Scientific Method of Inquiry (not really used)

Combines deductive and inductive reasoning

Steps:
 Identify and state problem
 2. state hypothesis to be tested
 3. collect data
 4. analyze and evaluate data the hypotheses
 5. draw tentative conclusions
 Researcher will move back & forth between these steps
Limitations
 The influence of people and the economic environment make it impossible to hold the
variables constant

Ethical Approach

Emphasizes the concepts of:

 Truth
 Justice and
 Fairness

Criticized:
 Fair to whom (investors, accountants, the third party, auditors?)
 For what purposes
 Under what circumstances
 Linked to Critical Perspective research

Behavioral Accounting Research (looking at behavior, attitude of accounting individuals)

Accounting –a practice whose consequences are mediated by the human and social contexts in
which it operates and the ways it intersects with other organizational and social phenomena

Systemic observation of people

Not only economic functioning of accounting is of interest –but also the behavioral aspects

Questions arise about how is accounting information actually used and how it sometimes
seems to generate seemingly undesirable or often unanticipated consequences.

Concern: how the preparers and users react to information