ABSTRACT
Much of the conversation in the preceding chapters has focused primarily on approaches, paradigms and strategies applied in qualitative accounting research. However, as readers will invariably recognise, qualitative designs represent one of two main approaches used in contemporary accounting research. The other major approach is that of quantitative research. Represented by a corpus of empirical work stretching back through more than forty years of published accounting literature (Parker, 2012), quantitative research emphasises theory testing and is based on the analysis of causal relationships between variables, measured with numbers, and analysed with statistical procedures in order to determine whether the predictive generalisations of theory hold true (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005). The quantitative genre of accounting research is generally considered ‘mainstream’ research and dominates North American ‘elite’ journals, as well as many ‘top’ non-North American accounting journals (Chenhall and Smith, 2010; Northcott and Linacre, 2010; Hopwood, 2008).
