The equinox et al.
Here in the northern hemisphere we are entering the coldest season on the year while our friends to the south are entering their warmest!
Many of us take holidays at this time of the year, whether it is due to the Christian or Jewish faith tradition or as a secular response to excessively cold or warm temperatures.
No matter what I wish you and all your loved ones the very best of the season. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joyeaux Noel, etc etc!
Back in January unless something big happens!
CAR and mission accomplished
I am going to pat myself on the back in this post!
But I thought this cAR related event should not go without passing.
EVERY issue of CAR this year has had at least one interpretivist field paper published in it. A couple had positivist field qualitative papers as well. They represent a most interesting set of topics that expands the mind!
In other words the breadth revolution started by Richardson and Salterio in 2001 is firmly ensconced at CAR. This year we also had external validation of the effectiveness of that strategy when research compared the outcomes of CAR’s diversity approach versus TAR’s approach to diversity. See Signaling effects of scholarly profiles – The editorial teams of North American accounting association journals” in Volume 51 2018 of Critical Perspectives on Accounting.
Mind you I paid a price for ensuring that this revolution succeeded in light of the attempt some in the CAAA to turn back the clock with the appointment of my successor as CAR EIC. I think that the forceful position I took may well have contributed greatly to stopping the clock from being turned back.
But sometimes you have to pay a price to do the right thing! But it sure feels good to have made a change for the better!!!! ( end of patting on back)!,
SSRN and social constructionist/interpretive accounting researchers
After 25 years of building bridges I am pleased to see a lot more engagement between positivist and interpretist researchers both within journal communities and indeed at several conferences. One area where they do not seem to meet much is on the working paper platform started by accountants now owned by Eliviser. The Social Science Research Network – SSRN – for short.
SSRN has been used by positivist researchers around the world to gather early reaction to working papers and act as a means of dissemination of what folks call “Grey” papers. Grey papers are a key resource to the academic community if one is looking to find unpublished papers with null effects that might indicate unpromising paths or leads on research that is not reproducible.
But there is a distinct lack of uptake of this free resource by interpretivist researchers. Instead one has to look for conference websites and personal networks to find out what is going on in this community of accounting scholars. Why is it not used? No idea to be frank but I have never heard of any attempts to silence alternative accounts on this platform and I have personally posted my interpretivist work on this site.
Heck, I suspect the good folks at SSRN might set up an ejournal that focused on qualitative accounting research if you asked!
Musings on Accounting Research by Steve 