Paper for the Critical Perspectives on Accounting Conference, Toronto, 2014
(ref. CPA2014-202)
Critical Realist Accounting Research:
Whence and Whither?
Sven Modell
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
and
NHH – Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen
Address:
Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
Crawford House
Booth Street West
Manchester M15 6PB
United Kingdom
E-mail: Sven.Modell@mbs.ac.uk
Acknowledgements: I am grateful for the constructive feedback and advice provided by Max
Baker and Kari Lukka on an earlier version of this paper.
1
Critical Realist Accounting Research:
Whence and Whither?
Abstract
Over the past decade, a small but growing body of accounting research explicitly informed by
critical realism has started to emerge and be employed to diverse research tasks. This paper
offers a review and critique of this emerging strand of accounting research against the backdrop
of broader developments in the critical realist research programme in the social sciences. It is
argued that the use of critical realism in the accounting literature has thus far been rather
piecemeal and only partially geared towards developing an explicitly critical or politically
engaged research agenda aimed at advancing radical social critique. Whilst these features can
partly be traced to internal divisions within the larger critical realist project in the social
sciences, I elaborate on how emerging accounting studies can be developed into a more
coherent and integrative research programme drawing on diverse strands of critical realist
thought. In doing so, I pay particular attention to how such research can be imbued with more
clearly articulated, critical intent by incorporating explanatory critiques pivoting on the twin
concepts of retroduction and retrodiction into empirically and historically informed research
interventions. I discuss some implications and challenges of nurturing such an approach as a
basis for critical accounting scholarship.
Key words: accounting, critical realism, emancipation, explanatory critique, retroduction,
retrodiction.
2
Critical Realist Accounting Research:
Whence and Whither?
Introduction
Since its emergence in the late 1970s, critical accounting research has evolved into a vibrant
area of scholarship that has benefited substantially from the incorporation of a plurality of
philosophical and theoretical approaches. Whilst occasionally generating controversies about
the suitability and efficacy of particular approaches for the furthering of critical scholarship
(e.g., Cooper, 1997; Neimark, 1990; Tinker, 1999, 2005), there seems to be some emerging
consensus that, as a whole, the field has been enriched by the flourishing of diverse strands of
critical thought (Cooper and Hopper, 2007; Merino, 1998; Roslender and Dillard, 2003).
Critical accounting research also continues to evolve and accommodate novel strands of
research drawing on hitherto unexplored or under-utilised intellectual resources. One of the
more recent research genres to emerge and generate a growing body of conceptual,
methodological and empirical work is that informed by critical realism. Whilst tracing its
origins to the pioneering works of Bhaskar (1975, 1979) and exercising increasing influence
on cognate areas of scholarship, such as organisation and management studies (e.g., Fleetwood
and Ackroyd, 2004; Reed, 2005, 2009; Tsang and Kwan, 1999; Tsoukas, 1989), the more
explicit incorporation of critical realism into the accounting literature is a relatively new
phenomenon. However, over the past decade a small but growing body of accounting research
has started to apply it to debate paradigmatic and methodological issues (Brown and Brignall,
2007; Llewellyn, 2007; Modell, 2009, 2013, in press), examine processes of accounting change
(Ashraf and Uddin, 2013; Mutiganda, 2013; Stergiou et al., 2013) and advance critical
commentaries on emerging accounting policies and practices (Burrowes et al., 2004; Smyth,
2012). A number of more broadly based literature reviews have also singled out critical realism
as a promising way forward for critical accounting research but do not elaborate in any greater
detail on how this may materialise (Goddard, 2010; Kilfoyle and Richardson, 2011; Roslender,
2013).
The present paper offers a more focused review and critique of the emerging use of critical
realism in accounting research against the backdrop of broader developments in the critical
realist research programme in the social sciences. It is argued that the use of critical realism in
3
the accounting literature has thus far been rather piecemeal and only partially geared towards
developing an explicitly critical or politically engaged research agenda aimed at advancing
radical social critique and human emancipation. This fragmented use of critical realism and
lack of wholehearted embrace of its more critical dimension can partly be traced to internal
divisions within the larger critical realist research programme. However, critical realism offers
a philosophical approach capable of transcending some key controversies in the critical
accounting literature, such as those pivoting on the varying degrees of determinism and
radicalism ascribed to various research genres, whilst linking concerns with enlightenment and
emancipation to a model of explanatory, social critique. Whilst the achievements of critical
realism in this regard are not uncontested, I explicate how a research agenda recognising some
of the major criticisms levied at it may be advanced. Key criticisms of critical realism concern
its propensity to abstract from the historical contingencies conditioning the possibilities of
emancipation and its relative neglect of engagement with the lived experiences of research
subjects as they participate in emancipatory discourses. To address these criticisms, I elaborate
on what I see as a refined notion of explanatory critique. Such critiques pivot on the
mobilisation of theoretically informed explanations whilst preserving their sensitivity to the
historically contingent, objective conditions as well as subjective processes of identity
formation and reflexivity that shape the possibilities of emancipation. I also pay attention to
the wider, epistemic premises that need to be filled if critical realist accounting research is to
entail more concerted efforts to advance such explanatory critiques.
The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. I start by outlining some basic tenets of critical
realism, such as its origins and ontological foundations and some key epistemological and
methodological implications, and revisit critiques and debates concerning its development into
a genuinely critical research programme. This leads me to specify the constitutive elements of
refined explanatory critiques, which are then used as a basis for evaluating the achievements
of critical realist accounting research. I conclude the paper by outlining some future directions
and challenges for such research.
Critical Realism
4
Origins and ontological foundations
What has come to be known as critical realism originally evolved as a reaction against positivist
and post-positivist research principles in the natural sciences (Bhaskar, 1975) and was
subsequently extended to a critique of the applicability of such “naturalistic” principles to the
social sciences (Bhaskar, 1979).1 At the heart of this critique lay a pronounced scepticism of
conceptions of the social world as some immutable entity constituted by law-bound regularities
which might, at least in principle, be captured and accurately explained in their entirety by
some perceiving subject. Whilst not denying the existence of some objective reality whose
presence is independent of our knowledge of it, Bhaskar (1975) was at pains to emphasise the
separation of such intransitive objects of knowledge from the transitive realm of human beings
and their senses. In contrast to the empirical realism permeating positivist research, critical
realists reject the notion of human beings having some unmediated access to or knowledge of
the material and social mechanisms constituting the objective, or objectified reality which they
inhabit. The human senses are rarely, if ever, capable of fully capturing the workings of such
mechanisms but are nevertheless affected by them and, as such, involved in filtering
experiences of the mechanisms at work into particular patterns of action. Explaining the actions
of human beings thus becomes a matter of understanding how objective mechanisms interact
with subjective experiences and how such interactions shape the capacity and propensity for
agency (Elder-Vass, 2010; Reed, 2009).
To Bhaskar (1975), the key to explaining empirically observable patterns of events, such as
those manifest in regularities in human action, was to situate them within a “stratified”, threetiered ontology made up of the domains of the real, actual and empirical. In the domain of the
real, we find the aforementioned objective mechanisms with the capacity to generate certain
patterns of events with some degree of regularity. This generative capacity resides in the causal
powers inherent in particular mechanisms. However, whether such causal powers are activated
often depends on the interplay between multiple mechanisms, which may both reinforce and
counteract each other and thus co-determine the occurrence of specific events in the domain of
the actual. For instance, particular economic mechanisms, such as wage rates, have the causal
Whilst Bhaskar (1975) initially referred to his research programme as “transcendental realism”, the term
critical realism has gradually come to be widely accepted among its adherents and endorsed by Bhaskar himself
(see Bhaskar, 1998).
1
5
power to generate unemployment, but whether changes in unemployment actually occur also
depends on the activation of causal powers embedded in other, related mechanisms, such as
industrial relations regulations influencing wage movements. Hence specific events do not
automatically follow from the mere existence of particular mechanisms, but rather form less
law-bound regularities, or tendencies, which may or may not repeat themselves across different
instances of time and space. Similarly, human beings are often only able to empirically
experience a sub-set of the tendencies occurring in the domain of the actual and the underlying
mechanisms and causal powers responsible for such tendencies. For instance, human beings
will be able to experience certain manifestations of unemployment but are not necessarily able
to fully observe and explain the full width of tendencies towards rising and falling
unemployment or the exact workings of the mechanisms generating such tendencies.
