ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book introduces the early framing theories of critical accounting. It documents how researchers have borrowed from the interpretivist tradition to fashion a social scientific paradigm for subsequent accounting research endeavours. The book then identifies the role that Critical Theory has played in shaping critical accounting research from the 1980s through until the present day. It also provides a wide-ranging introduction to the substantial impact that the work of Foucault has had on critical accounting research during the past 30 years. The book documents some of the negativities that have resulted from an increasing process of colonisation by accounting thinking, particularly in the context of public sector organisations. It then provides an explanation of the relatively limited progress that has been made in respect of the travel of critical perspective–informed research from accounting to its near neighbour finance.
