Debating Diversity in Management Accounting Research

This paper chronicles the evolution of the academic debate regarding diversity in management accounting research and discusses its impact on the current state of management accounting research.

We review the stream of literature over the last 40-plus years that discusses diversity in management accounting.

Anthony’s 1972 paper in Sloan Management Review makes a call to academics to adjust the trajectory of management accounting research. Our review of the literature reveals that early responses in the 1980s and 1990s to Anthony’s call primarily came from U.S. academics who suggest a broader theoretical approach and more work in the field. After 2000, non-U.S. authors and non-U.S. journals take up the call for diversity and shift the discussion to the more fundamental topic of validating and accepting various research paradigms. The U.S. academic environment fosters a narrow yet important view of management account research. To balance the U.S. view, non-U.S. academics have the liberty of using diverse theories, paradigms, and methods.

The results of the study indicate that the challenge to moving management accounting research forward is for diverse research approaches to be valued and published in top accounting journals that tend to be U.S. based.