Tendencies towards changing unemployment can also occur without being immediately
observable or knowable to individual human beings. In other words, events and tendencies
occur independently of and are not necessarily conjoined with empirical experiences. Hence
the need to not only distinguish actual events and tendencies from the generative mechanisms
residing in the domain of the real, but also separate the domain of the actual from that of the
empirical.
Building on these ontological premises, a more refined understanding of how human agency
interacts with objective social structures was first advanced through Bhaskar’s (1979, 1986)
extension of critical realism to the social sciences and then further developed into Archer’s
(1995) morphogenetic approach to social development. Whilst insisting on the notion that
social structures have an objective ontological status that is independent of human experiences,
Bhaskar (1979, 1986) outlined how such structures condition human agency and the propensity
for social stability and change. This rests on the premise that some form of social structure
always pre-exists the exercise of human agency, whilst human beings either reproduce or
transform such structures through their interactions with them. Consistent with his stratified
ontology, however, Bhaskar (1979, 1986) sees social structures as only partially knowable and
never reducible to the people experiencing their instantiation. The prevalence of structural
mechanisms with the causal powers to affect stability and change are postulated as a necessary
condition for structural reproduction and transformation although such powers often depend
on human beings for their activation. As such, social structures constrain as well as enable the
propensity for human agency. However, structural mechanisms are still viewed as residing at
an ontological level that is only partially within the realm of human cognition and influence.
6
Similar to Bhaskar (1979, 1986), Archer (1995) conceives of objectified social structures as
existing at a somewhat higher level of abstraction that is distinct from the exercise of human
agency but argues that both social structures and human beings have the causal power to
influence particular patterns of events in society and do so by forming intricate and inherently
indeterminate patterns of interaction. Archer (1995) also places more explicit emphasis on the
need for human reflexivity as a precursor of agency and, by implication, structural change and
persistence. Rather than being forced into particular patterns of action by the causal powers
embedded in social structures, individual and groups of agents intentionally engage with such
structures and thereby devise more or less deliberate strategies for their reproduction
(morphostasis) or transformation (morphogenesis). Through such emergent processes of
morphostasis and morphogenesis the evolution of real, objectified structures is continuously
mediated by human agency. To avoid the widespread tendency to conflate notions of structure
and agency in social theory, however, Archer (1995) makes a strict analytical and temporal
distinction between the two. Through this separation of agency and structure tendencies
towards both downwards conflation (ie. deterministic conceptions of agency as subsumed
under social structures) and upwards conflation (ie. more voluntaristic conceptions of social
structure as some unmediated product of agency) are eschewed. Rather, human agency is seen
as an autonomous analytical entity constantly interacting with extant and emerging structures
but at no point in time being fully determined by or the sole source of such structures. Also,
through the temporal separation of the causal powers inherent in human beings and social
structures tendencies towards central conflation, or the propensity to view agency and structure
as essentially inseparable and mutually constitutive at any given point in time, are suppressed.
Whilst the aforementioned works of Bhaskar and Archer provide an ontological basis for
explaining how objective social structures evolve in constant interaction with human agency,
Archer’s subsequent works have primarily aimed at unpacking the more subjective, actorcentric dimensions of this interplay (e.g., Archer, 2000, 2003, 2007). These works have
foregrounded the inherently reflexive processes associated with agents’ deliberations on the
world and how such processes generate individual strategies of social mobility and change. Of
central importance in this regard are the “internal conversations” or the on-going, internal
dialogues that individual human beings have with themselves about their objective life
conditions and the opportunities of shaping their lives. It is through such subjective processes
of identity formation that individuals make sense of the world and forge personal strategies for
action. Through extensive empirical work, Archer (2003, 2007) has developed a nascent
7
typology of how individuals’ internal conversations and reflexivity manifest themselves under
diverse structural conditions. Yet, these works have been criticised for ceding too much terrain
to the notion that human beings possess a universal capacity for reflexivity (Elder-Vass, 2007,
2010) and underplaying the extent to which social structures shape subjective identities (Mutch,
2004) whilst paying insufficient attention to how individual agency translates into collective
action (Vandenberghe, 2005). To fully address such criticisms requires some re-engagement
with Archer’s (1995) earlier, conceptual discussion of how reflexivity is conditioned by
evolving social structures as well as how individual and groups of agents strive to produce
stability or change by coming together as collective, or corporate agents with the capacity to
exercise more powerful influence on social structures.
Notwithstanding Archer’s somewhat unfinished project of integrating objective social
structures and processes of subjective identity formation and reflexivity into a dynamic model
pivoting on their recursive and reciprocal interplay, several scholars have hailed critical realism
as a promising avenue for transcending the ontological divide between empirical realism and
social constructivism in the social sciences (e.g., Ackroyd and Fleetwood, 2000; Delbridge and
Edwards, 2013; Elder-Vass, 2012; Fleetwood, 2004, 2005; Reed, 2005, 2009; Sayer, 2000).
According to Elder-Vass (2012), critical realism offers an ontology that combines elements of
moderate realism with moderate social constructivism. By insisting on the existence of
objective and reasonably durable social structures possessing a degree of independence from
human cognition and agency, critical realists preserve a distinctly realist identity. However, by
accepting that such structures are fundamentally human constructions that are not indefinitely
immutable, they also acknowledge the importance of subjectively induced agency and change.
This marrying of realist and social constructivist elements also enables critical realists to
eschew tendencies towards either extreme determinism or voluntarism. Whilst emergent social
structures may gradually progress towards an increasingly objectified and seemingly stable
state, such processes of objectification need to be conceived of as indeterminate as individual
and corporate agents with a strong interest in and capacity to bring about change may, in
principle, emerge at any point in time. But the capacity for human agency is never
unconstrained and always conditioned by extant structures. Hence critical realism is a distinctly
non-deterministic philosophy, but not one that ascribes an unbounded capacity to agents to act
out their free will.
8
Judging from recent debates within the wider, inter-disciplinary accounting research
community, of which critical accounting research is part 2 , there would seem to be some
preparedness to accept an ontological position that combines moderate variants of realism and
social constructivism (see e.g., Ahrens, 2008; Kakkuri-Knuuttila et al., 2008a, 2008b; Lukka
and Modell, 2010; Modell, 2010).3 Similarly, it has long been recognised that various subgenres of critical accounting research have tended to straddle the objectivist/subjectivist divide
and be less far apart than commonly assumed insofar as ontological assumptions are concerned
(see e.g., Cooper and Hopper, 2007; Hopper and Powell, 1985). Nevertheless, as recurring
controversies between accounting scholars with especially Marxist and post-structuralist
sympathies demonstrate, there are still limits to this ontological entente. According to Neimark
(1990, 1994), early post-structuralist advances drawing on Foucault, tended to present a rather
caricatured version of Marxism as embodying an objectivist view of the world grounded in a
rather deterministic form of historical materialism. In response to such charges, Foucaultinspired accounting scholars have sought to defend a position that foregrounds relatively
indeterminate notions of subjectivity and their intertwining with evolving discursive practices
without negating the existence of some objectified, material reality (Grey, 1994; Hoskin, 1994).
Whilst such controversies may now have faded into the background as a result of the
continuous blurring of the boundaries between various strands of critical accounting research
and the waning influence of Marxism (cf. Roslender and Dillard, 2003) they have not been
fully resolved. For instance, writing over a decade after their initial eruption, Tinker (2005)
continued to chastise post-structuralist accounting researchers for reading too much historical
determinism into Marx’s works and hence failing to recognise their radical potential, only to
be rebutted by Sikka and Willmott (2005) for understating the possibilities of pursuing a more
incremental agenda of social critique and change in a fundamentally indeterminate world.
Through its combination of moderate realism and social constructivism, critical realism
provides an ontological starting point capable of transcending such controversies. According
to some commentators, it guards against overly deterministic readings of Marx (e.g., Joseph,
1998, 2002; Lovering, 1990) whilst offering a conception of social structures that is compatible
The distinction between critical accounting research and the wider genre of “alternative”, or inter-disciplinary,
accounting research is admittedly somewhat arbitrary (see e.g., Baxter and Chua, 2003; Roslender and Dillard,
2003). Following the definitions advanced by Chua (1986) and Hopper and Powell (1985), however, the notion
of critical accounting research is here confined to areas of scholarship that are united by some explicit
emancipatory intent and, by implication, ambition to advance radical social critiques and change.
