IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00493175.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Back to the Origins of Positive Theories: A Contribution to an Analysis of Paradigm Changes in Accounting Research

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Jeanjean

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Carlos Ramirez

    (GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

In this article, we analyse factors that explain the success of the empirical methodology of 'positive accounting theory' (PA) in accounting research. In fewer than ten years, between 1960 and 1967-1968, PA became dominant in the main accounting journals, and normative theories disappeared from academic publishing. The reasons for this success are not clearly established. The propagators of PA (Ball and Brown, 1968, Watts and Zimmerman, 1986) advocate the fertility of their approach, while others (e.g. Mattessich, 1995, Mouck, 1988, Whittington, 1987, Williams, 1989) denounce their ostracism and systematic denigration of rival approaches. Both proponents and opponents of PA consider the emergence of positive theories as a radical severance, however, we suggest that the move from normative to positive theories occurred gradually. Even if they took advantage of the reform that took place in US business schools during the 1950s, the proponents of PA also benefited from a decoupling between the academic world and accounting practice initiated by their predecessors.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Jeanjean & Carlos Ramirez, 2009. "Back to the Origins of Positive Theories: A Contribution to an Analysis of Paradigm Changes in Accounting Research," Post-Print hal-00493175, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00493175
    DOI: 10.1080/17449480902896510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kym Fraser & Benedict Sheehy, 2020. "Abundant Publications but Minuscule Impact: The Irrelevance of Academic Accounting Research on Practice and the Profession," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-36, October.
    2. Rajat Deb, 2019. "Accounting Theory Coherence Revisited," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 44(1), pages 36-57, February.
    3. Pankaj Kumar Baag & Kavitha P, 2017. "Philosophies and tradition of accounting research," Working papers 260, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    4. Igor Álvarez & José Calvo & Araceli Mora, 2014. "Involving academics in the accounting standard setting process: an application of the Delphi methodology to the assessment of IASB proposals," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(3), pages 765-791, August.
    5. Andrew Higson & Rasha Kassem, 2016. "Accounting Research: Relevance Lost," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(1), pages 59-76.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00493175. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.