Northrup Frye,
refers to this as the student ‘‘being taken up by the culture of scholar-
ship’’ and not merely ‘‘ ‘ taking’ a subject’’. How many times has this
culture of scholarship, when shared by teacher and student, resulted in
research inspiration for either one or both participants? Good teaching,
and the preparation for teaching, leads to research ideas and inspiration.
In a very real sense, within the domains of the scholarly culture,
another dramatic and plausible incantation seems apt to replace ‘‘I’m a
researcher, not a teacher’’ᎏnamely, ‘‘ teaching is research and research is
teaching’’.
Second, research theatre is manifest in the public distinction often
made between scholarship and research. Scholarship is defined fre-
quently in terms of ‘‘being up-to-date with the state-of-the-art in one’s
field of expertise’’; or ‘‘knowing everything that one can about what
everyone else in the field has said and done’’. Scholarship is repre-
sented to be a kind of virtuous, holier-than-thou state. And perhaps
reasonably so, provided scholarship of that kind is placed in scenes
which reflect insight and wisdom accumulated during the taking of
scholarship master-classes. But whereas the publications of the grandfa-
thers, gatekeepers and heroes of financial accounting are many, too few
reflect scholarly thought, or that accumulated insight and wisdom. Re-
search is said to be the undertaking of intensive, disciplined enquiry.
Clearly, scholarship and research are not mutually exclusive. Accumulat-
ing what is known already in a field of enquiry is essential to produc-
ing something usable in the classroom. It is difficult to understand how,
in the absence of having a thorough understanding of what already is
known in the field, one might discover whether there is a problem to
be researched. Not only that, but if there is not at least partial under-
standing of related fields, then there is little prospect of applying ideas
from related disciplines to discover and solve problems in a particular
field of enquiry.
Research is perhaps often best pursued by those with a prepared
mind. Accordingly, researchers are almost always, at least, partly, schol-
ars. However, the converse is not necessarily true if we regard a
researcher as someone beyond merely being a database of extant
knowledge. So the distinction between research and scholarship is a
manifestation of research theatre by virtue of it being both public and
of little substance. This is part of grand pose, and is theatrical or
‘‘marked by the self-display or exaggerated manners associated with
actors; affectedly dramatic’’4.
A third manifestation of research theatre is of particular relevance
given the present state of financial accounting research. This manifesta-
tion arises from the behaviour of a sizeable cohort of our colleagues
who appear to be intolerant and to have a tunnel-visioned view of
acceptable research activity. It is not too difficult to find colleagues who
regard only particular forms of enquiry as research because the modes
employed are (supposedly) scientific, whereas all other modes are
70 F. L. Clarke et al.

deemed by them not research, unscientific. We will return to this later. It

is sufficient here to note that such a stance is anathema to the notion
that the function of a University (and we might infer of its researchers)
is to expose false doctrines and profess the truth. On this point Dean
(1995, p. 81) has observed that the research efforts in accounting in
Australian universities ‘‘lack intellectual discipline, and, [because they
support] current accounting methods, ‘ tend to eschew the search for
truth’ ’’. Perhaps Cardinal Newman’s Idea of a University is too outmoded
for contemporary accounting academics. Perhaps they are too distracted
by the accountability demands of the educational bureaucracy, accredita-
tion panels, quality assurance auditors and by community pressures to
produce vocationally-proficient graduates full of the technology of the
moment. Newman’s ideals of open-mindedness, tolerance of the ideas
and methods of others, and of personal and academic humility, seem
desirable attributes to better encourage enquiry than many of the
Rambo-like tactics and blinkered mind-sets which seem to be in vogue
currently.
The sub-text presumably is that such research is scientific because the
matters pursued entail the collection of a large amount of data which
can be subjected to statistical analyses. Running regressions on large
data sets is a research mode which is de rigeur, and aggressively so, in
many accounting departments. It is so, perhaps, because this type of
research conforms to a ‘‘utilitarian calculus’’, epitomised by the fact that
the more quantitative the research ‘‘ the easier it is to fit the prescrip-
tions attached to [research] grant application forms’’ (McCalman, 1996,
p. 13). Strong preference for quantitatively-based research might be char-
acterised as unbridled covetousness. Quantitatively-based research is
viewed with favour because it bears some resemblance to the research
methods often found reported in the physical sciences. That seems to
create a security-blanket for those social scientists, such as accounting
researchers, who feel somewhat inferior to their colleagues in the physi-
cal sciences. This argument is consistent with the acidic observations of
Subotnik (1988). He referred to the view being commonplace in business
schools that ‘‘ truth’’ can only be found through application of empirical
methods, which he called the ‘‘Principle of Quantitative Unassailability’’.
He argued that the Principle of Quantitative Unassailability had ‘‘evolved
into an article of faith’’ in business schools and had helped transform
the business discipline into one ‘‘ that resembles physics, the quintessen-
tial academic subject’’, thereby helping business academics ‘‘ to unim-
peachably claim a place alongside their brethren in the academy’’ (Sub-
otnik, 1988, p. 98).
Much quantitatively-based research is good, by every criterion. Some
of it too, is repetitive and unoriginal. Often the only originality or
innovation is effected by a researcher modifying or otherwise manipulat-
ing standard statistical devices or data sets. Often substantial skill and
competence, knowledge and mathematical insight are brought to bear in
these studies. That clearly deserves recognition and reward. However, it
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 71

