ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH PARADIGM IN ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE: THE CASE FOR RESPONSIVE FOCUSING

Abstract

Since the late 1970s, observers of accounting and finance research have noted a growing gap between extant academic research and the needs of practitioners. In accounting, for example, both industry leaders and academic leaders have voiced their concern over this increasing gap between research and practice (see Baxter, 1988; ICAS, 1988). A major view suggests that the methodological precepts of most extant accounting/finance research are constructed in abstruse mathematics based on hypotheses far removed from reality; in consequence, many practitioners have remained sceptical, unable to express an opinion and have withdrawn from the decision making process (Allen, 1992). Over a decade earlier, Carleton (1978) in his Presidential address to the Financial Management Association (FMA) made an indicting observation that ômost contemporary theory and research in corporate finance do not even deal with what in the abstract are the central problems in corporate financeö. The gap between research and practice and the need to dovetail research to issues which are close to the needs of financial practitioners have been echoed by other academics (see Herbert and Wallace, 1996).

Citation

Herbert, W.E. (1996), "ALTERNATIVE RESEARCH PARADIGM IN ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE: THE CASE FOR RESPONSIVE FOCUSING", Management Research News, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb028440