The American Accounting Association seems to believe that its members cannot sit for a normal classroom lecture.

At the plenary sessions in New York we had three speakers at each time slot that was 90 minutes in length. plus awards presentations and other housekeeping type things. Not much time to develop in any depth an idea given an average of 20 minutes per speaker.

Does the whole world have to be in soundbites or Ted talks? Cannot even an audience that is 90% plus PHDed engage in more than surface level thinkings? Well, it appears that the AAA leadership thinks not!

JMAR senior editor Karen Sedatole has recently announced that JMAR has a dedicated qualitative methods management accounting researcher as an editor.  She says and I quote from her email:

As Senior Editor of the Journal of Management Accounting Research (JMAR), I would like to expand the international appeal of the journal by publishing research on a wider variety of topics and using a wider variety of research methods. Qualitative research in management accounting has historically been underrepresented in JMAR, indeed, in North American journals in general. I have recently appointed a new Editor, Habib Mahama, to lead JMAR’s efforts to increase the publication of qualitative work. Habib received his PhD from UNSW and is a Professor at United Arab Emirates University. He brings a breadth of research interests while also providing the qualitative research method expertise JMAR needs to further our goal.

This means that three and a half of the Section journal of the AAA’s largest sections (Management Accounting, Auditing, ABO and Financial Reporting) are signaling they are open to field research (Financial Reporting does not have a dedicated editor hence they get the half award) and three of them are indicating they will publish field work from an interpretivist perspective.

While the goal of JMAR’s senior editor is instrumental (wider readership) the real winner is the subject of management accounting as the more research perspectives we bring to bear on what is a very complex area, the more likely we are to learn and understand its practices better.  That is the real payoff to all this rhetoric about increasing diversity of intellectual perspectives in accounting journals – the knowledge quantum increases!!!!