CritiCal Perspectives on Accounting (1992) 3, 87-92

CRITICAL COMMENTARIES

KINNEY’S DESIGN FOR ACCOUNTING

RESEARCH
WILLIAM W. COOPER” AND STEPHEN A. ZEFF~
* The University of Texas at Austin and -1Rice University, Texas

In “Empirical Accounting Research Design for Ph.D. Students” (Kinney 1986),

William R. Kinney, Jr. expresses a point of view that is increasingly being
represented as constituting the exclusive standard for empirical research in
accounting, and it has had a strong impact on the editorial policies in such
journals as the Review. In the same article, Kinney offers a definition of
research as it applies to accounting. We regard both his standard for empirical
research and his definition of research to be much too narrow for application
to a field such as accounting which is not only an area of social science
research but also a profession that has the duty of supplying informed service
activities for individuals and organizations and for society generally.
Kinney writes that the purpose of his article “is to show how a basic
framework for evaluating [and doing] empirical research in accounting can be
obtained in a short introduction.. . . ” He adds that his approach is “generic”
and that it “focuses attention on the essence of scientific inquiry in account-
ing” (pp. 338-339). We believe that Kinney’s article falls short of what is
needed for progress in science as well as in practice.

Empirical Research
The entire article is directed to the techniques of statistical experimental
design and regression-correlation analyses which were pioneered in the first
half of the twentieth century by R. A. Fisher, working with biologists and
agronomists at the Rothamsted (Agricultural) Experiment Station in England,
The paradigms underlying these contributions by Fisher may be viewed as
efforts to secure approximations to the conditions considered ideal in classical
physics, where, following Galileo, research was directed to establishing
cause-and-effect relations via ceteris paribus’ experimentation. The objective
in such an approach to research is to simplify things in order to understand
(i.e. “really understand”) the behaviour of phenomena being studied in topics
for research taken from the literature of physics and closely related fields such
as chemistry and mathematics.
As Fisher (1955, pp. 70-75) expresses it in his comments on Statistical
Decision Functions, the book with which A. Wald introduced uses of statistics
Address for correspondence: Professor William W. Cooper, University of Texas at Austin,
College of Business, Austin, Texas 78712-1172, USA.
Received 23 March 1990; revised 25 July 1990; accepted 11 April 1991.
a7

1045-23!54/92/010087 + 06 %03.00/ 0 0 1992 Academic Press Limited

88 W. W. Cooper and S. A. Zeff

for decision-making into the mainstream of research,

“We aim.. . at methods of inference which should be equally convincing to
all rational minds, irrespective of any intentions they may have in utilizing
the knowledge inferred.. . [while] In the U.S.. . . the great importance of
organized technology has.. . made it easy to confuse the process of
drawing correct conclusions with those aimed at speeding production or
saving money.“.

This “pure science only” approach hardly seems suited to accounting in its
present (and foreseeable) states of development (see Stamp, 1981). “Under-
standing for use” as in applied science needs to be added to “understanding
only”* as in pure science if urgent practitioner needs are to be served and if
the scientific component of the accounting profession is to be advanced with
adequate vigor and relevance. Medical science offers an example which is not
restricted to hypothesis testing for its empirical research in the manner
prescribed by Kinney, but nevertheless has much progress to report as a
result of its ties to a practitioner-oriented profession. Developments in organ
transplants come to mind as an example where such progress is being made,
often on a one-case-at-a-time basis with continuing interactions between
practice and research. Even more impressive are the channels developed by
medical science for flows across disciplines as well as between medical
science research and medical practice. Thus, one could read recently in The
New York Times that a group of entymologists in Africa reported discovering
the presence of AIDS viruses in insects, with results providing new directions
for research at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and the Center for Disease Control
in Atlanta because of their possible bearing on urgent problems being
encountered by medical practitioners in San Francisco.
In grappling with the issue of choosing “real world problems”, Kinney
(1986, p. 340) seems content with the following advice: “One thinks about or
studies the problem, reads about seemingly similar problems in other areas
or disciplines such as economics, psychology, organizational behavior or
political science.“. Nothing is said about methods for obtaining access
empirically to the problems being encountered in actual accounting practice.
How to evaluate and test the usefulness of research that is addressed to
problems of improving practice is therefore not addressed at all. Indeed,
potential usefulness is addressed by Kinney only in terms of requirements for
publication in journals that are already overly narrow in their approach to
what they regard as acceptable research in accounting.
Even within the confines of hypothesis testing, moreover, there are serious
deficiencies in Kinney’s discussion. He apparently adheres to the Fisherian
prescription against “preliminary peeks” at the data prior to testing and hence
fails to say anything about possibilities for using data in forming hypotheses.
The developments in EDA (exploratory data analysis) and related approaches
in statistics are not examined by Kinney, although these developments have
been available now for almost a generation- as -in Tukey (1970) and Mosteller
and Tukey (1977) (see also Hoaglin et a/., 1983). To be sure, safeguards are
needed when using EDA (and like approaches), but these can hardly be
discussed for their bearing on empirical research in accounting unless the
topics to which such safeguards are addressed are also introduced (see
Tu key, 1980).
 Kinney’s design 89

