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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The problem and the solution of accounting in a text

subject

description

Abstract An interpretative reading of accounting texts published in management accounting journals is offered. The selected articles were read many times, but the phenomenological hermeneutic description is developed through a process of “three readings.” The first reading proposes that the texts share a pattern of preach: They start with an introduction, describe a failing accounting, and remind the reader that through change, better accounting is achievable. In the second reading it is noticed, however, that the idea of “defining a problem and finding a solution with the help of accounting” receives a very different expression in different articles. Consequently, the third reading suggests that the texts, in a way, seem to create the boundaries inside of which they can name some aspects of accounting as problems and some as solutions; and the solution of one text may be more or less the problem in another. This proposition gives a new perspective to the continuous stream of articles that one after another offer optimum solutions to accounting problems.