is questionable whether reputation as accounting researchers ought to

be built predominantly on the recognition of such skills alone.
Perhaps the underlying concern should lie more in respect of the
perceived motivation for many of the research projects in financial
accounting, rather than with the intrinsic nature of the projects them-
selves, the topics addressed or the methods employed. It is reasonable
in the present climate to suspect that a substantial volume of doctoral
research in accounting is undertaken for career purposes, rather than
driven by a burning desire to resolve a problem so that financial
accounting might better serve society. Much of the research undertaken
by doctoral students in accounting appears to reflect what Rosen (1990,
p. 337) described as the ‘‘market colonization of accounting research’’.
Too much research in accounting appears to have been directed by a
small, influential cadre of ‘‘gatekeepers and grandfathers’’ of accounting,
who, besotted by ‘‘ CRISP tapes, event studies, semi-strong efficiency,
residuals, betas and so on’’ Rosen (1990, p. 337) have been effective in
channelling their acolytes [higher degree students] to this type of re-
search. The circumstances are conducive to intimidation. Indeed it is no
surprise that doctoral supervisors who have come through the quantita-
tive cultural sausage-maker themselves would virtually compel their stu-
dents to do likewise, because more qualitative, ‘‘grounded’’ research,
and more reflective inquiry, is probably riskier (in career prospect terms)
and much more time-consuming for both students and doctoral supervi-
sors.
This third manifestation of research theatre arises, we submit, from
the hubris inherent in such intolerance. Fisher (1976, p. 83) in an analy-
sis of Demosthenes’ speech against Meidias in classical Athens, offered
an explanatory example of hubris. Demosthenes’ speech presented Mei-
dias as a person of ‘hubris’ᎏthat is, as ‘‘a pre-eminent member of a
class of rich and unscrupulous citizens... [who would use]... their wealth
and influence to exalt themselves and to humiliate and dishonour oth-
ers’’ (Fisher, 1976, p. 83). Fisher explains that hubris was ‘‘an offence
against honour or status...treating a person without the honour and
respect due... Typically in the courts it describes behaviour of arrogant
and brutal men who regarded other citizens as beneath them... And
were held by Democrats to be especially characteristic of the main
opponents of democracy, oligarchs and tyrants.’’ (pp. 42᎐43). In theatre,
characters who display hubris create delight amongst members of the
audience when they fall from grace. Hubris clouds the mind, so that,
like Narcissis, the tunnel-vision of research activity by those thus af-
flicted might merely reflect a deceptive self-image. In the research the-
atre, self-adulation for pursuing one research mode and ridicule of
others is the pervading characteristic. Research, requiring an open mind,
cannot then be well-served.

The Research Community

When referring to accounting research it is almost compulsory now to

72 F. L. Clarke et al.

drift into the cabbalistic language of the research theatre. It is especially

important to do this if one is to be taken seriously by what is eu-
phemistically labelled the research community. Membership in the ac-
counting research community is guarded jealously by its grandfathers,
gatekeepers and heroes. The ‘‘grandfathers’’ were its inventors and foun-
dation members. The ‘‘gatekeepers’’ are the sympathetic journal editors,
referees and selection committees 5. Evidence consistent with this image
of a ‘‘gatekeeper’’ is provided by Zeff (1996) and Lee (1997). Zeff (1996,
p. 163) draws upon his ‘‘survey of current editorial boards of 22 high
profile accounting journals’’ to query whether ‘‘a small number of
academics’’ dominate ‘‘peer research assessment in certain lines of topi-
cal and methodological enquiry’’ and reports that one academic serves
on the editorial staff of eight journals; that six are on the staff of five
journals and that he ‘‘knows of several accounting academics who claim
to have reviewed upwards of 30 manuscripts for research journals in
1995’’. Lee (1997), ominously, argues that the ‘‘gatekeepers’’ constitute
an elite which threatens to ‘‘colonize’’ (and potentially close) the
processes producing accounting knowledge. The ‘‘heroes’’ we refer to
are those younger role models who have had a strong impact, by virtue
of their ‘‘scholarly contributions’’, upon impressionable minds.
Entry to the accounting research community is difficult to obtain. The
ladder has been pulled-up by some already within the hallowed lofts.
Nonetheless, entry can be helped by supplication at ordained initiation
ceremonies, for example, by attendance at a doctoral consortium where
one is disciplined to accept the scholarly wisdom and exemplars of the
grandfathers and gatekeepers in attendance. Receipt of a competitive
research grant may push the entry door ajar, too, and perhaps quite
properly so, for it is indicative of peer acceptance. But one might expect
that research output 6 rather than research input would accord greater
rights to membership. Winning research grants might be likened to
receiving a part in a play. However, we must be vigilant not to assume,
even before the play opens, that accolades will follow. At the moment,
winning a research grant (or a role) appears to carry almost as much
weight as does achieving something with it. But then, whether the
resolution of problems is the object of the grantor is contestable. Possi-
bly the donation of grants, especially those from the Big 6 accounting
firms are more directed at creating the image of concern over problems
threatening the professionᎏ a form of theatre in itselfᎏ and even more
with keeping the production-line of academe well-oiled to ensure its
output of ready, trained up to the state-of-the-art, graduates. In this way
the grantors are regular season ticket holders, but rarely attend a
performance. Applicants for academic appointments make a big play of
the grants (the roles) they have received. Rarely, it seems, are they
challenged to offer explanations as to why little came from those
grants. Research which does emerge is often at an incredibly high cost.
The phrase ‘‘ the research community’’ is just as misleading in finan-
cial accounting research as it is in other areas. It implies a monolithic,
unitary intellectual village of like-minded persons living within a common
world-view. It ignores the reality of the extant competition and the war
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 73

between research sub-communities in financial accounting. There appears

to be a lack of communication in the literature between different groups
of researchers. One consequence appears to have been a proliferation of
journals, many of them niche journals. Zeff (1996, pp. 159, 161, 171)
reported a 92.5% increase between 1988 and 1996 in the number of
academic research journals in accounting, from 40 to 77. It is not too
farfetched to suggest that many new journals have emerged, at least
partly, because of a sort of ‘‘research capture’’ by those who denigrate
all but their own view of research. Theatrically, this is a manifestation
of only one type of play, or interpretation, being ‘‘legitimate’’. It is also
characteristic of the results of exclusion, by which the excluded ‘‘put on
their own play’’ or launch their own journal, in order to disseminate
their ideas, have peers test them, and enter in debate.
This proliferation of journals, a reviewer of this paper reminded us, is
not a bad thing, since (as the reviewer noted) ‘‘[m]any good plays are
produced ‘off-Broadway’’’, and with this we heartily agree. However, the
issue of relative power and prestige must also be considered. If
‘‘mainstream’’ journals in accounting and the schools of thought and
research (‘‘master narratives and scripts’’) they succour are the bastions
of power and privilege in financial accounting, then this ‘‘Broadway’’ of
accounting research will almost always be perceived to be the ‘‘centre’’,
and the new, ‘‘off-Broadway’’ journals, the ‘‘margin’’. And this may be
seen to have practical implications for what thinking affects public policy
in the accounting arena. The newer journals, no matter how good the
works included, might for the foreseeable future be regarded by the
mainstream as something akin to what Carlson (1996) calls ‘‘resistant
performance’’; it may be the performance and theatrical forum where
the ‘‘concern for exposing the operations of power and oppression in
society’’ (p. 168) is found, but it is still struggling to escape the margins.
Macintosh (1996, p. 2) invokes a maritime metaphor to portray the
breadth of the accounting research community as a ‘‘ teaming [sic]
waterfront’’, catering for epistemologies including [those in]