Alternative methods of empirical research such as uses of computer-aided

simulations, etc., are also omitted from consideration, along with any
attention to “control” as distinguished from the “understanding” and “pre-
diction” aspects of scientific research3. Indeed, the whole panorama of
possibilities for dealing with “systems approaches” to control problems, as
opened by developments in modern computer technology for use in scientific
research, does not even appear in Kinney’s approach to empirical research in
accounting4.
This brings up the question of methodological research as a scientific
research activity extended to developing new methods for use in empirical
research with possible further interactions between science and practice in
view. Again, a page may be drawn from medical science where their uses of
new and improved methods in practice as well as in research led to Nobel
prizes (indeed, the first ever awarded) for discovery and development of the
X-ray and its recent extension in the form of the CAT-scan (computerized axial
tomography). Recognition for such methodological research in accounting,
however, is not likely to be encouraged by contemporary practices in the
research literature wherein journal editors offer pronouncements concerning
“acceptable” research methods as well as acceptable topics prior to receiving
manuscripts.
New methodology pertinent to empirical research as well as practitioner
use continues to be developed, of course, but this is because other disciplines
are less concerned with strictures such as those laid down by Kinney. An
example is provided by “protocol analysis”. As developed relatively recently
in cognitive psychology-computer science (artificial intelligence) interactions,
protocol analysis provides an approach in which it is possible to study
empirically the process of making decisions in which accounting information
is used, instead of confining attention only to the end-products of such
decisions, which is about all that can be reflected in a regression equation in
the manner portrayed by Kinney (see Stephens, 1979).
Turning from improvements in science methodology to improvements in
practice, the strictures are even more severe. For instance, quoting Watts and
Zimmerman, Kinney (1986, p. 339) announces that “The objective of account-
ing theory is to explain and predict accounting practice. This positive5,
how-the-world-is approach is in contrast with the more traditional normative
view that accounting “theory” is concerned with what accounting practices
ought to be”. The theory referred to is “substantive theory” as exemplified by
variants and derivatives from the “rational man hypothesis” in economics. It
is not “methodological theory” as represented (perhaps ironically in this case)
in the methods of statistical inference developed by R. A. Fisher and his
successors.
Overlooking this aspect of scientific research, or perhaps being predisposed
against it, ,the erstwhile editor of the Journal of Accounting Research recently
replied to a question from one of the authors of this note that he would
certainly not ‘have published a paper on standard costing by Frederick W.
Taylor or his’ followers at the turn of the century unless the paper were to
have included a suitable theory (of substantive variety!).
In a similar vein, one of the speakers at the 1986 AAA Annual Meeting
session on research in managerial accounting responded to one such
90 W. W. Cooper and S. A. Zeff

question with a ukase against any empirical (direct observation) research in

advance of having an adequate theory because he believed that he would not
otherwise know what to look for. Overlooked in this reply, however, is the
danger that such a theory might also prevent an investigator from seeing
what is really there. Fortunately, for medical science in any case, the 17th
century Dutch naturalist Leeuwenhoek was not subject to this ukase when he
first peered at a drop of ditch water under a microscope and observed the
existence of previously unimagined forms of life. The germ theory of disease,
we might add, came into being more than 100 years afferthe invention of the
microscope and its associated methodologies for use in empirical research.

Problem Identification and Structuring

Kinney, like others in the literature, fails to recognize the value of identifying
problems from the world of practice as a needed part of research in
accounting. Whether in empirical or non-empirical research, it must not only
be recognized that accounting is a social science in which explanations and
predictions of behaviour are worthy objects of research and study, but it must
also be recognized that this research forms part of the activities of a
profession serving the needs of management and society.
Henry W. Sweeney’s Stabilized Accounting (1936) provides an example of
problem identification drawn from the world of practice and the structuring of
these problems not only for further research but also for the improvement of
accounting practices. Based on his observations of price-level accounting
practices under hyperinflation in post-World War One Germany and France,
Sweeney identified and systematized those experiences and potential ac-
counting responses in ideas and writings that would not have satisfied
Kinney’s definitions. These writings nevertheless structured the problem
sufficiently well to provide guidance and stimulate interest in new directions
of accounting research that ultimately influenced accounting policy-making
and practice in the United States and numerous other countries.
Other examples can be cited of inquiries directed to identifying and
structuring problems from practice for scientific research in the pre-
hypothesis testing stage. Pace Louis Pasteur. Something even more than this
is required, however, if research is to serve fully the education and practice
needs of the accounting profession. Again, we use an example from
interactions between research and practice to which we now add the
important dimension of its use in higher education. Paton and Littleton’s
classic monograph, An Introduction to Corporate Accounting Standards
(1940), was heavily based on observation of extant practices and their
shortcomings, and produced a broadly based structure for accounting thought
that influenced accounting research, education and practice for decades. The
need for research that is pointed toward topics like these is nowhere noted in
Kinney’s article, possibly because any sense of accounting history-where it
has been and where it might be going-is also absent in this article.
While writing this note, ,we had occasion to examine some of the literature
on the history and the sociology of the professions. We had hoped to learn
something about how a profession and its scientific research component were
 Kinney’s design 91