3
Although there are dissenting voices cautioning against the paradigmatic rapprochement that might follow
from such an ontological position, these criticisms have tended to be concerned with the epistemic and political
ramifications of such rapprochement for the inter-disciplinary accounting research community rather than its
philosophical tenability per se (see Parker, 2012).
2
9
with at least some post-structuralist thinkers such as Foucault (e.g., Al-Amoudi, 2007; Joseph,
2004). As we shall see later in this paper, however, neither of these paths of rapprochement is
entirely uncontroversial. Nor do they automatically lead to more politically engaged
scholarship.
Epistemological and methodological implications
Whilst the most distinguishing features of critical realism are arguably attributable to its
ontology (Fleetwood, 2004, 2005), its core ontological assumptions have important
epistemological and methodological implications. Most importantly, the stratified ontology
underpinning critical realism prevents it from subscribing to any stronger correspondence
theory of truth as an epistemological basis for explaining social phenomena (Bhaskar, 1975;
Niiniluoto, 1999). Such correspondence theories of truth posit that our knowledge of the world
is a direct and reasonably complete reflection of the world. To critical realists, however, such
equating of the nature of the world with our knowledge of it is tantamount to committing the
epistemic fallacy of treating ontological questions as epistemological ones (Archer, 2007;
Bhaskar, 1975). As noted in the foregoing, critical realists reject the possibility of any
unmediated conceptions of reality as a result of the inability of human beings to fully observe
and explain the workings of intransitive or partially knowable mechanisms. The
epistemological implication of this is to fall back on theory as an indispensable resource for
making sense of how causal powers are activated in particular instances of time and space
whilst accepting that any theoretical knowledge claims are always partial and only capable of
explaining a sub-set of the actual and potential tendencies emanating from such powers. Rather,
any knowledge of the world, regardless of how well-informed on theoretical grounds, is always
under-determined and hence potentially fallible (Kaidesoja, 2007; Niiniluoto, 1999). The
problem of under-determination is exacerbated by the indeterminacy of the social world when
examined as an open system. Given the complex and often unique interplay between causal
powers embedded in social structures and human agency, our knowledge of this interplay and
its resultant tendencies needs to be conceived of as context- and time-dependent. To advance
such contingent knowledge claims, researchers need to situate their theoretically informed
understandings of the world in specific contexts and combine abstract theorising with
empirically grounded observations (Ackroyd, 2004; Lawson, 1997; Tsoukas, 1989). However,
this does not rule out the possibility of at least some causal powers being activated in such a
10
way that they generate reasonably stable or similar tendencies across time and space and allow
researchers to draw more general inferences about their prevalence (Tsang and Kwan, 1999;
Tsoukas, 1989).
The concrete methodological procedures through which abstract theorising and empirical
observations are brought together in critical realist analyses are encapsulated in the twin
concepts of retroduction and retrodiction (see e.g., Elder-Vass, 2010; Lawson, 1997).
Retroduction denotes the process of abstracting from empirically observable tendencies by
developing theoretical postulates about what individual mechanisms might be responsible for
such tendencies. In social science inquiries, this implies a process of working “backwards”
from empirical observations of surface events and regularities in society to develop a
theoretical understanding of the deeper social structures imbued with causal powers, or the
potential, to produce particular tendencies. Retrodiction, by contrast, is the process of
examining the activation of such causal powers in specific empirical contexts by asking how
diverse mechanisms interact to generate particular tendencies. Returning to the example of
explaining unemployment, for instance, we may initiate retroductive theorising by identifying
wage rates and industrial relations regulations as two plausible generative mechanisms. By
examining how these two mechanisms interact in particular empirical contexts deeper,
retrodictive insights into why and how unemployment actually occurs may subsequently be
advanced. Through continued empirical probing we may also observe more fine-grained
nuances in the phenomenon of original interest, such as distinct kinds of unemployment (e.g.,
involuntary under-employment), begging additional or complementary explanations. This
would, in turn, trigger a new sequence of retroduction and retrodiction through which the
workings of specific mechanisms potentially responsible for such nuances are first theorised
and then explored empirically through further inquiries or re-examination of existing data.
Retroduction and retrodiction are thus complementary methodological procedures which need
to be conceived of as intimately interlinked throughout the multiple cycles of moving back and
forth between theorising and empirical observation.
The repeated cycles of retroduction and retrodiction render critical realist analyses heavily
theory-dependent, but also open up the possibility of a nearly endless number of theoretical
postulates about the workings of generative mechanisms being advanced and investigated
(Kaidesoja, 2007). At one level, it would be fair to conceive of theorising in a critical realist
mode of inquiry as lacking any definite or natural end-point as researchers always need to be
prepared to investigate the causal powers with the potential to generate unanticipated events or
11
nuances in observed tendencies in diverse empirical contexts. Such continuous theorising
would find support in Bhaskar’s (1975) conception of critical realism as a philosophical
“under-labourer” capable of supporting the application of a vast range of substantive theories
(and methods). It is also consistent with his rather bold claim that critical realism effectively
resolves the problem of ontological incommensurability between diverse theoretical
interpretations of a particular empirical phenomenon as individual theories and methods are
independent of the ontological status of the phenomenon per se (Bhaskar, 1975, 1986). Whilst
different theories may be more or less comprehensive and possess varying degrees of
ontological depth, they are still fallible human constructions and thus better conceived of as
ascribing potentially conflicting, complementary or overlapping properties to the real world
than being seen as incommensurable on ontological grounds. This creates considerable
openness to applying a diverse set of theories to investigate various social phenomena and
partly explains why critical realism has evolved into a rather versatile and tolerant philosophy
of science accommodating a broad range of substantive theories, methods and subject areas
(see Collier, 1994; Reed, 2009; Sayer, 2000). As noted by Kaidesoja (2007), however, it also
raises the question of how to adjudicate between multiple and possibly competing theoretical
explanations.
In actual research practice, this problem is often resolved through recourse to the received value
systems, beliefs and structures of authority permeating the epistemic communities of which
individual scholars are part. Rather than engaging in endless processes of theorising,
researchers often tend to settle for theoretical explanations that are broadly consistent with
received bodies of knowledge sanctioned by such socio-political mechanisms. Whilst this
phenomenon is by no means unique to critical realism (see e.g., Lukka, 2010; Lukka and
Modell, 2010), critical realists openly affirm the epistemic relativism associated with such
practices (see e.g., Bhaskar, 1986; Elder-Vass, 2012; Sayer, 2000). Leading critical realists,
such as Bhaskar, have repeatedly emphasised how the epistemic contexts in which researchers
are embedded reinforce the value-laden nature of the social sciences without abandoning the
notion that scientific research practices per se should strive towards preserving a degree of
neutrality or impartiality (see Lacey, 1997, 2002). Whilst value judgements ineluctably frame
the choice of research questions and theories and, by implication, the outcomes of scientific
inquiries it is still possible to uphold the ideal of researchers adjudicating between different
theories and explanations on relatively value-neutral grounds when exploring their veracity
through empirical inquiries. This rests on the premise that the process of examining multiple
12
theoretical explanations will, over time, establish certain explanations as “truer” than others
when confronted with some objective reality and thus contribute to stabilise or change the
beliefs and value systems guiding particular epistemic communities. Such interactions between
the process of determining the veracity of diverse theories and evolving value systems will, in
turn, influence the range of theories available to researchers when articulating new research
questions. Hence critical realists should arguably aspire to a “weak” form of epistemic
relativism according to which particular knowledge claims are always recognised as
conditioned by the epistemic contexts in which researchers are embedded although the truth of
such claims is ultimately verifiable in relation to some objective reality (Elder-Vass, 2012).
However, the extent to which such relativism actually permeates critical realist inquiries in
specific fields, such as organisation and management studies, has recently been subject to some
debate (Al-Amoudi and Willmott, 2011). As explicated below, the issue of whether critical
realism has fully come to terms with its own epistemological commitments and espoused
ambition to evolve into a politically engaged research programme is also of central concern for
appreciating its potential as a foundation for critical scholarship.
Critical realism as a critical research programme
Debates about the possibilities of developing the critical realist project into a genuinely critical
research programme have largely pivoted on how procedures of scientific knowledge formation
such as those described in the foregoing may be translated into changes in value systems,
beliefs and concrete, practical actions conducive to human emancipation. The aspirations to
develop critical realism in such a direction can arguably be traced to the centuries-old
Enlightenment conception of knowledge as emancipatory in and of itself (Hammersley, 2002).
