Forthcoming in Critical Perspectives on Accounting.
Critical Realist Accounting Research:
In Search of Its Emancipatory Potential
Sven Modell
Alliance Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
and
NHH – Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen
Address:
Alliance Manchester Business School
University of Manchester
Crawford House
Booth Street West
Manchester M15 6PB
United Kingdom
E-mail:
Acknowledgements:Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the Critical Perspectives on Accounting conference, Toronto (2014) and seminars at the Universities of Canterbury, Dundee, Sheffield, Sydney and Wellington.I am very gratefulfor the constructive feedbackand guidance provided by the Editor (Yves Gendron) and two anonymous CPA reviewers. Valuable feedback on earlier drafts and presentations of the paper was alsoprovided by Paul Ahn, Max Baker, David Cooper,Jonathan Joseph, Kari Lukka, Markus Milne, Robin Roslender and Stewart Smyth.
Critical Realist Accounting Research:
In Search of Its Emancipatory Potential
Abstract
Over the past decade, a growing body of accounting research explicitly informed by critical realism has started to emerge and be deployed to diverse research tasks.Although the majority of this research lacks a clearly articulated emancipatory intent, several commentators have recently singled out critical realism as a promising way forward for critical accounting research. This paper seeks to advance this debate by addressing the questions of how the emancipatory potential of critical realism can be realised and how it may contribute to critical accounting research. In doing so, I draw on recent developments in critical realist thought which attempt to reconcile its ontological foundations with those of other social theorists, such as Giddens, Bourdieu and Foucault. This leads to an ontological synthesis pivoting on the interplay between exogenous structures, which reflect the objective life conditions of individual human beings, and endogenous structures, which conditiontheir subjective capacity for reflexivity. I elaborate on how this interplay gives rise to a highly contingent conception of the possibilities of emancipation and examine the extent to which such a view is evident in critical realist accounting research and cognate bodies of critical accounting scholarship. I also examine the epistemological and methodological implications of adopting such a view and how critical research interventions in accounting, centred on the critical realist notion of explanatory critique, can be matched with the contingent possibilities of emancipation. I argue that such critiques can make a valuable contribution to critical accounting research as they compel researchers to go considerably beyond what is immediately observable and probe into the deeper structural conditions that constrain as well as enable emancipation. This may enable accounting scholars to envisage a broader range of alternative, but previously unrecognised, paths towards emancipation. It also provides a counterweight to empiricist modes of explanation, primarily based on observed regularities in social phenomena, which arguably tend to dominate contemporary policy debates.
Key words: accounting, critical realism, emancipation, explanatory critique, retroduction, retrodiction.
Critical Realist Accounting Research:
In Search of Its Emancipatory Potential
- 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. From time to time, this has generated heateddebatesabout the suitability and efficacy of particular approaches for the furthering of critical scholarship (e.g., Armstrong, 1994; Hoskin, 1994; Neimark, 1990, 1994; Tinker, 1999, 2005).However, there also seems to be some emerging consensus that, as a whole, the field has been enriched by the flourishing of diverse strands of critical thought (Arrington and Watkins, 2002; 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. Tracing its origins to the pioneering works of Bhaskar (1975, 1979),critical realism has exercised increasing influence on cognate areas of scholarship such as organisation and management studies (e.g., Fleetwood and Ackroyd, 2004; Reed, 2009; Tsoukas, 1989). Yet its influence on the accounting literature was long rather cursory(e.g., Armstrong, 2004, 2006; Manicas, 1993; Whitley, 1988). It is only over the past decade that accounting scholars have made more explicit and extensive use ofit to debate paradigmatic and methodological issues (Ashraf and Uddin, 2015a;Brown and Brignall, 2007; Llewellyn, 2007; Modell, 2009, 2013, 2015a, 2015b), examine processes of accounting change (Ashraf and Uddin, 2013, 2015b, 2016; 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 recent literature reviews and commentaries 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 (Everett et al., 2015; Kilfoyle and Richardson, 2011; Roslender, 2013).
