Critical Synthesis of Conference Papers

Abstract

When Sid Davidson asked me to give this synthesis, I accepted rather reluctantly. It is difficult enough to attempt to synthesize five papers on a variety of topics, but even more difficult to follow a great synthesizer like Carl Nelson. In the search for a common theme, I have taken my topic title seriously, Critical Synthesis of Conference Papers. On the critical part, I have been very well preceded-the discussants have done that admirably. Synthesis is something else. Again the search for a common theme that might be used as cement binder had to be made. The Conference title itself, The Conference on Empirical Research in Accounting, presented itself; I thought, obviously the adjective 'empirical' is going to do it. But, lo and behold, forty per cent of the papers are specifically, either in the title or in the first paragraph, simulations. (Or if you don't like that statistic, 46'2% by weight. It seems that the simulators are at least a little wordier than the empiricists.) Empiricism thus doesn't seem to be a common feature of the papers. It would perhaps be better to synthesize on the Chicago origin of the papers-60% by number, 64% by weight-which is relevant, but not as a theme. I will talk to this point later. Then I turned to the noun, Research, in the title. Last year Carl Nelson made an attempt to link all research to empiricism-that all research had to have an empirical base. I consulted with my landlord who told me that this isn't quite so (even though he, the landlord, is a Chicago man), that the proper order is not that all research has to be empirical, but rather that research has to be tested. Now it is a wellknown precept in science (or rather scientific methodology) that one can't ever prove anything by observation. Rather, that observation may only support existing theory-even if that theory is erroneous-i.e., observation cannot prove that the theory is right. If, however, the observa-