According to Bhaskar (1986), the use of critical realism as philosophical under-labourer for the
advancement of scientific knowledge claims forms the basis for explanatory critique which
may, in turn, release the emancipatory impulse that is arguably inherent in the social sciences.
By advancing theoretically informed explanations of the causal powers underpinning social
phenomena, such as the persistence of oppressive social orders, researchers will be in a better
position to critique such phenomena and envisage plausible alternatives grounded in the
activation of other causal powers than is the case where knowledge is conflated with
ideological orthodoxy. Through the mobilisation of retroductive and retrodictive theorising a
range of postulates about the actual and potential workings of generative mechanisms and how
13
they reinforce and alleviate such conditions may be advanced and explored empirically. This
may, in turn, enlighten social actors of ways in which oppressive social orders may be altered
and provide a basis for turning such insights into social actions geared towards transforming
underlying structures and contributing to the process of emancipation. However, such
conceptions of human emancipation as a relatively unmediated outcome of explanatory critique
does not enjoy unreserved support among critical realists (see e.g., Elder-Vass, 2010; Sayer,
1997). Bhaskar’s insistence on the role of critical realism as a universally applicable underlabourer in the advancement of such critiques has also come under attack for representing a
new form of orthodoxy originating in some allegedly hegemonic ambition to clear the path for
enlightenment and emancipation (Cruickshank, 2004; Magill, 1994).
In addition to the disagreements about the role and status of explanatory critique among critical
realists, the extent to which critical realism has actually succeeded in evolving into an effective
programme of radical social critique and political activism has been questioned by both Marxist
and post-structuralist scholars. Whilst supporters of Bhaskar’s prescriptions for the
advancement of explanatory critique have sought to demonstrate how it may mitigate against
overly deterministic readings of Marx (Joseph, 1998, 2002; Lovering, 1990), both Brown et al.
(2002) and Roberts (1999, 2002) argue that the very research procedures underpinning such
critiques tend to blunt the radicalism of Marxism by abstracting too much from the rich,
historical contingencies explaining the prevalence of oppressive social orders. To Brown et al.
(2002), this tendency towards excessive and essentially reductionist forms of abstraction is
inherent in the role of retroduction as a central analytical procedure in critical realism. Due to
its grounding in particular empirical events and regularities, retroductive theorising is arguably
more concerned with the current and the local than the historical and thus detracts from more
systematic and holistic abstractions taking the totality of history into account. Similarly,
Roberts (1999, 2002) argues that critical realists often subscribe to rather general and apolitical
notions of history that abstract from the explicitly ideological dimension of concepts such as
emancipation and render them ineffectual as a basis for political activism in the face of
potentially powerful and historically contingent constraints such as social class. The end result
is a critical realism that is more concerned with explaining the world than changing it.
Similar concerns that critical realists tend to privilege the development of explanatory models
of society over the pursuit of radical social critique and change have been raised by scholars
with post-structuralist sympathies. Willmott (2005), for instance, contrasts critical realism with
the post-structuralism of Laclau and Mouffe (1985) and argues that the latter provide a more
14
refined understanding of the interest-driven political processes involved in engendering
emancipation. This is so as they foreground the socially constructed, relational space in which
political processes are played out and democratic discourses conducive to emancipation evolve
rather than insisting on the need to trace such events back to social structures residing in some
objective reality. According to Willmott (2005), this is due to Laclau and Mouffe’s refusal to
be governed by dualisms between agency and structure such as those underpinning critical
realism. However, other writers debating the possibilities of rapprochement between critical
realism and post-structuralism have defended the possibilities of upholding such dualisms with
reference to Foucault (Al-Amoudi, 2007; Joseph, 2004). Similar to the position taken by
Foucault-inspired accounting scholars such as Grey (1994) and Hoskin (1994), a prerequisite
for such rapprochement is the acceptance of the centrality of discourse without rejecting its
relationship to some objective referents in the world. Rather than dissolving the distinction
between the two and denying the existence of any reality outside of discourse, as tends to be
the case in much post-modernist thought, Al-Amoudi (2007) demonstrates how a Foucauldian
conception of discourse as a source of power with both constraining and enabling properties is
compatible with the stratified ontology endorsed by critical realists. This argument rests on the
premise that the effects of such power on the world are not a direct, unmediated consequence
of discourse but also dependent on the structural context in which such effects unfold. In other
words, the discourses mobilised by various agents are distinct from but interdependent with the
social structures conditioning and resulting from the formation of discursive practices.
According to Joseph (2004), such recognition of the interdependent nature of social structures
and discourse may serve to radicalise Foucauldian analyses in that it clarifies the contingent,
structural conditions under which the constraining and enabling effects of discourses prevail
and condition the possibilities of emancipation. But similar to Neimark’s (1990, 1994) and
Tinker’s (1999, 2005) charges that much Foucault-inspired accounting research has effectively
failed to develop such emancipatory insights, Joseph (2004) acknowledges that such a
trajectory may only materialise if the radical ambitions behind critical realism are taken
seriously and turned into politically engaged, explanatory critiques. Hence the use of critical
realism as a vehicle of radical social critique cannot be taken as a given, but needs to be
continuously nurtured through the adoption of an epistemological stance conducive to critical
scholarship.
Criticisms of critical realism such as those outlined above remind us of the necessity of
situating explanatory critiques in their historical context as well as in relation to the local, lived
15
experiences of research subjects for them to constitute effective vehicles of emancipation.
Some attention to the historical contingencies conditioning the possibilities of emancipation is
necessary to at least partly accommodate the Marxist critique that critical realist analyses based
on retroductive theorising abstracts too much from such contingencies. However, without some
empirical grounding of critical realist analyses in current, local conditions where emancipatory,
democratic discourses take shape, researchers would seem to have few opportunities to engage
in effective political activism aimed at changing the world. This would seem to require more
direct engagements with the subjective experiences of agents exposed to more or less
oppressive social orders than is perhaps forthcoming in Bhaskar’s oeuvre. As noted by Mutch
(2005), much of the critique of critical realism for lacking critical intent and efficacy has tended
to concentrate on his exclusively conceptual works whilst predating or largely ignoring
empirical advances such as Archer’s (2003, 2007) more recent studies of how individual
reflexivity is translated into strategies of emancipation. As argued in the foregoing, however,
such strategies also need to be situated in their larger structural context to offer a more complete
understanding of how subjectively induced reflexivity is conditioned by objective, pre-existing
structures and how individual agency translates into collective agency in the process of
structural reproduction and transformation.
To sum up, a refined, critical realist mode of explanatory critique would thus need to combine
empirical inquiries into how processes of structural reproduction and transformation obstruct
and engender opportunities for emancipation with historically informed procedures of
retroduction and retrodiction. By nurturing a deep, historically informed understanding of the
objective conditions influencing the possibilities of reflexivity, researchers may engage with
research subjects in such a way that they mediate the process of emancipation without naively
ascribing some unfettered capacity for agency to them. However, attention is also required to
how more subjective processes of identity formation shape the propensity for reflexivity to
enhance our understanding of how social actors may devise individual and collective strategies
of emancipation. Finally, deliberations on how researchers may facilitate processes of
emancipation must not be detached from considerations of the epistemic premises conditioning
the possibilities of advancing explanatory critiques. In particular, researchers need to be
cognisant of how the possibilities of advancing such critiques depend on the epistemological
priors guiding their work and ways of “seeing” the world. Such epistemological priors are inter
alia manifest in the theories and methods sanctioned by the epistemic communities in which
researchers are embedded. Some reflexivity on how such priors affect the contents and scope
16
of explanatory critiques is necessary to affirm the significance of epistemic relativism and
recognise how it impinges on the possibilities of nurturing an epistemological stance that is
conducive to critical scholarship.
Review of Critical Realist Accounting Research
As noted in the introductory section of the paper, emerging accounting research informed by
critical realism falls into three relatively distinct categories; pieces reflecting on various
paradigmatic and methodological issues, empirical studies of processes of accounting change
and works advancing critical commentaries on emerging accounting policies and practices. In
what follows, I review and critique each of these bodies of research. In doing so, I pay particular
attention to whether they exhibit elements of refined explanatory critique such as those outlined
towards the end of the preceding section. Table 1 provides a summary of this review.
_________________
Insert Table 1 here.
