Accounting From the Inside: Legitimizing the Accounting Academic Elite

A Critical Theory perspective on the pressures, contradictions and dilemmas faced by entry-level accounting academics

“…35 The Report of the Murray Committee in Australia (1957, cited in Macintyre, 2007, emphasis added) put forward the view, consistent with my arguments here, that the greatest advances in knowledge have come "because free inquirers have been pursuing their own ideas and insights, devotedly and with great persistence, in pursuit of enlightenment for its own sake". Lee and Williams (1999) lament that mainstream accounting research is virtually unheard-of, and rarely cited, outside the narrow boundary of our discipline, a fact which supports those authors' argument that mainstream, especially capital markets, research is, presently, "a body that lacks the vitality required for scientific or intellectual progress" (p. 890) and, furthermore, it is "a pure reputational system as opposed to a vibrant knowledge system" (p. 889).…”

“…"gatekeeper" US-based journal editors and reviewers who block non-US and non-elite school academics from publishing in the 3 top-tier US journals, i.e. JAE, TAR and JAR (Brinn et al, 2001;Lee and Williams, 1999); impolite and delayed journal referee reports, usually associated with those same 3 journals (Tinker, 2006); and self-referential clusters of reciprocal citations, again within the top-tier US journals, which constitutes a mechanism that a closed elite uses to maintain power and reproduce itself (Lee and Williams, 1999). By pursuing scholarship for its own sake 35 34 The term Marcuse (1964) uses is "Happy Consciousness" (see, e.g.…”

It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it? Of method and madness

“…It is not just that such a question is largely what gives our scholarship meaning but also as we sit in our comfortable, molly-coddled and largely undeserved selfabsorption, we should not escape, we would argue, the notion that our privilege brings with it an equivalent level of responsibility. That responsibility is, it seems to us, to seek to address the most important of the problems that we perceive and which may fall within our purview and ability, (Sikka et al, 1995;Fogarty, 1998;Lee and Williams, 1999). And it is what we determine to be important that gives meaning and purpose to our research (see, for example, Jones et al, 2000) and, arguably, to our lives.…”

A case study of critique: Critical perspectives on critical accounting

“…25, issue 1). Within this category, we include studies that critique mainstream neoliberal hegemony in the accounting academy (Lee & Williams, 1999;Schwarz, Williams & Williams, 2005). Considering the abstract and amorphous nature of various ideologies, it is not surprising that only a few of the articles conclude with concrete recommendations for improving social and political praxis.…”

“…Standard-setting Theories Ideologies NPM Briloff, 1990 Ponemon, 1990Mitchell & Sikka, 1993Briloff, 1993 Walker, 1993 Davis & Strawser, 1993 Hooks & Moon, 1993Briloff, 1993 Hanlon, 1996 Seal et al, 1996 Briloff, 1999Cousins et al, 1999 Fuerman, 1999 Green,1999Miller, 1999 Peck, 1999 Ward, 1999 Catchpowle & Cooper, 1999 Cullinan & Sutton, 2002 Baker & Owsen, 2002Everett et al, 2005 Bakre, 2005 DiGabriele, 2008 Radcliffe, 2008Lee et al, 2008 Newberry & Robb, 2008Dellaportas & Davenport, 2008 McKinstry, 2008 Funnell, 2011 Hasseldine, Holland & van der Rij, 2011 Radcliffe , 2011Boyce, 2014Lehman, 2014Nickell & Roberts, 2014 Everett & Tremblay, 2014 Edgle, 2014 Dellaportas, 2014 Hunt & Holger, 1990 Committe, 1990 Robson, 1993Cousins & Sikka, 1993 Ohsawa & Tinker, 1993Bryer, 1999 Macve, 1999 Robson, 1999 Samuelson, 1999 Whittington, 1999Bryer, 1999Shapiro, 2002 Coleman, 2014 Froud et al, 2014Mihret, 2014Soufian et al, 2014 Dillard & Nehmer, 1990 Murray & Knights, 1990 Humphrey & Moizer, 1990 Lukka, 1990 Funnell, 1990Bryer, 1993 Hooper & Pratt, 1993 Munro & Hatherly, 1993 Chwastiak, 1996Neu & Taylor, 1996 Fogarty & Ruhl, 1996 Dempsey, 1996Lee, 1999Chwastiak, 1999Lee & Williams, 1999 Baker, 2002 Humphrey, 2002 Filling et al, 2002 Armstrong, 2002 Drennan & Kelly, 2002 Ezzamel & Hoskin, 2002Oguri. 2005 Jinnai, 2005 Chand, 2005 Shapiro, 2005Schwartz et al, 2005Bourguignon, 2005 Pesqueux, 2005Lehman, 2005 Broadbent et al, 2008Alawattage & Wickramasinghe, 2008Cronin, 2008Bakre, 2008 Murphy, 2008 Everett, 2008Gleadle & Cornelius, 2008 Jeacle, 2008 Nagy &am...…”