a dialectic approach to accounting

What is it about?

This paper questions the adequacy of current approaches to accounting research and textbooks which assumes unitary organisations and objective and neutral accounting. The paper examines the contributions of interpretive perspectives to alleviating many of the shortcomings in the traditional framework but this leaves a catalogue of unresolved problems and silences. It is argued that there is a persistent failure to adequately contextualize accounting whilst simultaneously treating it as a fully social practice. Hence the delineates and illustrate an alternative, fuller, perspective based on a dialectical analysis.

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Why is it important?

The paper challenges how accounting is depicted in conventional work and textbooks which does not bear scrutiny to theoretical and empirical findings, particularly in organisation theory and accounting work employing a social or political economy perspective. Rather than treating accounting practices as representing a single unitary reality the paper elaborates a dialectical approach that overcomes such problems.