A DEFENCE OF ‘TRADITIONAL’ ACCOUNTING HISTORY RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Abstract

So-called `traditional' accounting history research methodology is defended against three criticisms made by Miller and Napier (1993) in the course of their advocacy of an alternative form of research characterised as genealogies of calculation. The first criticism is directed at the domain of accounting history research and is based on two claims: that the domain has been restricted to double-entry bookkeeping, and that it cannot be clearly delineated. The first claim is rebutted on the grounds that it involves special pleading and confuses the practice and methodology of research. The second claim is shown not to pose a problem of methodology. The second criticism of accounting history research rejects explanation as a research objective. In reply it is argued that historical explanation is a constitutive feature of historical research, and a research objective which historiansquahistorians are not free to accept or reject at will. The third criticism is directed at evolutionary models of historical explanation and their alleged reliance on concepts of teleological processes and necessary outcomes. It is argued that such concepts are not essential to evolutionary models of explanation. The application of these methodological points is illustrated with a sketch of an explanation of the general adoption of double-entry bookkeeping in England in the nineteenth century.