‘‘...psychology, cognition, social psychology, political theory, moral rea-

soning, critical social theory, ethics, fuzzy sets, chaos theory, culture,
history, institutional theory, hermeneutics, philosophy, feminist theory,
interpretive ethnography, deconstruction and even literary theory.’’

But whether a Scientific Positivist admiral would ever willingly allow a

fleet of quantitative gunships to dock at Macintosh’s idealised waterfront
Nirvana and take succour from the rich variety of accounting research
available for provisioning, seems unlikely. This is unfortunate, for the
lack of ship-side inbound and outbound receptivity and stevedoring may
ultimately turn Macintosh’s vibrant research waterfront into a stale, fetid
swamp.

Research-Speak

A special language has developed within the accounting research com-

74 F. L. Clarke et al.

munity. We call it research-speak. It is a private and specialised vocabu-

lary. Those who ignore it are exposed by its inventors as uninitiated
and unworthy of cult membership. By its use the ‘‘ true’’ researchers,
the true believers, are taken to reveal themselves as worthy of entry to
the research community, somewhat like the members of a secret soci-
ety. Adoption of research-speak has nothing to do with the likelihood
that the end product of a research project will be serviceable and
advance the discipline of accounting in any perceptible way. Nor has it
anything to do with the originality, depth and breadth of research
enquiry. Indeed, much of it appears to be a form of gibberish perpe-
trated by those hell-bent on mangling the English language. But it is an
important part of research theatre. If one seeks to join the cult, it would
be wise, it seems, to include in every paper, more or less as a
compulsory cliche,´ a catalogue of areas for further research by those
acolytes of the community who follow. Any budding researcher who
uses (or is it misuses?) the words ‘‘paradigm’’, ‘‘continuum’’, ‘‘methodol-
ogy’’, and ‘‘ taxonomy’’ or indulges in ghastly euphemisms and jargon
(what we formerly knew as a ‘‘questionnaire’’ is now a ‘‘survey instru-
ment’’), fails to use (or is it operationalise?) nouns as verbs, fails to
‘‘ workshop’’ the research, will be disadvantaged seriously. Whilst re-
search-speak may bond like-minded members of the research commu-
nity, it also serves to segregate cells of members with different research
foci and traditionsᎏ for research speak has many dialects. Consider the
dialects evidenced in the journals serving the cell Tractarians. Paradoxi-
cally, research-speak as much hinders communication between re-
searchers as facilitates it. Thus, contrary to the contrived image of
harmony between members of the research community, acolytes of the
different cells rarely ‘‘ talk’’ to each otherᎏ neither mentors nor col-
laborators be!
All this must be curious to lay observers, especially those who may
have gleaned an understanding of research from (say) the Australian
Research Council. Aitkin’s (1987) explanation of research in his The Case
for Research doesn’t launch into that kind of rhetoric. Aitkin’s discourse
(p. 3) leads him to the inevitable conclusion that research is a
multi-faceted activity:

‘‘ Pure basic research focusing on ‘‘ why are things the way they are?’’;
Strategic basic research which is a necessary means to a higher order;
and Applied research leading ‘‘purposefully to the solution of specific
practical problems’’.

Aitkin observes that one particular facet is not necessarily superior to

another, for ‘‘ the central point is that all these kinds of research are
necessary’’. One particular method (positive, say) of pursuing research, is
no better than another, though one method (normative, say) might be
employed more appropriately in a particular setting than in another. Of
course, poorly-done research of every variety is to be resisted at all
costs. In their proper context, the findings of one genre or variety of
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 75

research may well be superior to those of another. It is a matter of

whether the research method is appropriate to the enquiry, whether the
method has been applied competently and the findings properly es-
tablished. There is no basis for researchers of one genre to regard
themselves as superior beings to those pursuing other modes or styles
of research. Nor are there grounds for researchers of any one genre or
employing any particular method to adopt sanctimonious poses or bask
in hubris. Okcabol and Tinker (1990) make this point quite clear in
relation to what has come to be known as ‘‘Positive Accounting Theory’’.
One explanation for the hubris regarding Australian accounting re-
search possibly lies in the growing enthusiasm by Australian accounting
schools to mimic the North American doctoral programme format.

Doctoral Research in Financial Accounting

In the conventional British notion of doctoral work, the objective is for

the candidate to conduct research which produces original results and
advances the state of knowledge. In the British schema, doctoral re-
search has an important social dimension independent of the candidate’s
aspirations. In contrast, the focus of doctoral work of the North Ameri-
can variety is to provide evidence of the candidate’s research capacity,
demonstrated skill in particular methods, and often the ability to amass,
collate and classify data.
For proponents of the British doctoral system, the highly structured
North American coursework-and-minor-thesis Ph.D programmes appear
considerably more utilitarian, even banausic. The North American con-
ception of a Ph.D programme evokes the notion of a mechanical process
providing a common experience to all enrolled candidates. Standard
compartmentalised curricula and standardised supervisory regimes are
the means by which the mechanical, rote process is reinforced7. It is as
if scholarship is learned, rather than acquired. In the physical sciences
this often occurs naturally under the British system too, especially where
candidates replicate a standard experiment on, say, a different chemical
compound or physical structure. In the social sciences the diversity in
the nature and the settings of many of the problems lead to there
being no compelling scholarly reason for standardising either research
problems or research methods.
Bloom (1987, p. 339) captured the structure of the American ‘‘doctoral
trap’’ and placed it squarely in the context of the push in general
education for ‘‘ jack-of-all-trades’’ technology and the obsession in higher
education for the ‘‘professional or the highly technical’’, explaining fur-
ther that:

‘‘ Cornell’s six-year Ph.D programme was richly supported by the Ford

Foundation... directed specifically to high school students who had al-
ready made a firm career choice and was intended to rush them through
to start those careers.’’
76 F. L. Clarke et al.