Parallel to this growing interest in critical realism among accounting scholars,significant efforts have been made toreconcile it withsocial theorists, such as Giddens (see Stones, 2001, 2005), Bourdieu (see Elder-Vass, 2007, 2010) and Foucault (see Al-Amoudi, 2007; Joseph, 2004),with more long-standing influence on critical accounting scholarship. This opens up the issues of how critical realism overlaps with and/or complements cognatebodies of critical accounting research and what might be its distinct contributionsin taking such research forward.The relevance of exploring these issues is underscored by the repeated criticisms of critical realism for sacrificing itscritical, or emancipatory,zeal in its efforts to establish itself as an explanatory philosophy of science (e.g., Brown et al., 2002; Gunn, 1989; Roberts, 1999, 2002;Willmott, 2005). It is alsounderlined by the divisions within critical realism between scholars who view it as imbued with a more or less inherent emancipatory impulse (e.g., Archer, 2012; Bhaskar, 1986) and those whoremain more sceptical about its achievementsas a basis for politically engaged scholarship(e.g., Hammersley, 2002; Sayer, 1997; Vandenberghe, 2014).Similar divisionsare discernible in critical realist accounting research. The majority of this research lacks a clearly articulated emancipatory intent. Moreover, most advances using critical realismas a basis for social critique have been divorced fromdeeper empirical research (Burrowes et al., 2004; Modell, 2015a; Smyth, 2012). It is only very recently that a more clearly discernible emancipatory intent has started to feature in empirical inquiries into accounting change processes (Ashraf and Uddin, 2015b, 2016).
The discussion above raises the questions of how the emancipatory potential of critical realismcan be realised and how anempirical research programme following its philosophical underpinnings cancontribute tocritical accounting research. Drawing on recent advances in critical realist thought, such as those alluded to above, I address these questions and develop a framework outlining the ontological, epistemological and methodological foundations of such research.I argue that the recent attempts to reconcile critical realism with other social theories have helped in advancing an ontological perspective that provides a refined understanding of the interplay between the social structures which condition[1]thepossibilities of emancipation. The possibilities for individual human beings to escape or initiate change in oppressive accounting practices are seen as constrained as well as enabled by the objective (or exogenous) structures in which they are embedded and the subjective (or endogenous) structures which govern their more innate dispositions to act in particular ways.Understanding the highly contingent interplay between these two types of structures, which is more or less unique to particular social contexts, is vital in order to envisage which possibilities of change and emancipation may be at hand in such contexts. To make epistemological and methodological sense of this interplay and how it may be translated into critical research interventions I elaborate on the critical realist notion of explanatory critique. Such critiques rely on the ability of researchers to go considerably beyond what is immediately observable through empirical inquiries to probe into the deeper structural conditions that might and actually do affect the possibilities of emancipation. This may enable accounting scholars to envisage a broader range of alternative, but previously unrecognised, paths towards emancipation. I describe howresearch interventions centred on explanatory critiques can be brought about and make a distinct contribution to critical accounting research.
The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. I start by outliningthe ontological foundationsof critical realism and how they have been extended through its recent rapprochement with other social theories. I then discuss theepistemological and methodological implicationsof turning critical realism into a genuinely criticalresearch programmepivoting on explanatory critiques. Throughout this discussion of ontological, epistemological and methodological issues Ireview the achievements ofcritical realist accounting researchand contrast it with cognate bodies of critical accounting scholarship. I conclude the paper with some brief remarks which summarisewhat I see as the emancipatory potential of critical realism and its contributions to critical accounting research.