________________
Paradigmatic and methodological reflections
The use of critical realism to debate various paradigmatic and methodological issues includes
works that ponder the linkages between its ontological premises and the use of particular
research methods (Brown and Brignall, 2007; Llewellyn, 2007; Modell, 2009) and, more
recently, its implications for theoretical pluralism in accounting research (Modell, 2013, in
press). An inspection of Table 1 suggests that relatively little of this research has been explicitly
concerned with advancing radical social critiques. However, it does provide valuable insights
into the more general epistemological and methodological implications of adopting a critical
realist ontology.
Starting with Llewellyn’s (2007) discussion of how the stratified (or in her words
differentiated) ontology of critical realism may inform case study research and the debate
following its publication (Llewellyn, 2008; Sayer, 2008; Scapens and Yang, 2008) some initial
observations on this matter can be made. Drawing, in particular, on the works of Archer,
17
Llewellyn (2007) argued that reality may be conceived of as differentiated across five levels
(the physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental) and that the usefulness of case study
methods will vary depending on what level constitutes the main focal point of researchers.
Working on the assumption that realities dominated by causal powers embedded in the physical
and structural domains will exercise a strongly stabilising influence on social events, she
initially questioned the usefulness of case study methods when such forces are of primary
interest to researchers. Whilst acknowledging the value of case studies in revealing previously
unknown properties of entrenched structures to agents, she saw little merit in their use under
conditions of stability. Rather, case studies were portrayed as a preferable method where
researchers are concerned with examining processes of accounting change and where their
main interest is in explaining agentic powers and the more subjective aspects in which they
originate. As noted by Sayer (2008), however, such a position underplays the indeterminacy
often characterising seemingly stable states of the world and the fact that case studies may not
only provide valuable insights into structural transformation but also into how human agency
continuously mediates structural reproduction. In her reply, Llewellyn (2008) also relaxes her
earlier claims regarding the suitability of particular methods for examining stability and
change, respectively. Hence there would seem to be at least some consensus that overly crude
distinctions between ontological conceptions of the world as either dominated by the stabilising
forces of social structures or the dynamising powers of human agency constitute an
inappropriate basis for the choice of research methods. Indeed, insisting on such a position
would be inconsistent with Bhaskar’s (1975) view of the choice of methods as independent of
ontological assumptions and might be seen as unduly constraining if critical realism is to fill
the role of philosophical under-labourer in advancing our knowledge of evolving accounting
practices.
A more serious omission in Llewellyn’s (2007, 2008) initial discussion and response to her
critics, however, is the lack of attention to the role of theory in case study research and the
epistemic premises governing the choice of theories and methods. Whilst clearly aware of role
of theory in qualitative inquiries (e.g., Llewellyn, 2003), she is largely silent about how theories
are implicated in critical realist modes of explanation through processes of retroduction and
retrodiction. This leads to a curious neglect of some key epistemological implications of
adopting a critical realist ontology, such as the need to affirm the theory-dependent nature of
empirical observations. The neglect of the theory-dependent nature of critical realist knowledge
claims becomes obvious as she argues that knowledge of objective conditions, such as those
18
prevailing in the physical world, can be acquired through relatively unmediated, empirical
observations and that our “[k]nowledge of the physical world is also independent of the
meanings we attribute to it” (Llewellyn, 2008, p. 22). This reveals a rather glaring lack of
recognition of how theories condition our ability to ascribe particular properties to intransitive
mechanisms and comes dangerously close to committing the epistemic fallacy of equating the
ontological status of the world with our knowledge of it. Llewellyn (2008) then goes on to
argue that the generation of scientific knowledge of other domains of reality, such as the more
subjective aspects of human agency, requires different modes of inquiry but, again, makes no
reference to theory as a medium of knowledge formation. This reinforces the impression that
scientific knowledge is seen as a relatively unmediated outcome of empirical observations and
would seem to signify a relapse to the position that the ontological status of observed
phenomena should be taken as the primary basis for the choice of research methods. When
considered in isolation from the epistemic premises governing the choice of particular theories
and methods, as is the case in Llewellyn (2007, 2008), there is also an imminent risk of such a
position reifying a view of scientific knowledge formation as evolving in some socio-political
vacuum. If this is indeed the position to which she subscribes, then notions of epistemic
relativism are effectively bracketed if not ignored.
Somewhat greater recognition of epistemic relativism and its implications for empirical
inquiries is discernible in Brown and Brignall’s (2007) and Modell’s (2009) discussions of how
critical realism may be used as a foundation for mixed methods research in accounting. Brown
and Brignall (2007) advanced some reflections, partly inspired by critical realism, on how their
empirical research into differences in the cost-efficiency of central administrative services in
UK universities was influenced by certain epistemic contingencies. Whilst more concerned
with the methodological than theoretical implications of doing mixed methods research, they
provide some interesting insights into how the broader, socio-political context in which such
research is conducted may condition the process of scientific knowledge formation. In
particular, they detail how the politically motivated reactions among some practitioner
audiences to preliminary research findings caused the quantitative part of their analysis to overshadow their qualitative insights despite their best efforts as researchers to place the two on a
reasonably equal footing. Whilst mobilising critical realism as a means of transcending notions
of empirical realism and social constructivism, Brown and Brignall (2007) reportedly found it
difficult to uphold such a position and go beyond the seemingly “objective” findings emanating
from their quantitative analysis due to their politically charged nature and allure to key
19
decision-makers. This constrained their ability to complement their quantitative findings with
deeper and more nuanced, qualitative insights into the mechanisms responsible for variations
in cost-efficiency across research sites and threatened to compromise the neutrality and
impartiality of the researchers. These reflections serve as a useful reminder of how notions of
epistemic relativism need to be extended beyond concerns with the value systems and authority
structures governing particular communities of scholars which have tended to dominate critical
realist discussions of the topic (cf. Elder-Vass, 2012; Lacey, 1997, 2002). Clearly, the full
implications of such relativism for scientific knowledge formation can only be understood by
widening the definition of relevant epistemic contexts to include actors in the empirical
domains in which scholarly inquiries and interventions are situated.
Nevertheless, as Modell’s (2009) discussion of triangulation between qualitative and
quantitative research methods makes plain, we still need to take the epistemic barriers
embedded in scholarly communities seriously to fully appreciate how critical realist accounting
research may become more firmly established. Similar to Brown and Brignall (2007), Modell
(2009) saw critical realism as a philosophical alternative offering a promising ontological
foundation for transcending ingrained conceptions of paradigms as rooted in either empirical
realism or social constructivism. He then took this as a starting point for addressing some
pertinent criticisms of triangulation, such as its propensity to suppress context-specific
variations in meanings and neglect of the theory-dependent nature of empirical observations,
whilst locating the sources of potential resistance to such a position to the inter-disciplinary
accounting research community as well as the positivist “mainstream” (see also Modell, 2010).
Consistent with a critical realist conception of epistemic relativism, both of these communities
were seen as exercising a potentially constraining influence on not only the choice of methods
but also the range of theories available to accounting scholars. To overcome such epistemic
barriers to the combination of methods and theories, Modell (2009) advanced a mixed methods
approach centred on an essentially retroductive mode of theorising and sought to illustrate its
plausibility by applying it to two extant exemplars of mixed methods research (Covaleski and
Dirsmith, 1983; Hoque and Hopper, 1994, 1997).4 He also endeavoured to re-construct how
the generation of knowledge in these inquiries was conditioned by epistemic premises, such as
the varying availability of adequate and entrenched theories at the time of their completion.
4
Somewhat confusingly, Modell (2009) used the notion of abduction whilst recognising its close affiliation to
the notion of retroduction. See Contu and Willmott (2005) for further discussion of the tendencies of some
critical realists to conflate the notions of abduction and retroduction.
20
Whilst cautioning against a view of critical realism as a panacea for resolving interparadigmatic disputes and tensions, he concluded by arguing that its use as a basis for mixed
methods research may provide a powerful impetus to overcome epistemic barriers to such
research.
