Qualitative management accounting research in QRAM: some reflections

Abstract

Purpose: This paper offers a brief personal reflection upon, and celebrates, the 10th anniversary of Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management (QRAM). More specifically, I highlight the journal’s contributions towards advancing qualitative management accounting research over the last decade, and I suggest possible future avenues.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This is a relatively short paper, and mainly constitutes a review of qualitative management accounting articles published in the first ten years of QRAM’s publishing life, plus some personal reflection and suggestions for future directions.

Findings: I celebrate the impressive achievements of QRAM’s founding editors, and I am encouraged to offer my personal views on how the journal might excel further in years to come.

Research Implications: Although the piece is primarily personal reflection, there is hopefully some food for thought with regards to fruitful directions in tomorrow’s qualitative management accounting research. In particular, arguments are made for more undertaking of processual qualitative research and also for more targeted focus on the connections between management accounting and other relevant disciplines such as management and organisation studies.

Practical Implications: The paper offers no practical implications as such, but does discuss, and in fact heeds some caution against, the apparent trend of (possibly too uncritically) seeking to tease out practical implications from qualitative management accounting research.

Social Implications: Again, while this paper offers no specific discussion on its social implications, I would add that any qualitative management accounting research paper inherently carries at least some implications for society; management accounting and the wider society are continually intertwined through time.

Originality/Value: I would not claim that there is much that is original in this short piece – most of what is offered simply gathers others’ past contributions. But hopefully there will be some value in the ideas offered with regards to the exciting future ahead for qualitative management accounting research in QRAM.