- Ontological Foundations and Extensions
2.1 Developments in critical realist thought
As a philosophical foundation for the social sciences, critical realism rests on an ontology which combines a moderate version of realism with a moderate version of social constructivism (Elder-Vass, 2012). As such, ithas been widely celebrated as a promising avenue for transcending the divide between objectivism and subjectivism(e.g., Delbridge and Edwards, 2013; Fleetwood, 2005; Reed, 2009; Sayer, 2000), which has long permeated debates about the nature of research paradigms in accounting academia (e.g., Chua, 1986; Hopper and Powell, 1985; Kakkuri-Knuuttila et al., 2008). Critical realists accomplish this by subscribing to a “stratified” ontology, which typically portrays the world as structured across the domains of the real, the actual and the empirical (Bhaskar, 1975, 1986).
According to Bhaskar (1986), the social world is made up of objective, or objectified, structures that are at least partly beyond the immediate grasp and influence of individual human beings, but which require an element of subjectively induced agency to have certain effects. Objective structures exist in the domain of the real and are imbued with the causal powers, or potential, to give rise to certain events. Events are said to occur in the domain of the actual, which is distinct from the domain of the real since the mere existence of certain structures and causal powers does not automatically generate particular events. Instead, the actual occurrence of social events depends on whether human beings engage with particular structures and how this contributes to activate their causal powers.However, the activation of causal powersis an inherently indeterminate phenomenon[2], the full effects of which are rarely, if ever,known or knowableto individual human beings. Certain events may occur without all human beings being able to empirically experience and make sense of them through theirsubjective senses. Hence it is not sufficient to only separate the domain of the real from that of the actual. It is alsonecessary to distinguishthe actual occurrence of events from the ability of human beings to experience them and thus separate the domain of the actual from that of the empirical.As noted by several commentators, it is indeed quite rare for all events resulting from the activation of particular causal powers to be fully experienced by all human beingswho are affected by them (e.g., Elder-Vass, 2010; Fleetwood, 2005; Vandenberghe, 2014). Critical realiststhusaffirm the social constructivist emphasis on people’s empirical experiences as an inherently subjective phenomenon, without jettisoning the realistnotion that actually occurring events aredistinct from such experiences andconditioned by objective structures.
The view of change andemancipation embedded in this “stratified” ontology is one which recognises that social structures are imbued with a certain degree of stability, but that they are not immutable and infinitely resistant to change. Through their engagements with the objectified social structures conditioning their action repertoires, individual and groups of agents contribute to a process whereby such structures are either reproduced or transformed over time. Structural change may be brought about as agents contribute to activate the causal powers embedded in structures which counteract those embedded in previouslydominantstructures. This gives rise to an emergent view of change where human agency is seen as conditioned bymultiple social structures (Bhaskar, 1979, 1986). To Bhaskar (1986), it is this emergent view of change, representing a clear break with more deterministic notions of social development, which imbues critical realism with an inherent emancipatory impulse. Through their interactions with diverse social structures, individual and groups of agents may be able to envisage structures with the causal power to alleviate or reverse the oppressive effects of other structures and set a process of structural change in motion. However, such efforts to change social structures will be more or less constrained by structures with the causal power to preserve oppressive states of affairs. This renders structural change an uncertain eventuality. As we shall see later in this paper, it also requires us to adopt a highly contingent view of the possibilities of emancipation as conditioned by a complex interplay between structures with constraining and enabling powers.
Central to this view of change and emancipation is the notion that human beings possess an innate capacity for reflexivity, defined as the mental ability to consider themselves and their practices in relation to their social context and vice versa (Archer, 2007).Without such reflexivity human beings would be unable to deliberate on the world and envisage opportunities for change. Extending Bhaskar’s (1986) view of social development, Archer (1995) advanced her “morphogenetic approach” which subsequently formed a stepping stone for extensive empirical work exploring the interplay between social structures and reflexive agency (Archer, 2003, 2007, 2012). This model makes a clearer temporal distinction between the social structures that precede and emerge from the exercise of human agency. It also affords a more central position to individual human beings as reflexive actors involved in mediating change.Propagating the thesis that human beings possess a universal capacity for reflexivity, Archer (2003, 2007) develops a typology of how such reflexivity manifestsitself and is translated into individualstrategies of social mobility. In doing so, shehasstarted to question the ubiquity of structural constraints, such as those embedded in social class, in contemporary society (see especially Archer, 2012).However,these works have been criticised forceding too much terrain to the notion of human beings as relatively autonomous in relation to social structures(Elder-Vass, 2007, 2010) and thereby underplaying the extent to which suchstructures shape subjective identities and the capacity for reflexivity (Joseph, 2014; Mutch, 2004; Vandenberghe, 2014). Addressing these criticisms is important to preserve a strong sense of how extant structures condition the capacity for reflexivity and, by implication, the possibilities for human beings to advance individual and collective strategies of emancipation. It is here that recent attempts to reconcile critical realism with other social theories make a distinct contribution.
