دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی در مورد طبیعت ناپایدار تحقیقات انتقادی (حسابداری) - الزویر 2017

ABSTRACT

This essay addresses a deceptively simple question, namely, what is critical (accounting) research? Reflecting on key experiences that led me to be increasingly involved in the critical paradigm of accounting research, I present some of the main sources of influence that retrospectively played a significant role in articulating my (evolving) sense of “what critical research is”. In particular, I elaborate a “conceptual compass”, made up of several tentative referents, in order to help doctoral students and others develop their own understanding of the critical accounting research project’s (evolving) identity. Despite its fuzziness, my sense of the critical accounting research project is that it is primarily focused on developing a better understanding of marginalization processes
as a basis to engage in social intervention and praxis. The ontological foundations of this project reflect a mix of social constructionist and performativity approaches. Methodological openness characterizes the project although a significant degree of intolerance vis-à-vis discourses, ideas and methods that sustain the interests of marginalizing parties is noticeable.

5. Conclusion

This essay emphasizes that the boundaries of critical (accounting) research are perpetually on the move and difficult to grasp. To some extent, the question regarding the nature of critical research is an ongoing personal project, with referents always subject to a tension between change and solidification as the individual reflexively experiences a continuity of situations in her/his academic life. Yet this project is also, to some extent, an intersubjective endeavor, in that people’s reflexive exercises often involve different types of interactions, such as discussions with colleagues and the reading of articles in critical journals.

In a sense, the uncertainties that characterize the nature of the critical research project are reassuring, in that they may be viewed as conditions of possibility that might foster a sense of innovation in the field, thereby combating the dramatic consequences ensuing from academic regimes which too often are focused on the mirages of boxed-in and gap-spotting research (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013, 2014). These uncertainties may also be viewed as sources of inspiration, signaling room to maneuver in the development of the critical project. Receptivity to novelty and flexibility in updating one’s epistemological referents may therefore be considered as prime features of the critical research project
although some degree of intolerance inescapably needs to intervene in defining the nature of critical academia and in judging what kinds of work merit inclusion or not in the field’s body of formal knowledge. As a result, attitudes of tolerance intermingle with characterizations of the “opponents”.