Australia too appears to have developed a similar obsession. Many

Australian universities now offer tantalisingly oxymoronic ‘‘professional
doctorates’’ in education (EdDs) as a ‘‘...sort of high-level qualification
which is more embedded in the practice of the profession’’ (Cox, cited
by Coorey, 1996, p. 13). No doubt those successful in attaining such
degrees are educationally enriched in many ways. But one suspects their
focus has been to learn research or other skills, as an end in them-
selves, rather than the means by which graduates might contribute to
the extension of knowledge.
The issue of ‘‘professional doctorates’’ is important to accounting
academics because accounting, whether we like it or not, is a profes-
sion. Whilst some may argue therefore that ‘‘professional doctorates’’
are appropriate in accounting, that seems illegitimate. A Ph.D is a
Doctorate in Philosophy, not in accounting. The important issue is that
all doctoral programs, irrespective of discipline, should strongly nurture
philosophical thought. One suspects that in ‘‘professional doctorate’’ pro-
grams, philosphical thought is defined very narrowly, in many cases
ignored completely, and is supplanted by curricula designed to deepen
and broaden technical knowledge.
Doctoral degree work in accounting in Australia appears to be driven
by many who wish to turn out a common, standard type of product
somewhat akin to that to which Bloom alludes. There is talk of doctoral
schools and even suggestions that doctoral work should be centralized
or quarantined in specific institutions. What this approach lacks, and
what it doesn’t seem to encourage, is the missionary-like zeal of some-
one who perceives a problem or a gap in knowledge and finds it so
personally compelling as to leave no choice but to pursue it, even if
nobody else cares. The driving force is neither market nor career pres-
sures but personal fascination with the problem, personal desire to
resolve it, and the personal belief that its resolution will improve the
world.
A casual glance at Australian accounting Ph.D dissertation topics sug-
gests we are advancing down the North American track. The preponder-
ance of theses recently completed, or currently in progress, appear to be
studies of two major types. First, event studies of securities market price
movements as a supposed response to accounting (or some other)
stimuli, or second, studies of accountants’ accounting policy choices
within the positive agency/ contracting framework. A strong reason com-
pelling such topic choice appears to be that senior influential figures
within our ranks have ordained, either explicitly or implicitly, that such
is good researchᎏ that it is scientific. For prospective Ph.Ds such an
institutionalised imprimatur makes it safe research.

An Onset of Cultural Illiteracy

A further plausible explanation of why accounting research has taken its

present course may be the onset of what Hirsch (1987) dubbed cultural
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 77

illiteracy. This arises from the absence of a background knowledge of

the many facets of secular endeavour which are the very essence of
humanity. According to Horne (1994, p. 2), one of Australia’s most ac-
knowledged social commentators, cultural illiteracy can be regarded as
the absence of a knowledge of the social, cultural, political, economic,
environmental and scientific perspectives from which one can look at
existence. Yet cultural illiteracy is nurtured by many accounting curricula.
In Australia some accounting degrees appear clearly and inexcusably
overprescribed by degree rules and professional entry requirements com-
pelling study of large slabs of economics, quantitative methods and
other quite substantial and allegedly ‘‘core’’ subject matter. In this re-
spect the Australian experience mirrors the North American. There is
little that many Heads of Australian accounting departments can do
about this to broaden and extend curricula, even if they wanted to. On
the one hand, Heads are confronted with a Federal educational bureau-
cracy (which insists on a three year degree) and on the other, with the
realities of intra-faculty politics and the uncompromising attitudes of
those numerically superior discipline-based tribal factions who would
lose student load (and hence funding and staff positions) if degree
structures were to be liberalised at their expense. The common weal
does not prevail. The best interests of students and community tend to
be given short shrift. Educational virtues are not permitted to get in the
way. University managers, pre-occupied with more pressing matters, opt
to remain passive and ‘‘leave the matter to the Faculty to decide’’. At
the Faculty level it degenerates into a battle for resources. So, for
entirely self-serving reasons, while internecine degree structure debate
(resource warfare) rages interminably between discipline-based intra-fa-
culty tribes, degrees continue to be loaded up, for improper yet under-
standable motives, with subject matter which buttresses the employment
security prospects of academic staff. Regard for the best interests of
students and the general community is eschewed. Such selfishness
thwarts our capacity to liberalise accounting degrees and thereby to help
redress cultural illiteracy. Paradoxically, many of those who compel stu-
dents to take their subjects are those who espouse a ‘‘let the market
decide’’ philosophy.
The problem of cultural illiteracy is particularly acute in Australian
universities. Etherington (1996, pp. 13᎐14, emphasis added) observed this
in his presidential address to the Australian Historical Association:

‘‘... students arrive at the antechambers of higher education with proven

competitive virtues but a limited knowledge of the world. Most of them
proceed to vocationally oriented courses. The lamentable outcome is that
year after year we graduate highly intelligent doctors... [and] accoun-
tants... who know no more about history, the humanities and critical
thinking than can be gleaned from newspapers and TV. Most graduates
of most faculties emerge with an education that has depth but no
breadth... Australia has a serious problem of cultural literacy’’.

