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The Manufacture of the Academic Accountant

This paper explores a doctoral accounting program to investigate how a multivocal environment impacts innovation and the training mechanisms at work. It discusses the role of mediators, texts, and resource relationships in knowledge production. Findings highlight students' backgrounds, experiences, and the importance of academic supervisors. The discussion emphasizes the reproduction of the research field, the insufficiency of the doctoral program structure, and the epistemological processes involved. The conclusion addresses the reproduction of resource relations and the limitations of European accounting paradigms, while suggestions aim to strengthen the paper's analysis and theoretical framework.

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The Manufacture of the Academic Accountant

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  1. The Manufactureof theAcademic Accountant Kenneth A. Fox & Alycia Evans Edwards School of BusinessUniversity of Saskatchewan Discussant:Cameron Graham Schulich School of Business

  2. Overview of the Paper • Introduction • The accounting academy • Social studies of science • Method • Findings • Discussion • Conclusion

  3. Introduction • Panozzo (1997) • US academy has rigorous research paradigm • European academy has fragmented paradigms • This paper studies a “streamed” doctoral program • Questions • Doesmultivocal environment promote innovation? • What are the mechanisms at work in training? • Contribution • Rich environment of mediators • Role of texts

  4. The Accounting Academy • Dominance of US paradigm • Contribution to science? • Relevance to practice? • Reproduction of quantitative researchers • Education and training • Publication and choice of journals • Recruitment, tenure and promotion

  5. Social Studies of Science • Constructivist perspectives • Bloor: sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) • Latour & Callon: ANT and ethnomethodology • Popper: philosophers of science • Knorr-Cetina (1981) • Science as “community”: Too introspective • Science as “economic system”: Too limited • Trans-scientific field • Includes non-academic actors • Struggle over resource relationships • Scientists • Resources • Mechanisms of knowledge production

  6. Method • Observation of a doctoral accounting program • Financial Economics stream • Judgement & Decision Making stream • Interdisciplinary stream • Auto-ethnography or document analysis? • Semi-structured “analytical” interviews • Joint production of knowledge with interviewees • 7 (or 8?) on-campus doctoral students • 30-60 minutes each • 6 hours in total

  7. Findings 1 • Characteristics of students’ backgrounds • 3.75 years in program • Accounting or business degrees • Most had attended doctoral colloquia

  8. Findings 2 • Experiences • Varying perceptions of stream structure • Theoretical or methodological boundaries? • Related to wider field of research

  9. Findings 3 • Doctoral colloquia • Socialization • Networking • Reputation building

  10. Findings 4 • Relationship with academic supervisor • Resource relationship • Funding • Conferences • Reputation of supervisor • Acceptance of research • Legitimacy of student • Feeling of belonging

  11. Findings 5 • Production of research papers • Emphasis on writing during training • Potential for publication is internalized • Circulation of papers for comment

  12. Discussion • Reproduction of the research field • Structure of doctoral program is insufficient • Depends on ties to greater field through colloquia • Force of supervisor varies in relation to the field • Production of academic papers • linked to the mediator and the greater field • Process for exercising resource relationships • Embodies epistemological processes of the field

  13. Conclusion • Epistemic processes reproduce resource relations • Position of supervisor • Clarity of field’s paradigm, theory & methods • European accounting • Lacks identifiable paradigm • Limits innovation & discovery

  14. Discussant Assessment • Clearly written • Well positioned in SSK tradition • Unique data set • Paper has excellent potential

  15. Discussant Comments 1 • Clarity about data and methods • Auto-ethnography? Where does this show up? • Document analysis? Which ones? • Where did five “findings” categories come from?

  16. Discussant Comments 2 • Uncritical analysis • AAA colloquium is “most prestigious” • “The potential to publish is seen as the major benefit of writing”

  17. Discussant Comments 3 • “Freedom” of structured streams? • Is this what your interviews indicate? • ID student said lack of structure was “difficult” not “constraining” • This is your key counterintuitive finding,yet the data support is weak

  18. Discussant Suggestions • Tighten up the paper • Reduce section 2 on accounting academy • Focus section 3 more on Knorr-Cetina • Draw on other data mentioned in methods section • Documents • Autoethnography • Weave critique into analysis • Add critical reflection after each quotation • Make the discussion add value by theorizing • Draw on Knorr-Cetina’s vocabulary

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