Starting with Stones’s (2001, 2005)[3] attempt to settle the long-standing quarrel between Archer and Giddens, we arrive at a more fine-grained conception of the structures that condition the possibilities of human agency. Archer’s critique of Giddens pivots on the latter’s alleged tendency to conflate the notions of agency and structure by treating the two asmutually constitutive at any given time. By doing so, Giddens arguably fails to clearly distinguishbetween the structures that precede and emerge from the exercise of human agency(see Archer, 1982, 1995). Stones (2001, 2005) affirms the need to make a clearer temporal distinction between structure and agency. However, to avoid the pitfall of conceiving of reflexivity and human agency as overly autonomous in relation to pre-existing structures, he proposes a distinction between social structures as either external or internal to individual human beings. External structures refer to the objectified structures that are largely beyond the influence of specific individuals although theycondition the possibilities of agency. By contrast, internal structures are the values, beliefs and norms that have been internalised by individual human beings and thus have a more direct influence on their subjective identities and relative propensity for reflexivity. Whilst analytically distinct, these two dimensions of structure are seen as interacting with each other and shaping the possibilities of reflexive agency.
A similar distinction between different types of structures emerges from Elder-Vass’s (2007, 2010) attempt to reconcile the ontological conceptions of agency of Archer and Bourdieu.Contrasting Archer’s notion of reflexivity with the moresub-conscious and routine forms of action associated with Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, Elder-Vass (2007, 2010) argues that human beings have a capacity for both and that the propensity for one or the other depends on which types of actions areconcerned. Whilst human beings may exercise a high degree of reflexivityand attempt to change their life conditions when taking certain types of actions,they still draw on their internalised values, beliefs and normsin a more sub-conscious manner when engaging inothers.The propensity for individual agency is thus structuredand co-determined by both reflexivity and habitus. Moreover, the objective structural context in which the resultant action patterns occur will be more or less conducive to agency aimed at altering the individual’s life conditions. Some contexts will have a strongly constraining influence on individuals’ capacity to pursue change, regardless of how reflexive they are, whilst others will encourage or demand a high degree of reflexivity.
Kindredattempts to explain how the objective and subjective dimensions of structure work in tandem can be found in works that seekto reconcile the ontology ofcritical realismwith that of Foucault (Al-Amoudi, 2007; Joseph, 2004).Theseworks have sought to demonstrate how the subjectifying effects of discourse associated with Foucault do not necessarily negate the influence of objective structures on human agency. This breaks with more extreme variants of post-modernist thought, according to which objective structures outside of discourse are of little significance. As argued by Joseph (2004), the ways in which objective structures condition human agency need to be brought to the fore to imbue Foucaultian analyses with a stronger sense of when theoppressive effects of subjectification, epitomised by thenotion of disciplinary power,may be alleviated and when they are exacerbated. Whilst processes of subjectification are never totalising, they are often seen as imbuing human beings with a propensity for sub-conscious compliance with dominant social orders. However, from a critical realist perspective, the question of what constrains and enables the possibilities of emancipation cannot be reduced to notions of subjectivity.It also needs to entail an appreciation of the objective conditions which bear on these possibilities.