The problem Etherington refers to is not a uniquely Australian one. It

78 F. L. Clarke et al.

exists elsewhere as well. In the USA, for example, it flowers despite the
liberal arts emphasis many American universities give to the first year
of their four year degree program. The assessments of Subotnik (1988)
and Neimark (1996) of education in American business schools give
reasonable grounds for belief that the problem of cultural illiteracy is
pervasive in the USA too. Neimark (1996, pp. 6᎐7), for example, charac-
terises liberal arts study in American undergraduate business degrees as
offered essentially as ‘‘ the most basic and introductory of courses’’,
‘‘given in mega-sized classes’’, intended merely to ‘‘make up for the
deficiencies of the students’ prior education’’ and retained in some
schools ‘‘as an effete but necessary source for acquiring a veneer of
social breeding’’. Indeed, many non-American academics who have spent
study leave at American universities have been struck, for example, by
the egocentricity of many American students [and their professors] and
by the poor knowledge they have of things non-American. The situation
described by Etherington and Neimark appears to be little different in
Canadian universities too. Emberly (1996, p. 276) concluded that this was
the outcome of a ‘‘ jockeying for power’’ in which ‘‘ the university and
the curriculum are becoming nothing more than the sum total of the
agendas of interest groups... Students, with their complex needs and
longings, are falling through the cracks.’’ All that filters into attitudes
relating to research.
Research students too often have an illiberal educational preparation
and are equipped to do little other than routine statistical manipulation
of data. We are thus, as Chua (1996, pp. 130᎐131) observes, raising
‘‘ future accounting academics and practitioners solely on a diet of the
empirical/ calculative tradition’’ and leaving aspiring accounting academics
in little doubt that they will belong to a ‘‘lower class of academic
labour’’ if they are not ‘‘ well versed with at least some of the subtleties
of mathematics and statistics’’.
Cultural illiteracy encourages replication and stifles the desire to push
beyond existing boundaries of knowledge. It encourages compliance with
current fads and scorns deviation from them. This is unfortunate, for
discovery and innovation are enhanced by deviate behaviour and by
lateral thinkingᎏ recourse to uncommonsense. To have a capacity to
think on several different planes simultaneously one must be able to
draw upon an exposure to a wide range of fields of knowledge. One
must possess a cultural literacy, and not be constrained by the narrow
confines of a conventional accounting or business curriculum. Cultural
literacy emerges from association with the myriad ideas and disciplines
which mould the human personality and mindᎏ not just with the arts,
but with history, religion, science, literature and music. Innovation and
discovery is made by the prepared mind (Kohn, 1989).
Narrow education and cultural illiteracy of the type referred to is
common in the preparation of budding accounting researchers. Such
preparation militates against a preparedness to see the unusual and
against drawing connections between matters which may at first appear
unrelated. They act against the broaching or severing of disciplinary
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 79

boundaries and make it difficult to benefit from drawing upon analogies.

It is understandable therefore that many of our colleagues engage so
enthusiastically in the statistical manipulation of data collected from
questionnaires or from share market price files ᎏ data which they have
not collected themselves. An uncharitable soul might observe that per-
haps cultural illiteracy ensures that this is about all many of them are
capable of mastering!

Research Motivation

Education should serve to improve society, to improve the quality of

life. It should seek to create a state of knowledge by which individuals
might be better informed, be more capable of making reasoned deci-
sions, and better serve society through effective use of their skills. In
this context, research is intended to make the world a better place. Here
we address what ought to motivate research, rather than address the
matter of what research ought to be undertaken.
What motivates doctoral research? Clearly, doctoral research is a privi-
leged educational opportunity, available only to a few. Accordingly, a
strong moral case can be made that a candidate’s research should
necessarily have potential to benefit society. With respect to financial
accounting, that means doctoral research might be directed properly
towards a better understanding of what goes on in accounting, how
well accounting products satisfy the perceived needs of those who use
accounting data, into exploring ways in which accounting data might be
made more serviceable, and to unmasking incidents of intentional and
also unintentional abuse of accounting information, processes and sys-
tems. This basket of objectives conjures an image of the doctoral
candidate in accounting as one who has a prepared mind, who is a
kind of missionaryᎏ with a missionary-like zeal to improve the state of
things. With that focus, selection of a topic from a supervisor’s cata-
logue is probably an inappropriate mechanism by which to proceed. If a
candidate is not stirred-up enough over a particular issue, then candida-
ture should not proceed. Nor should doctoral candidates be unpaid
research assistants or obsequious, deferential, genuflecting acolytes
whose principal purpose is to facilitate further pursuit of their supervi-
sors’ research interests.
Issues surrounding the nature, purpose and motivation for doctoral
research are the subject of considerable debate. Terrell (1996, p. 2) has
drawn attention to two propositions. First, that ‘‘it ultimately has to be
accepted that what a Ph.D is all about is research training’’ [emphasis
added]; and second, that ‘‘...those who successfully attain a Ph.D degree
demonstrate their ability to make a substantial contribution to progress-
ing knowledge in the real world of scientific and intellectual inquiry’’.
These propositions deserve closer scrutiny. Through exposure to the
proprieties and improprieties of research endeavour, research training is
clearly an important aspect of Ph.D candidature. However, the prime
80 F. L. Clarke et al.

