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Making Sense of Social Practice: Theoretical Pluralism in Public Sector Accounting Research: A Comment
Author(s) -
Modell Sven
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
financial accountability and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.661
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1468-0408
pISSN - 0267-4424
DOI - 10.1111/faam.12004
Subject(s) - pluralism (philosophy) , accounting research , sociology , epistemology , public sector , critical realism (philosophy of perception) , indigenous , positive economics , realism , social science , political science , economics , accounting , law , philosophy , ecology , biology
This paper offers a comment on Jacobs (2012) published previously in this journal. Particular attention is paid to how theoretical pluralism may be defended on paradigmatic grounds whilst being mobilised as a vehicle of generating practice‐relevant insights. My critique of Jacobs focuses on his ambiguous positioning of multi‐paradigm research and the possibilities of developing some ‘indigenous’ accounting theory to render research relevant for practice. As an alternative mode of addressing these issues I propose a position based on critical realism and elaborate on how it may be used to stimulate and defend theoretical pluralism in public sector accounting research.