Is Objectivity Overemphasized in Accounting Research?
My guess is that most doctoral students in accounting are still being taught the same history I have been: In the beginning, accounting research was shapeless and without form. Wait, I meant normative and qualitative. Then, with the publication of Ball and Brown’s 1968 paper, the literature has taken a sharp turn toward positivism (drawing conclusions only on what is, not on what should be), and almost entirely based on formal economic modeling, experimental studies or econometric studies. Is this focus on positivist quantitative research too narrow to provide useful guidance to standard setters? Debates now gaining traction in economics — and in particular, observers and academics blaming academic economists for the financial crisis — suggest this is a question worth exploring. Accountants have certainly complained about the narrowing of the research literature, and given some explanations for why. For example, consider Hopwood’s address to the AAA (republished in the October 2007 Acc
