MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING RESEARCH 321
criterion relates to the field observations themselves, can observations be corrob-
orated by another investigator or another method? On this theme, Van Maanen
(1995), has observed that the accounts rendered by field researchers employing
qualitative, naturalistic methods may be described as ‘‘impressionist takes,’’ using
the analogy of impressionist art wherein the viewer of a piece of art sees both the
subject being paintedandthe artist.
It is also important to note what may be gained by management accounting
scholars beyond a more general appreciation of the technical, social and interest-
based forces which may flow through and influence management accounting, and
how management accounting, by embodying and reproducing these forces, may
come to influence its own historical, socio-political context. Christenson (1983)
argues that what may be derived is not the first-order concern of somehow
modifying management accounting as a set of somewhat disembodied practices
to somehow more faithfully represent an objective, albeit complex reality and
thereby solve the technical problems of running an organization. But rather, what
can be gained is a second-order focus of serving the problem solver, i.e., helping
them recognize the multiple realities they confront and live, and the multiple
meanings attached to and served by management accounting.
One of the principle tendencies exhibited by alternative research theories and
related methods which distinguish them from the more familiar approaches
is that of embedding management accounting in a wider social context than
usual. Accounting research inspired by contemporary social and organizational
psychology and neo-classical economics largely examines the roles and nature of
management accounting from the perspective of the individual decision-maker or
information processor within the organization. The alternative streams of research
discussed here, in contrast, typically approach the study of managerial accounting
from an inter-organizational and sociological perspective.
To illustrate the broader orientation, Seltoet al.’s (1995) field study of a Fortune
500 firm examines the adaptation of JIT manufacturing and a total quality control
system (JIT/TQC system) in relationship to classical contingency theory con-
structs – organizational structure, context and control – to ascertain the fit of these
organizational variables and the JIT system. An interpretive perspective, such as
institutional theory, might relate the adaption of the JIT/TQC system to even
larger societal values of rationality while perhaps sacrificing on the robustness of
insight provided by contingency theory regarding the impact of organizational-
level variables. Here the theoretical and empirical focus would be more on probing
the firm’s broader field of relations, such as mimicking the structure of dominant
firms in the industry, or responding to the coercion of the government, or adapting
the norms of professional associations, expressed in terms of a more widespread
JIT/TQC movement. Finally, critical perspectives would advance their theoretical
frame of reference by characterizing the JIT/TQC efforts in this firm as related to
the structural antagonism between classes inherent in capitalist societies (labor-
process perspective), or as part of a larger historical trend through which people
at large were subjected to a variety of disciplinary techniques rendering the
minute details of their behavior more visible (the Foucaultian approach). With
the critical perspective’s theoretical and empirical point of departure being at the