ABSTRACT
Management accounting research has been punctuated by a growing appreciation for qualitative research methods (see for example, Tomkins and Groves, 1983; Kaplan, 1983, 1984, 1986; Ahrens and Chapman, 2006; Hoque and Hopper, 1994; Lukka and Mouritsen, 2002). Qualitative research methods are being recommended to improve our understanding of management accounting’s multiple roles in contemporary organizations (Simons, 1990). ‘Qualitative research methods’ is also an umbrella term applied to a number of interpretive techniques directed at describing, translating, analysing, and otherwise inferring the meanings of events or phenomena occurring in the social world. The raw ingredients of qualitative research, the questions asked and methods used in observing behaviour, are largely invented in medias res,at the research site, rather than developed a priori,in order for the social context to drive the research rather than a pre-formulated theory. Such research aims to describe the social context being examined with the purpose of developing maps of primarily, the social processes, but also secondarily the social structures in use, in order to provide a basis for subsequent interpretation and analysis. It has been held that qualitative data are attractive because they provide rich descriptions of the social world, most particularly the meanings attached to actions and events in the language of its principal actors, and they facilitate exploring unforeseen relationships, and reduce researcher-induced retrospective distortion and unsupported inferential leaps (Lukka and Kasanen, 1995; Vaivio, 2008).