held together. We could not find any discussion of this topic. Are there other
institutions such as the teaching hospital in medicine which have held the two
together? We do not know, but we believe that unless something is done that
differs from current trends, the scientific research and professional practice
components of accounting are headed toward a future of further separation
which is likely to be disadvantageous to both.
How to hold the two together is itself a topic for research that ought to be
undertaken even if the routes which such research must presently use will fail
to fulfill the theoretical and methodological requirements set forth by Kinney.
A question that might be addressed is whether more research publications
like the one in the American Accounting Association-sponsored monograph
by Paton and Littleton would have produced a more unified picture than
presently obtains in the scientific research and practitioner arms of the
accounting profession.

Conclusion
In conclusion, we do not say that Kinney is wrong, but that he is too narrow
(much too narrow) both in his prescriptions for empirical research in science
and in his characterization of research in general. A fortiori these prescriptions
are too narrow for research in accounting, and the result of adhering to them
is likely to limit progress in the science as well as in the practice of
accounting. As far as the preparation of Ph.D. students for research is
concerned, we fear that the sort of education supplied in contemporary
courses on “research methods” along lines like those suggested by Kinney is
oriented toward too narrow a range of scientific research methods and points
of view. As a result, the needs of science as well as the needs of the
profession for progress in the knowledge that is supposed to inform and
improve their practices are both being short-changed.

This paper is a revision completed in January of 1987 after the original was rejected by
the Editor of the Education Research section of The Accounting Review. Shortly
thereafter, Bill Cooper became Director of Publications of the American Accounting
Association. The paper was withheld from publication to avoid the impression that it
represented the views of that office while Bill Kinney was Editor of the The Accounting
Review during that period. This paper should therefore not be construed as a reaction
to the recent spate of recantations by a number of luminaries in the accounting
academic field.

Notes
1. “All other variables held constant”.
2. For further discussion see Charnes et al. (1985).
3. See Cooper 119741.
4. See Charnes et al. 119851.
5. For a discussion of the development of this “positive” approach in the 18th century drawing
room of Madam de Stael, see Christenson (1983).

References
Charnes, A., Cooper, W. W., Learner, D. Et. & Phillips, F. Y., “Management Science and Marketing
Management”, Journal of Marketing, Spring, 1985, pp. 93-105.
92 W. W. Cooper and S. A. Zeff

Christenson, C., “The Methodology of Positive Accounting”, The Accounting Review, January,
1983, pp. l-22.
Cooper, W. W., “Understanding, Prediction and Control-And Other Matters for Scientific
Research” SUPALUM, 1974 (2) (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Carnegie-Mellon University School of
Urban and Public Affairs).
Fisher. R. A.. “Statistical Methods and Scientific Induction”. Journal of the Roval Statistical
Society, Series B, 1955, Vol. 17, pp. 69-78.
Hoaglin, D. C., Mosteller, F. & Tukey, J. W., Understanding Robust and Exploratory Data Analysis
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1983).
Kinney, W. R., Jr., “Empirical Accounting Research Design for Ph.D. Students”, The Accounting
Review, April, 1986, pp. 338-350.
Mosteller, F. & Tukey, J. W., Data Analysis and Regression (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-
Wesley, 1977).
Patton, W. A. & Littleton, A. C., An Introduction to Corporate Accounting Standards (American
Accounting Association, 1940).
Stamp, E., “Why Can Accounting Not Become a Science Like Physics?“, Abacus, June, 1981, pp.
13-27.
Stephens, R., Uses of Accounting information in Bank Lending Decisions (Ann Arbor: University
Microfilm Research Press, 1979).
Sweeney, H. W., Stabilized Accounting (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1936).
Tukey, J. W., Exploratory Data Analysis (Reading, Massachussetts: Addison-Wesley, 1970).
Tukey, J. W., “We Need Both Exploratory and Confirmatory”, The American Statistician, 1980,
Vol. 34, pp. 23-25.