objective of doctoral research, we submit, is that it should benefit

society. A person trained in research may be a proficient exponent of the
processes of research, but for whatever reason, perhaps cultural illiteracy,
that person may be incapable of making a ‘‘substantial contribution to
progressing knowledge’’. Thus, Terrell’s first proposition is a necessary
but not sufficient condition for achievement of the second. This issue is
particularly relevant in accounting. A large proportion of ‘‘research-
trained’’ Ph.D graduates do not complete doctoral work which makes
any substantial contribution to resolving vexing issues in accounting. We
return to this later.
In the British system the role of the supervisor can be significantly
different from that in North America. In the British system, one may
question whether the supervisor can be expected to do much more than
act as a willing-ear, to be a devil’s advocate, to offer encouragement
and to be an avid proof-reader. For if doctoral research work is to be
original, it has to be in relatively unchartered areas. By dint of the
process, the candidate is (or is becoming) the expert, knows more about
the matter than the supervisor and everyone else. The use of standard-
ized programmes of coursework and the use of replicatory thesis topics
under the North American system ensure just the opposite. Supervisors
of North American doctoral theses are the experts, generally know more
than the candidates and thus guide many of them through the very
same experience they had themselves. They promote and perpetuate a
process more likely to produce clones (and thus to follow an existing
script) than idiosyncratic thinkers prepared to be unreasonable and to
think the unthinkable
Being unreasonable and thinking the unthinkableᎏ that is, rejecting the
received master narrative script that serves as a template for and per-
haps underlies (in an unnoticed way) existing (research) scriptsᎏ is, we
submit, the hallmark of a researcher. Such (script) rejection goes to the
heart of an academic’s role, and seems all-too-rare in accounting and
allied disciplines. For example, Brown (1997), in a symposium arranged
to critically evaluate the book When Corporations Rule the World by
Korten (1995), concludes (not surprisingly) that ‘‘pro-corporate ideology...
does indeed underpin management studies... [in spite of the fact that
researchers] are the supposed critics of corporate behavior.’’
What is it that motivates this theatre? There appear to be at least
four major motivational objectives. First, some theatre is allegedly solely
to entertain (often the actors as much, or even more so, than the
audience). A high school performance admirably satisfies that end. In-
deed, no more is expected of it. Second, other theatre is motivated by
a propaganda element; or third, by an appeal to base instinct. A fourth
category is the intention to enlighten, inform, prod thought and spur
action. This is the role to be played out by the research actor with a
missionᎏ it is analagous to being touched and moved by a truly profes-
sional performance of those who ‘‘live’’ their parts. Perhaps the first two
categories are more responsible for motivating the accounting research
theatre than the latter two. Unquestionably, many of the principal actors
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 81

in the accounting research theatre entertain and critique themselves and

strongly promote their paradigm. Of course, some financial accounting
research may arguably be motivated by exploiting the base instinct of
‘‘survival’’ in the harsh academic jungle. But if the fourth category is to
have a chance, we must go beyond existing scripts.

Financial Accounting Research

Researchers into financial accounting enjoy two advantages. First, virtu-

ally none of the problems and issues addressed by researchers over the
past 70 years has been resolved to an identifiable level of consensus
(for example, regarding the form and content of published financial
statements at either the Conceptual Framework or Accounting Standards
level). Second, the modern condemnation of normative research (i.e.
what ought we be doing?) and the concentration on so-called positive
research (why do we do what we do?) has almost guaranteed that for
the past 20 years, research has been primarily into the doings of
accountants and auditors, and not into accounting per se. This point is
made forcibly in Sterling (1990). Similarly, Dean (1995, p. 82) rails at the
obsession of Australian accounting researchers finding ‘‘rationales for the
current practices already discredited by virtue of their part in corporate
anomaliesᎏ unexpected corporate collapses, asset-stripping in take-overs
and other valuation ploys’’.
Most of the basic issues in financial accounting remain unresolved.
The eminence grise of accounting academe in Australia, Chambers (1994,
pp. 2᎐3), quite rightly argues that ‘‘ you will look in vain for singular
and clear concepts of income, wealth, capital, assets, liabilities, financial
position, that tally with phenomena of commercial intercourse’’ and
muses ‘‘have you ever paused to wonder how long it is since you saw
a basic idea in accounting put under critical examination?’’ Chambers
chastises accounting researchers for not ‘‘ turning their minds to the
sources of recurrent embarrassment of the practising [accounting] profes-
sion’’ and for retreating ‘‘behind chi-squares, Likert scales and statistical
magic on data which cannot legitimately be treated statistically, since
every item and every aggregate drawn from financial statements is a
product of invalid, heterogeneous aggregation and idiosyncratic opinion’’
(p. 4). In a review of over 700 publications, Mattessich (1996, pp. 4, 42)
concluded that ‘‘progress in academic accounting research since the end
of World War II has, despite the numerous publications, been moderate...
[and that]... accounting is in a crisis’’. The ‘‘conceptual framework,’’
exercises in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United
States have failed (Chambers, 1996). There is general dissatisfaction with
the accounting standard-setting mechanisms in many countries. Com-
plaint and criticism of creative accounting abound. Auditors are paranoid
in their determination to limit their liability for negligence. Criticism,
indecision and confusion over specific accounting techniques used by
failed companies is widespread. Conflicting perceptions abound of differ-
82 F. L. Clarke et al.

ences that ought to exist in the accounting and reporting practices of

public sector enterprises, private sector enterprises, profit and
not-for-profit enterprises. Most of those matters are about accounting,
not about accountants. They can be sidetracked and we can address the
cultures of the accountants who face those challenges and who make
policy choices. But if Aitkin (1987) is to be taken seriously, there is no
good reason to shy away from enquiring into ‘‘how accounting is’’, how
it might be, and how it ought to be changed. As it is, the decades of
neglect brought on by the accounting research theatre and the cultural
illiteracy generated by conventional curricula compels us not to do so.
Indeed, there is strong reason to revive interest in the development of
ideas.
We do not wish to ridicule or criticize any mode of accounting
research. Our cry is for greater tolerance of the ideas and the research
methods of others. Tolerance of variety of method should be an abso-
lute virtue in any academic community. Of course, tolerance of
poorly-discharged method or of harangues or other appeals to base
instincts masquerading as research, should be resisted with vigour. Per-
haps accounting scholars have been unduly tolerant in allowing a small
group of accounting academics who eschew cultural literacy, and who
consequentially give a dubious imprimatur to narrowly focused research
agendas and styles, to hijack editorial boards. This has resulted in the
exclusion, from many prestigious journals, of ‘‘under-theorised’’ and ‘‘un-
der-mathematised’’ articles pursuing culturally literate themes drawing
upon philosophy, sociology, history, literature and organization theory.
So perhaps the fatal flaw of hubris has resulted in the exclusion from
the literature of some essential ‘‘culturally literate’’ themes.

