Parker, L., D 2012 \"Qualitative management accounting research: Assessing deliv
ID: 2566180 • Letter: P
Question
Parker, L., D 2012 "Qualitative management accounting research: Assessing deliverables and relevance", states that "the quantitative tradition has naturally prioritised what can be counted and measured, risking a failure to recognise that what can be counted is not always important, and what is important cannot always be counted". Required a) In what areas of management accounting does this statement reflect as true? What is the risk to organisations if management accounting only focuses on what can be counted and measured? (8 marks) Outline how qualitative management accounting research could be considered the more appropriate research methodology to be applied by practicing management accountants. b) (7 marks)Explanation / Answer
a. Quantitative research was developed to support and justify different accounting methods or practices in the real world. Then the results of empirical research is a statement or proposition that will be a positive accounting theory. Quantitative research is seen to have many weaknesses, among of them is that quantitative research does not provide a means to improve accounting practices. And even, Deegan gave an opinion that the quantitative accounting research has been separated from accounting practices.Another disadvantage of quantitative research is that it is not a value-free research. This was confirmed by quantitative researchers that they did not want to impose their views on others but rather to provide information about the expected implications of certain actions and allow people to decide for themselves what they should do. The weaknesses of this quantitative studies then generates a qualitative study that offers a way to overcome the weaknesses of quantitative researches.
Unlike quantitative research, qualitative research gives insight into the details of an accounting practice that is not found in the literature. Parker states that qualitative research gives more emphasis on understanding and critique of the process and provide insight into something unique and different. The main objective of qualitative research is to get closer to the existing reality. Qualitative research is research conducted in specific settings that exist in real life (natural) in order to investigate and understand the phenomena: what happened, why it happened and how it happened. So, qualitative research is based on the concept of going exploring involving in-depth and case-oriented study on a number of cases or a single case.
There are several reasons cited by Chariri why qualitative research needs to be done. First, the field of study is not the discipline that "value free". That is, business activities and management is highly dependent on the values, norms, cultures, and certain behaviors happens in a business environment. If the environment is different, the style and approach may be different. This is due to management/business is a reality that formed socially through interaction of the individual and the environment (socially constructed reality), is a practice created by man (human creation), is a symbolic discourse formed by individuals (symbolic discourse) and the result of human creativity (human creativity). As for the second reason is that not all values, behaviors, and interactions between social actors with the environment can be quantified. This is due to a person's perception of something depends on the values, cultures, experiences and others that brought by the individual.
b. For management accounting, the most frequent means of organisation processess and accounting practices is based on field based reserach which involves reseracher in direct contact with organization settings and in-dept research of natural context.
Qualitative reserach allows to prospect of moing beyond questions and it is based on validity and reliability.
Validity is a measure that indicates the level of validity or the legality of an instrumen. The principle of validity is a measurement or observation, which means reliability principle of an instrument in collecting data. Instruments must be able to measure what actually be measured. Therefore, validity gives more emphasis on the measurement instrument or on observation.