Doing archival research in management accounting

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademic

Abstract

In this chapter, I discuss archival research in management accounting, where “archival” is narrowly defined and “management accounting” broadly. Given these definitions, I address the literature's excessive focus on one specific research area, i.e., executive compensation, and its use of publicly available data to answer the dominant research question. I argue that the easy access to databases has led to an uncritical use of the data, which begs the question of what we have learned. I conclude that, relative to the size of this field, we know very little about the design of incentive contracts for CEOs and propose two broad directions for future research.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHandbook of Management Accounting Research
EditorsChristopher S. Chapman, Anthony G. Hopwood, Michael D. Shields
Place of PublicationAmsterdam
PublisherElsevier
Pages399-414
Number of pages16
Volume1
ISBN (Print)9780080445649
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2007

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