Scientific and Unscientific: Ideas and Facts

The notion that normative research is less scientific than positive re-
search does little justice to a rich tradition in scienceᎏ a tradition whose
directing dictum is that ideas are followed by facts. Bacon’s novum or-
ganum was not intended to create the present pursuit of facts, rather
than of ideas. Essentially it was a crafty device to effect the breakaway
from the ethnocentric barriers of ecclesiastical authority and Aristotelian
philosophy. In this regard, Roszak (1986, pp. 103᎐107) noted that:

‘‘The very success of the (data crunching variety of) empiricists, has
helped to embed a certain fiercely reductionist conception of knowledge...
one that drastically undervalues the role of imagination in the creation
of ideas, and of ideas in the creation of knowledge, even in the
sciences.... Which is the more ‘‘real’’, things or the ideas we have of
things?... empiricists were right to believe that facts and ideas are
significantly connected, but they inverted the relationship. Ideas create
information... fact grows from an idea... In the long run, no ideas, no
information.’’
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 83

The point is that the development of ideas is very much the exercise in
normative research.
Perhaps many accounting researchers like developing ideas but are
reluctant to do so for fear of being labelled unscientific. Perhaps their
fear is that they are being unscientific by allowing their preconditioning
and their predilections to influence them. Perhaps they fear that to rake
over old manuscripts or to search through the early literature on an
issue, on an idea or set of connected ideas, is an activity too embar-
rassing to admit to. Perhaps they view the process of clarifying their
own thoughts, of developing their own propositions or looking for sup-
port for them, as unscientific. Instead, they appear to seek Divine salva-
tion, exorcism of any trace of all non-scientific behaviour by collecting
masses of numerically coded data, and by running those data through a
standard diagnostic statistical package. Certainly, if they subscribe to
Descarte’s dream of mathematicizing the world they should shy away
from research methods entailing archival empiricism. They should avoid
the methods of the thinkers, the generators of ideas. If they haven’t the
cultural literacy to cope with generating ideas, they would seem to be
well justified in abandoning research methods employed by so many
great philosophers, historians, lawyers, linguists and economists, and try
something else.
Chua (1996) enters conjecture on the reasons for the appeal of quanti-
tatively-based ‘‘scientific’’ research in accounting. Chua poses the ques-
tion ‘‘ Why do many accounting educators and researchers continue to
model their activities and ideals on the natural sciences and thereby
preserve the dominance of the empirical/ calculative tradition?’’ and con-
cludes that the answer is attributable to three factors: ‘‘(i) the power of
inscriptions, (ii) contradictions in postmodernity, and (iii) the perceived
‘success’ of allied professionals’’ (pp. 129, 132). Perhaps the untidiness of
a postmodern world stimulates a need for order among many account-
ing educators and researchers. Quantitatively-based ‘‘scientific’’ research
offers a seemingly-hard ‘‘reality’’ that one can cling to. Kvale (1996,
p. 239) describes this contrast between modernist and postmodernist
conceptions in connection with the research criterion of ‘‘ validity’’ as
follows:

‘‘The belief in an objective world has been the basis of a modernist

understanding of truth and validity. In a positivist philosophy, knowledge
became a reflection of reality: there is only one correct view of this
independent external world, and there is ideally a one-to-one correspon-
dence between elements in the real world and our knowledge of this
world. In a postmodern era, the foundations of true and valid knowledge
in a medieval absolute God or a modern objective reality have dis-
solved. The conception of knowledge as a mirror of reality is replaced
by knowledge as a social construction of reality. Truth is constituted
through a dialogue; valid knowledge claims emerge as conflicting inter-
pretations and action possibilities are discussed and negotiated among
members of a community.’’
84 F. L. Clarke et al.

So, perhaps the persistent dominance of quantitatively-based ‘‘scientific’’

approaches to accounting research is partly based in researchers’ psy-
chological needs for stability and order? At issue is whether we write
the play need.

Tolerance of Normative Research

The development of ideas, the analysis of ideas, enquiry into the history
of ideas, are not soft options to be pursued by lesser mortals. They are
not for the faint-hearted. They do not have safe-harbours. They are not
driven by axioms to produce mechanical and clear-cut answers. They
are not the medium by which the definitive emerges. They do not
generate a forum in which to knock down one’s critics by recourse to
the magic value of a statistic. They do not invoke the magical word
‘‘significance’’ before the gods of Statistics; nor do they have standard
statistical packages to employ to hunt for p values (Salsburg, 1985,
p. 220). In exercising a capacity to develop ideas and sustain proposi-
tions, logic is at the service of thought, whereas in the verification of
numbers or in the interpretation of a statistic, to the contrary, thought
is the servant of logic.
The sensitivity which accounting academics have about research meth-
ods is not justified by the real nature of the traditional methods of
research employed in the physical sciences. Rather it appears to be
influenced more by the external image of physical science and its
methods, an image which physical scientists work hard to maintain.
They do so largely through the illusion of objectivity purposely injected
into the structure of the traditional scientific paper, which Broad and
Wade (1982, p. 128) describe as:

‘‘... stylized as a sonnet: if it fails to obey rigid rules of composition, it

simply will not be published... the experiment (must) be reported as if
every aspect of the procedure had been performed according to the
philosopher’s prescription... totally impersonal... to give the appearance of
objectivity.’’

The same illusion Broad and Wade observe in scientific textbooks,

where ‘‘...all the false leads, fallible theories, and failed experiments
which form so great a part of scientific endeavour are resolutely ig-
nored’’.
These observations suggest that the image conjured up by reported
research in the physical sciences is a grande charade, unworthy of being
copied by accounting academics hoping to gain respect by appearing to
have followed what purportedly is scientific method. Thus, any researcher
who tailors research method to ape what is perceived to be science,
risks being deluded. For it is well established that in science anything
goes, including a mixture of subterfuge, rhetoric and propaganda (Broad
& Wade, 1982, p. 133). A similar message courses through Medawar’s
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 85

(1963) ‘‘Is the Scientific Paper a Fraud?’’. It is a moot point whether the
literary framework of a scientific paper is a fiction designed to perpetu-
ate a myth. But it is not that Medawar claims the scientific advances
reported therein were fraudulent statements. His point was that the way
in which their discovery was reported gave an entirely false impression
of the way in which research had proceeded.
Virtually every time one reads of scientific endeavour it becomes clear
that many accounting researchers’ views of scientific method are mud-
dled. Goldberg’s (1988) Anatomy of a Scientific Discovery is good reading
in that regard. He details the rough-and-ready methods by which the
discovery of a human opiate (an endorphin) proceeded. He tells, for
example, how John Hughes bribed Aberdeen slaughter-house workers to
let him have pigs’ heads to take back to Aberdeen’s Marshall College in
the wire-basket on his bicycle. There he extracted the pigs’ brains and
tried myriad means to extract an endorphin-like chemical which he
thought, which he had a gut-feeling, existed. He was correct, but it took
a lot of guesswork, and false leads, before it was isolated. The research
certainly did not proceed in the manner depicted commonly in contem-
porary write-ups of science.