Such optimistic sentiments regarding the potential of critical realism were recently re-iterated
by Modell (2013) in an exchange with Jacobs (2012, 2013) over the possibilities of nurturing
theoretical pluralism in public sector accounting research. Similar to Modell (2009), the
principal concerns were those of how such pluralism may be justified on paradigmatic grounds
and the mobilisation of retroductive theorising in an attempt to demonstrate how the choice of
theories need not be seen as governed by ontological assumptions but rather by the epistemic
premises conditioning particular research studies. Modell (2013) also extended this line of
argument by outlining how critical realism may be used as a philosophical point of departure
for the combination of theories with diverse disciplinary origins whilst cautioning against the
tendency of public sector accounting researchers to sanction overly eclectic and unreflexive
blending of theories as an epistemic community. He also provided some brief commentaries
on how epistemic premises guiding the choice of theories may foster critical insights into public
sector accounting practices. Similar to Brown and Brignall (2007) and Modell (2009), however,
he largely ignored the issue of how historical contingencies and more subjective processes of
identity formation interact and shape the possibilities of emancipation and how a more explicit
interest in such issues might compel researchers to advance radical social critiques. Hence there
is very little critical intent behind these papers.
It is only very recently that concerns with developing more radical, social critiques have started
to surface in paradigmatic and methodological reflections on the use of critical realism in
accounting research. However, Modell (in press) advanced the debate in this direction by
elaborating on how accounting research informed by institutional theories may be rendered
more critical. In doing so, he mobilised critical realism as a potential remedy to the tendency
of such research to concentrate on interests favoured by extant institutions and dominating
processes of institutional change whilst ignoring the plight of disadvantaged constituencies and
their possibilities of emancipation. Drawing on the works of Archer (1995, 2003, 2007) and,
to a lesser extent, Elder-Vass (2007, 2010) he explicated how their conception of the interplay
between agency and structure might be reconciled with an institutional conception of agency
as intentional yet structurally embedded and how such an ontological position entails varying
opportunities of emancipation. Recognising the critique of Archer’s recent works for ascribing
21
a universal capacity for reflexivity to agents, he developed a contingent ontological conception
of the circumstances under which agents may emancipate themselves from oppressive social
orders and devise strategies of collective action to this end. He also discussed the
epistemological ramifications of adopting such a contingent view of the possibilities of
emancipation in some detail. This comprised an outline of the varying strategies of intervention
potentially available to researchers concerned with facilitating the process of emancipation.
Rather than assuming that such interventions unfold in some epistemic vacuum, however, he
offered some reflections on how the conservative epistemology allegedly underpinning much
institutional research may need to be transformed for it to be imbued with more clearly
articulated critical intent. To this end, he advanced some suggestions as to how critical realist
principles of inquiry may be used to shed light on the social mechanisms and causal powers
underpinning institutionalised research practices and engender greater reflexivity on how
researchers may emancipate themselves from such practices. This may be seen as an attempt
to turn notions of explanatory critique back onto the epistemic premises conditioning research
practices. However, in contrast to his previous work on critical realism, Modell (in press)
remained silent about how such critiques may be furthered through more explicit mobilisation
of retroduction and retrodiction.
Studies of accounting change processes
The nascent attempts to apply critical realism to empirical inquiries into accounting change
processes encompass studies drawing on different strands of critical realist thought and thus
displaying somewhat different analytical procedures and emphases. Both Ashraf and Uddin
(2013) and Stergiou et al. (2013) mobilised Archer’s (1995) morphogenetic approach in case
studies exploring the more or less successful efforts to change management accounting and
control systems in different organisations. The main concern in both studies was to avoid the
risk of conflating notions of structure and agency prevailing in much social theory and
overcome the objectivist/subjectivist divide separating different genres of accounting research.
To this end the authors adopted a longitudinal research approach and sought to tease out the
dynamic and recursive interplay between human agency and extant and emerging structures
implicated in accounting change processes. Both studies followed the analytical approach
proposed by Archer (1995) relatively closely. As recognised by Stergiou et al. (2013), however,
this led to some bracketing of the more subjective aspects of agency such as those highlighted
22
in Archer’s (2000, 2003, 2007) more recent works on reflexivity and limited the insights into
how the action repertoires and strategies of key actors took shape at a deeper, cognitive level.
Also, both studies used the morphogenetic approach as a relatively generic framework without
combining it with a wider range of substantive theories to derive explanations in accordance
with the principles of retroduction and retrodiction.
Somewhat more explicit reliance on such principles is discernible in Mutiganda’s (2013) study
of the development of novel governance and accountability practices in the Finnish health care
sector. Drawing more heavily on Bhaskar’s (1975) framework, he first mobilised retroductive
theorising to identify two overarching, structural mechanisms in the form of political and
technical institutions of governance originating in political reforms common to Finnish health
care organisations and the professional expertise of health care employees, respectively. These
mechanisms were seen as residing in the domain of the real in Bhaskar’s (1975) ontology,
whilst their more concrete, empirical manifestations and interactions were then explored
through case studies in two health care organisations. Consistent with a critical realist mode of
explanation, this was followed by some elaboration on how the causal powers embedded in the
two institutions buttressed and counteracted each other to produce specific responses to
evolving control practices. These empirical findings were subsequently used to extend Burns
and Scapens’ (2000) institutional framework for understanding stability and change in
accounting practices. In doing so, Mutiganda (2013) argued that critical realism complements
their more “local” model of how institutional structures interact with human agency by drawing
attention to how structural mechanisms residing at a somewhat higher level of abstraction
condition this interplay.5 In contrast to Ashraf and Uddin (2013) and Stergiou et al. (2013),
however, relatively little attention was paid to the concrete, unfolding interplay between agency
and structure in the organisations under examination. This also implies that concerns with
subjectivity and reflexivity are largely absent in his analysis.
Researchers mobilising diverse branches of critical realism to examine accounting change
processes thus seem to be drawn towards either advancing theoretically informed modes of
explanation that abstract from the detailed interplay between agency and structure or nurturing
a more generic, empiricist focus that foregrounds this interplay but offers few specific insights
Mutiganda’s (2013) line of argument in this respect is largely consistent with Leca and Naccache’s (2006)
attempt to synthesise critical realism and institutional theory and explicate how the interplay between concrete
institutional structures and human agency is conditioned by higher-order templates residing in diverse
institutional logics. However, he makes no explicit reference to their work.
5
23
into the explanatory potential of a broader range of substantive theories. Bridging the gap
between such diverging research interests is important to nurture a more integrative approach
that is capable of producing refined explanatory critiques. As noted in the foregoing, such
critiques require thorough empirical insights into the structural conditions under which agents
may emancipate themselves from oppressive social orders but are also likely to benefit from a
historically and theoretically informed understanding of what the potential, but perhaps not
immediately observable, opportunities of emancipation might be. Whilst paying varying
attention to the historical contingencies shaping the focal change processes (see especially
Stergiou et al., 2013), none of the studies reviewed above show any explicit concerns with
combining this with theoretical insights geared towards developing radical social critiques.
Even though different categories of managerial and professional staff with partly conflicting
interests receive ample attention, the three studies do not shed much light on the plight of
constituencies that are potentially marginalised or seriously disadvantaged by evolving
accounting practices and how it might be remedied. Nor do they exhibit any deeper reflections
on which epistemic premises need be filled to nurture more innate concerns with emancipation
and the advancement of radical social critique. Similar to much critical realist research in other
disciplines, they are thus susceptible to criticisms for being more concerned with advancing
novel modes of explaining the world than changing it. I now turn to review some emerging
works displaying a more clearly articulated interest in developing critical realist accounting
research in such a direction.
Critical commentaries on emerging accounting policies and practices
In isolation from other attempts to advance critical realist accounting research, a small number
of critical commentaries on emerging accounting policies and practices have also invoked such
a philosophical position. Burrowes et al. (2004) offered an analysis of the emergence of the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act and its likely effects on auditing and accounting practices. Similar to some
of the paradigmatic and methodological reflections reviewed in the foregoing, critical realism
was adopted as a means of mitigating against the alleged tendencies of commentaries on
accounting policy to either adopt a rather deterministic perspective grounded in empirical
24
realism or subscribing to various forms of social constructivism. In doing so, Burrowes et al.
(2004) make a case for making the philosophical assumptions guiding such commentaries
explicit and propose critical realism as a vehicle of going beyond observed events to explain
the workings of the deeper structures generating them. As such, they display a strong
commitment to the ontological foundations of critical realism. They also emphasise the
importance of conducting critical realist analyses in such a way that the historical contingencies
conditioning the evolution of accounting policies are taken into account and situate their
analysis of the emergence of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the historical context of accounting
regulation and emerging efforts to enhance fiscal probity in the US. However, their subsequent
analysis of the effects of the legislative mechanisms put in place by the act is largely void of
more systematic attempts to explain its consequences
in accordance with the principles of
retroduction and retrodiction. Rather than conducting an empirically grounded analysis with
these principles in mind, the authors revert to a rather speculative mode of analysis based on
an effort to re-construct the espoused intentions behind the act and its potential, unintended
consequences. Little explicit attention is paid to exactly how various causal powers embedded
in the legislation are activated and how they interact to produce unintended consequences. Nor
do the authors engage in any concerted efforts to advance alternative, theoretically informed
postulates explicating how such unintended consequences may be mitigated by the workings
of legislative mechanisms.
