Speeches

Speech 1 – Ileana Steccolini, What counts as “good” qualitative accounting research? Researchers' perspectives on assessing and proving research quality

This presentation will discuss the everyday experiences of researchers in assessing their own and others' research, highlighting what “good” qualitative accounting research is from their perspectives. These experiences highlight a plurality of practical, and to some extent tacit, ways in which researchers demonstrate and assess the quality of research, concerning “contribution”, “consistency” and “confidence”, with generalizability being seen as more controversial and difficult to attain. They also point to the ambiguity on what constitutes good research in the qualitative accounting community, contrasting it to the perceived stronger clarity to be found in the quantitative accounting community.

Speech 2 - Luca Zan, Insights on Oral History

Oral history is a quite interesting methodology in social sciences, yet quite rarely used in the field of business studies as a whole, accounting history included. Based on two main projects of this kind – one about accounting change in China in the last decades, one about art glass in Murano Venice – the presentation would outline some of the basic features of this approach as a whole, plus some elements that could be specific for research in our fields, or for innovative applications. Finally, some reflections of opportunities and challenges in getting published will be considered.

Speech 3 - Lee Parker, Qualitative generalising

Drawing on multidisciplinary methodological literature, this presentation will articulate concepts and approaches to qualitative generalisation that offer qualitative accounting researchers avenues for enhancing and justifying the general applicability of their research findings and conclusions. It will offer two overarching generalisation concepts for application by qualitative accounting researchers and articulate strategies for enhancing the generalisability of qualitative accounting research findings.