Accident

Accident is not an unusual event in the history of discovery. Often,

discoveries have been made when the research focus was on something
altogether different. Swan’s accidental invention of the made-made fibre,
rayon, whilst researching the means for making a lasting carbon fila-
ment for incandescent lamps is a typical example (Mason, 1981). An-
other fascinating story is the search for Saint Peter’s bones under the
Basilica di St. Pietro (Walsh, 1983). By deciphering the scratchings on
the graffiti wall, the mystery of the location of the Saint’s remains was
pursued by informed trial and error. Whether we accept the official
outcome of that research is not the issue; its findings have been given
scientific recognition. What is important is how archaeologists combined
technology with intuition to work towards a solution. Their research led
them up dead-ends, led them at one stage to jump to the conclusion
that the bones of a mouse were those of a Saint, and led them to
abandon theories after they had been falsified. The researchers were not
inhibited in pursuing informed hunches. That is what Medawar was
referring to in distinguishing between how science is presented as
having proceeded, the image of science, and how it actually occurred.
The critical point to appreciate is that there isn’t any one scientific
method or one acceptable template to guide research. Further, it is
important to remember that ideas precede facts! What really counts is
not what you think you know, but ‘‘Have you asked any good questions
today?’’ (Penzias, 1983). As Feyerabend (1975) noted, the distinction
drawn between science and other patterns of thought is an artificial
one, created by scientists to set themselves apart from their fellow
86 F. L. Clarke et al.

citizens. That seems an apt description of some attitudes and motives

driving the current push in financial accounting research.

Imagery and Reality

The current obsession with the ‘‘sociology of accounting’’ (Whittington,

1987) and researching the daily habits of accountants, does not seem to
have improved one iota the serviceability of accounting data for assess-
ing the wealth and progress of firms. Despite the imagery entertained to
promote the aura of profundity, no legitimate grounds exist for the
denigration of research which entails archival searches, the analysis of
words and phrases recurring throughout a literature, the winkling-out of
the essence of notions injected into the literature, or the identifying,
collating, classifying and analyzing of common ideas and themes over
time. Such activities ought not be rejected because they are perceived
to be unscientific. They are no more unscientific than many of the
‘‘[alleged] real’’ research methods of the physical sciences. A unique
scientific ‘‘reality’’ of the latter methods is an illusion.
After decades of neglect, financial accounting and consequently audit-
ing are almost virgin territories for researchers with a commitment to
improving the serviceability of accounting data and the reporting of
them. Much of what needs to be done can best be pursued by employ-
ing methods of enquiry most conducive to the development of ideas.
For example, the work of Mattessich (1992, 1995) on contingently nor-
mative accounting theory shows considerable promise. Findings arising
from statistical analysis of amassed data are no more likely to lead to
seminal improvements in the serviceability of accounting data. Non-stat-
istically based research appears to have no less to offer. Clearly, all well
conducted research has a contribution to make. Chua (1996, p. 132)
chillingly observes the impact of the current state of play:

‘‘... the modern world of ‘ top quality’ accounting research, and hence
education, is one in which normative research is nearly extinct... qualita-
tive ethnographies are rare, philosophical ruminations emerge infre-
quently, history is ‘under-represented’ and values remain a private matter
of individual choice.’’

The problem for many young impressionable researchers is the clear

message from their scholarly heroes that flirtation with normative re-
search might be a dangerous career move. It might not attract the
approbation of the research theatre’s grandfathers and gatekeepers and
may vitiate any salary-loading. Why? Solely because it is perceived
naively by some to be unscientific and unconducive to research-speak.
The annoying paradox, however, is that it seems as likely to improve
the state-of-play in accounting as the imposed paradigms of the research
theatre.
Serious scholars in accounting should not be deterred from pursuing
 Theatre and intolerance in financial accounting research 87

unfashionable modes of research. The rhetoric of the science-seekers

should be acknowledged and accepted tolerantly. Nonetheless, as an
academic community we ought to accept that much of what passes for
research in accounting is performed with a façade of sophistication, in
ritualised fashion, to a prescribed script, before a make-believe backdrop.
What many academic accountants are engaged in is the process of the
accounting research theatre.

Notes
1. In his Ecstasy of St. Teresa in the Church of St. Maria della Vittoria, Rome.
2. ‘‘I’m a researcher, not a teacher’’ evokes images of other repeated incantations, such
as the thrice-repeated ‘‘double, double toil and trouble/ fire burn and cauldron bubble’’
of the three witches in Act 4, Scene 1 of Macbeth. The use of incantation is a
theatrical device of long standing. The mere repetition of a sonorific phrase appears to
serve a rhetorical end.
3. Boyer (1992, p. 89) identified a ‘‘new paradigm of scholarship with four interlocking
parts’’. In doing so, he classified ‘‘ teaching’’ as a form of scholarship separate from
three forms of research scholarship. Thus, although Boyer appears to elevate ‘‘ teach-
ing’’ to the level of scholarship, his classification scheme still perpetuates the apparent
‘‘ghettoization’’ of teaching.
4. The Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin Ltd, Markham,
Ontario, 1980, p. 1334.
5. We acknowledge that we write from a privileged position too. We accept that changes
in present structures and exemplars are required.
6. By research ‘‘output’’ we do not necessarily mean publication.
7. A reviewer of this paper observed that ‘‘[a]n appropriate theatre (or TV) analogy here
might be that North American doctoral programs are like daytime talk shows or soap
operas; they all have the same basic theme and none advance the arts’’.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank Tony Tinker, Graeme Dean and three anonymous reviewers
for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. The usual disclaimer
applies.

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