A similar lack of systematic attention to retroduction and retrodiction as a means of advancing
theoretically informed explanations is discernible in Smyth’s (2012) archival analysis and
critique of emerging accountability regimes in the social housing sector in the UK. Similar to
Burrowes et al. (2004), he sought to understand the emergence of two alternative and contested
accountability regimes in their historical context and identified a number of generative
mechanisms underpinning this development, such as the rise of neo-liberalism and resistance
to such forces, and their relationships to other mechanisms such as deeper economic conditions
and attempts by various elites to assert their power. But whilst describing the interactions
between such mechanisms in some detail, he makes no explicit use of retroduction or
retrodiction. Also, whilst referring to events and tendencies that would seem to originate in
some interplay between structural and agentic powers, he neither makes a clear analytical
distinction between them nor does he offer a more systematic, longitudinal analysis of their
recursive interplay as recommended by Archer (1995). This seems to limit the possibilities of
envisaging how individual and corporate agents may achieve a degree of emancipation from
25
accountability regimes encroaching on their life opportunities. Despite recognising the
possibilities of resistance to emerging accountability regimes, Smyth (2012) does not pay much
attention to how the causal powers embedded in generative mechanisms may be activated in
alternative ways and how this might affect the possibilities of emancipation.
The use of critical realism to advance critical commentaries on emerging accounting policies
and practices thus falls short of many of the characteristics of refined explanatory critiques
proposed in the foregoing. In particular, there are limited efforts to advance more theoretically
informed explanations as a basis for highlighting the possibilities of emancipation in the two
studies. The use of retroduction and retrodiction to this end is, at best, implicit in the discussion
of how generative mechanisms interact and give rise to particular events and tendencies. It is
quite possible that the opportunities of advancing explanatory critiques are constrained by the
lack of deeper and more direct empirical engagements as both retroductive and retrodictive
modes of explanation hinge on the ability of researchers to combine abstract theorising with
empirical observations. However, there is also a dearth of efforts to mobilise a broader range
of substantive theories as a vehicle of supporting the critiques advanced in the two studies and
hardly any reflections on the epistemic premises conditioning the ability of researchers to do
so. The relatively shallow empirical engagements also detract from the possibilities of probing
into how emancipation is engendered through subjective processes of identity formation and
reflexivity.
Whither Critical Realist Accounting Research?
The review of emerging, critical realist accounting research reveals a rather fragmented body
of literature. Whilst the ontological foundations of critical realism seem reasonably wellunderstood and accepted, there are significant variations in researchers’ recognition of the
epistemological and methodological implications of adopting such an ontology as well as the
extent to which they have strived to translate them into a more radical, politically engaged
research programme. On the one hand, scholars engaging in paradigmatic and methodological
reflections on the use of critical realism and applying it to empirical inquiries into accounting
change processes vary in their emphasis on retroduction and retrodiction to derive theoretically
informed explanations but very rarely strive to radicalise the research agenda (but see Modell,
in press). On the other hand, researchers advancing critical commentaries on emerging
accounting policies and practices mobilise critical realism as a basis for political engagement
26
but do so in a way that is largely detached from deeper empirical inquiries or any concerted
efforts to advance more theoretically informed, explanatory critiques. Moreover, similar to the
use of critical realism in organisation and management studies (Al-Amoudi and Willmott,
2011), issues of epistemic relativism and how they condition our ability to explain and critique
the world are not universally recognised. Whilst increasingly featuring as a central concern in
paradigmatic and methodological reflections (Brown and Brignall, 2007; Modell, 2009, 2013,
in press), explicit deliberations on how epistemic premises shape research practices are largely
absent from empirical inquiries and commentaries on accounting policies and practices.
To some extent, this fragmented state of critical realist accounting research is understandable
in light of the divisions and varying emphases that have emerged over time within the larger,
critical realist research programme. For instance, the use of retroduction and retrodiction as
methods of explanation is of central concern in research that follows Bhaskar’s foundational
works (e.g., Elder-Vass, 2010; Lawson, 1997), but is much less salient in Archer’s (1995, 2000,
2003, 2007) elaborations on how to examine the interplay between structure and agency and
her subsequent, empirical research into subjective processes of identity formation and
reflexivity. Whilst empirical inquiries into how reflexivity translates into individual and
collective strategies of emancipation are pivotal for explaining how oppressive social orders
may be overcome, accounting scholars have only very recently recognised their significance
within a broader, critical realist framework (see Modell, in press; Stergiou et al., 2013) and
have yet to extend such inquiries to incorporate explanatory critiques such as those proposed
by Bhaskar (1986). However, it is also worth recalling that the efficacy of explanatory critiques
as a vehicle of emancipation is by no means uncontested among critical realists and that there
are doubts about the extent to which a clearly identifiable programme of political engagement
and activism centred on such critiques has actually materialised. Against this backdrop it is
perhaps not surprising to find emerging accounting research informed by critical realism being
divided in its emphasis on deeper empirical work and more politically engaged scholarship
and, as a result, remaining somewhat agnostic about the pursuit of explanatory critiques.
Nevertheless, I want to argue that much can be gained from nurturing a more integrative
approach that draws on diverse strands of critical realist thought and that is explicitly geared
towards advancing refined explanatory critiques such as to those outlined earlier in this paper.
By mobilising diverse theories through retroductive and retrodictive modes of explanation,
researchers may ensure that a wider range of social actors being affected by particular
accounting policies and practices are given a voice and are not unduly neglected in the process
27
of advancing such critiques. However, to prevent this from becoming an overly abstract and
introvert academic exercise, it is worthwhile to ground such theorising in in-depth engagements
with the subjective, lived experiences of agents in the spirit of Archer’s (2003, 2007) empirical
work. Doing so may help releasing the emancipatory impulse which Bhaskar (1986) ascribes
to the social sciences but which much critical realist research has arguably failed to realise as
it may compel researchers to engage in direct interventions and dialogue with diverse social
actors about how accounting is implicated in constraining and enabling their possibilities of
emancipation. Processes of retroductive and retrodictive theorising may be of considerable help
in such interventions as they not only compel researchers (and other actors) to trace the
oppressive consequences of accounting to specific, generative mechanisms and explore the
interplay between such mechanisms, but also provide a basis for pondering how such
consequences might be mitigated if the causal powers embedded in particular mechanisms
were activated in different ways. According to Lacey (1997), it may be especially enlightening
to confront groups of marginalised social actors with such theorising by soliciting their
reactions to theoretical explanations favouring more dominant actors and interests. This may
provoke responses highlighting alternative, but previously unrecognised, explanations that
may, in turn, stimulate further reflection on the workings of generative mechanisms and their
emancipatory potential. Thought experiments pivoting on retroductive and retrodictive
theorising may thus reveal unanticipated possibilities of emancipation. They may also engender
broader debates about the workings of the mechanisms underpinning particular accounting
policies and practices and thus stimulate collective forms of reflexivity with the potential to
engender more far-reaching changes. Explanatory critiques pivoting on notions of retroduction
and retrodiction should thus be seen as complementary to extended empirical engagements
rather than as a mode of inquiry that will inevitably abstract from the phenomena under
examination and distance researchers from the pursuit of radical social change.
However, in light of the scepticism of some critical realists about the efficacy of explanatory
critiques as some unmediated means of emancipation (e.g., Elder-Vass, 2010; Sayer, 1997) it
would be fallacious to assume that empirical engagements and researcher interventions will
invariably clear the path to this end. Following the tenor of critical realism, any engagement
geared towards unlocking the emancipatory potential of social actors needs to consider the
structural constraints impinging on this potential. Whilst explanatory critiques pivoting on
retroduction and retrodiction may provide some insights into how such constraints may be
overcome, it is necessary to recognise that they are often grounded in deeply embedded and
28
rather resilient historical contingencies. Even though some critical realists, such as Archer
(2007), have started to question the ubiquitous presence of historically contingent constraints
such as social class in modern society, I have argued that refined explanatory critiques need to
reckon with their diverse manifestations in specific social contexts. Doing so is important to
prevent processes of retroduction and retrodiction from being overly concerned with current
and local conditions affecting the possibilities of emancipation whilst neglecting how such
conditions have become more or less entrenched over time. Whilst the attention to historical
contingencies varies in emerging critical realist accounting research, their more specific
influence on generative mechanisms requires more systematic recognition in future inquiries
seeking to imbue such research with some emancipatory intent. It is here that the contingent
approach to realising the possibilities of emancipation outlined by Modell (in press) becomes
potentially useful. This contingent view explicitly recognises that the ontological possibilities
of emancipation will vary with both objective, structural conditions and the subjective
processes of identity formation conducive to nurturing an element of reflexivity. As such, it
aims to enlighten researchers of the varying opportunities of pursuing explanatory critiques
and engaging with accounting policies and practices in such a way that historical (and other)
contingencies receive due attention. As noted by Sayer (1997), however, critical realist research
interventions also need to be sensitive to the unintended and potentially damaging
consequences that may follow from explanatory critiques in a complex and increasingly
interconnected world. Recognising such potentialities is necessary given the view of critical
realist knowledge claims as always being under-determined by the social realities to which they
refer.
By situating explanatory critiques in relation to historical contingencies as well as continuously
evolving empirical contexts, critical realist accounting research may begin to transcend
controversies such as those repeatedly erupting between accounting scholars with Marxist and
post-structuralist sympathies. Through their recognition of the potentially durable, structural
mechanisms originating in historical contingencies such critiques may preserve some
sensitivity to the historical materialism associated with Marxist thought whilst doing so in a
way that escapes overly deterministic interpretations of its effects on contemporary society.
However, they also affirm the need to ground analyses of the workings of such mechanisms in
specific empirical locales where the discursive practices occupying post-structuralists take
shape and condition the possibilities of emancipation. Moreover, they are capable of doing so
in a way that preserves researchers’ sensitivity to subjective processes of identity formation
29
without downplaying their co-evolution and interactions with objective, structural
mechanisms. Hence critical realism has the capacity to take critical accounting research beyond
at least some of the ruptures emerging within this broad area of accounting scholarship over
the past decades. Apart from offering an ontological alternative that does not force researchers
to choose between an objectivist position underpinned by historical materialism and more
actor-centric concerns with subjectivity, it also comes with an epistemology that is void of any
innate, ideological commitments to specific theories and thus open to a multitude of ways of
explaining the world. But herein also lies a potential weakness in so far as the nurturing of
critical scholarship is concerned. As noted by Collier (1994), critical realism does not
automatically licence theories conducive to human emancipation but is, in principle, capable
of supporting any theory including those legitimising policies with potentially oppressive
effects. A particular challenge would thus seem to pertain to ensuring that critical realist
accounting research is imbued with genuinely critical or emancipatory intent.
Addressing this challenge raises a range of epistemic issues of which accounting scholars
engaging with critical realism need to be cognisant. Whilst the challenges of maintaining
critical intent are of general concern in critical accounting research (see e.g., Arrington and
Watkins, 2002; Roslender and Dillard, 2003), a critical realist mode of inquiry such as that
outlined above would seem to face some specific issues. A first, overriding issue is that of
ensuring that critical realism is brought firmly into the fold of the critical accounting research
community such that it is not mainly employed to research tasks without any specific critical
thrust or, at worst, in the service of research with a distinctly conservative value orientation.
As a relatively novel strand of accounting research it may face the typical challenges of being
more widely accepted by particular epistemic communities as a valid and worthwhile project
(cf. Lukka, 2010; Lukka and Modell, 2010). However, without some firm endorsement by
critical accounting scholars there is a danger of critical realist accounting research losing its
not yet fully fledged critical edge. This has arguably been the fate of much critical realist
research in other parts of the social sciences and is a risk that needs to be guarded against in an
increasingly variegated and, some would argue, eclectic research climate where concerns with
theoretical prowess sometimes tend to dominate over methodological consistency and rigour
(cf. Modell, 2013; Roslender, 2013). In seeking such endorsement, however, researchers need
to restrain any impulses to compromise the distinctive features of critical realism. A particular
challenge in this regard would be to resist the strongly empiricist tendencies currently
prevailing in parts of the wider, inter-disciplinary accounting research community (Roslender,
30
2013). As noted in the foregoing, critical realist accounting research has not been entirely
immune to the allure of such empiricism (cf. Ashraf and Uddin, 2013; Stergiou et al., 2013).
But pursuing a strongly empiricist path implies a risk of underplaying the role of critical realism
as philosophical under-labourer stimulating systematic employment of a diverse set of
substantive theories to explain and critique particular social phenomena. Whilst critical realism
affirms the value of empirical research, it does so within the premises of its stratified ontology
which compels researchers to go significantly beyond immediate empirical observations to
theorise and probe into the partially knowable, generative mechanisms residing in the domain
of the real. Sacrificing such analytical depth as a result of some temptation to speak only of
what is immediately observable in the empirical domain would seriously compromise the
critical potential of critical realist accounting research.
Another set of epistemic issues pertain to how the critical intent of such research can be
maintained during extended engagements with the empirical contexts where specific inquiries
and research interventions are situated. Whilst this matter is receiving increasing attention in
the critical accounting literature (e.g., Cooper, 2005; Cooper and Coulson, in press; Neu et al.,
2001) there would, again, seem to be some issues that are specific to a critical realist mode of
inquiry. One such issue concerns the premises under which explanatory critiques based on
repeated cycles of retroductive and retrodictive theorising can be mobilised to uphold critical
intent. Whilst I have sought to outline how thought experiments pivoting on such theorising
may help unlocking the emancipatory potential of social actors, it is worth noting that the
possibilities of doing so may be constrained by social contingencies bearing directly on the
content and scope of research interventions. As indicated by Brown and Brignall (2007), the
possibilities of deeper probing through the use of alternative theories or methods may be
limited by the prevalence of dominant social elites with an interest in promoting certain
findings. In other cases, engagements with such elites may be necessary to sustain explanatory
critiques. This is especially likely to be the case where extant structures and accounting
practices are firmly entrenched by historical contingencies and researchers have little choice
but to liaise with the elites favoured by such practices to muster support for emancipatory
projects (Modell, in press). This reinforces the contention that notions of epistemic relativism
conditioning critical realist knowledge claims and the possibilities of pursuing explanatory
critiques cannot be confined to concerns with academic acceptability and endorsement but also
need to be understood in relation to the empirical contexts in which research interventions
unfold.
31
To conclude, there are reasons for being sanguine about the potential of critical realist
accounting research as a basis for critical scholarship. Even though it has yet to evolve into a
more coherent and integrative research programme, it rests on a versatile and tolerant
philosophy of science that is capable of supporting a multitude of theories and research
methods. As such, it is well-positioned to contribute to the continuous efforts to build a critical
accounting research community that is open to novel ways of engaging with accounting
policies and practices. The challenge, as in many other strands of critical accounting research,
is to ensure that it continues to nurture some explicit, critical intent. I have argued that this
challenge is primarily related to a range of epistemic issues conditioning whether critical
realism will become more widely accepted and recognised by critical accounting scholars and
be applied in such a way that it helps unlocking the emancipatory potential of social actors.
However, critical realism should not be seen as some panacea in this respect. Recognising the
charges against Bhaskar for pursuing an essentially hegemonic agenda of promoting critical
realism as a universally applicable under-labourer to the social sciences, it is pertinent to close
this paper by cautioning against any tendencies to take it as a carte blanche for suppressing
continued debate on how to develop the philosophical foundations of critical accounting
research.
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38
Study
Concerns with
Explicit use of
Attention to
Attention to
Attention to
advancing
retroduction/
historical
subjectivity/
epistemic
radical social
retrodiction
contingencies
reflexivity
premises
critique
Paradigmatic and methodological reflections
Llewellyn
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Modell (2009)
No
Partly
No
No
Yes
Modell (2013)
No
Partly
No
No
Yes
Modell (in
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
(2007, 2008)
Brown and
Brignall (2007)
press)
Empirical studies of accounting change processes
Ashraf and
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
Uddin (2013)
Stergiou et al.
(2013)
Mutiganda
(2013)
Critical commentaries on emerging accounting policies and practices
Burrowes et al.
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
(2004)
Smyth (2012)
Table 1. Elements of refined explanatory critique in critical realist accounting research.
39