دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله بازتاب پذیری در تحقیق حسابداری (نشریه Taylorfrancis )

بازتاب پذیری در تحقیق حسابداری

Reflexivity in accounting research

Introduction

The concept of reflexivity has been widely used in social science qualitative research methods for a number of decades, so it is not a new phenomenon. Broadly it refers to the process in which the researcher reflects on data collection and its interpretation. This can occur at a number of levels and from a number of perspectives, as discussed in this chapter, in an active process. Reflexivity relates to all research, whether qualitative or quantitative, since all researchers should adopt a reflexive approach to their data. However, despite qualitative methods becoming more prominent and more accepted within accounting research, they still operate in a context ‘dominated by hypothetico-deductive quantitative methodologies that essentially are reified as “hard”, factual and objective, consonant with the accounting world of numbers’ (Parker, 2012, p. 59), where reflexivity is less often applied. This suggests that the significance of reflexivity as a concept is all the more relevant to contemporary qualitative accounting research since it is central to consideration of the nature of knowledge. Questions about reflexivity are part of debates about ontology, epistemology and methodology. Ontology represents the researcher’s way of being in the world or their worldview on the nature of reality; epistemology represents the philosophical underpinnings about the nature or theory of knowledge and what counts as knowledge in various research traditions; and methodology represents the overarching research strategy and processes of knowledge production, concerned with the methods of data collection and forms of analysis used to generate knowledge. The purpose of this chapter is to reflect on those debates, the meaning and application of reflexivity, strategies for reflexive awareness and processes of reflexivity, reflexive research in accounting, and future possibilities for reflexive accounting research.

The concept of reflexivity

In simple terms, reflexivity is an awareness of the researcher’s role in the practice of research and the way this is influenced by the object of the research, enabling the researcher to acknowledge the way in which he or she affects both the research processes and outcomes (Haynes, 2012). It is often conceptualized in terms which suggest the researcher turns back and takes account of themselves in the research (Alvesson et al., 2008) and demonstrates awareness that the researcher and the object of study affect each other mutually and continually in the research process (Alvesson and Skoldburg, 2000). For example, Berger (2015, p. 220) suggests reflexivity is the ‘turning of the researcher lens back onto oneself to recognize and take responsibility for one’s own situatedness within the research and the effect that it may have on the setting and people being studied, questions being asked, data being collected and its interpretation’. Clegg and Hardy (1996, p. 4) describe it as ‘ways of seeing which act back on and reflect existing ways of seeing’.

However, simply reflecting back on the process of research perhaps towards the end of a research project is not being reflexive. This is simply reflection on the research process: perhaps examining what could have been done differently or what contextual factors may have influenced the outcomes. Reflexivity goes beyond reflection. Hibbert et al. (2010) provide a useful distinction between the two: reflection suggests a mirror image which affords the opportunity to engage in an observation or examination of our ways of doing, or observing our own practice, whereas reflexivity is more complex, involving thinking about our experiences and questioning our ways of doing. Reflexivity requires attention to the researcher’s own positioning ‘in the sense of their being sensitive to and explaining their own direct involvement with the research site actors and their own role in interpreting and creating meaning from the data they collect’ (Parker, 2012, p. 58).

The researcher’s own position will affect the research design, research process and its outcomes. This will include, inter alia, their age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, beliefs, social background and so on, but will also include their political, theoretical, ideological position and value-systems. As such, reflexivity challenges the view of knowledge production as independent of the researcher producing it and of knowledge as objective (Berger, 2015). Reflexivity calls for the utmost awareness of the theoretical assumptions, importance of language and of pre-understandings brought to the research, while also enabling the researcher to turn attention to themselves, their research community and their intellectual and cultural conditions and traditions informing the research (Alvesson and Skoldburg, 2000). Being reflexive recognizes, as Cunliffe (2010, p. 226) points out, that:

working from a room with a view is unavoidable because [researchers] bring their intellectual bags with them, making sense and completing their research with their own community traditions, assumptions, language and expectations in mind.

Being reflexive requires critical reflection on how our intellectual, perceptual, theoretical, ideological, cultural, textual, cognitive, principles and assumptions inform the interpretation and outcomes of our research (Haynes, 2012). In accounting research, this might also include our experience of accounting itself. For example, if accounting researchers have worked in accounting practice this will influence their pre-suppositions and understandings about the profession’s culture and behaviours, or if they have experienced gender inequality in accounting this will influence their choice of theoretical positions from which to interpret their experience (Haynes, 2008b; 2010). This does not mean that one has to experience what one researches, but that researchers should be aware of the political, critical and ideological positions which inform their research.

Hence, reflexivity goes beyond simple reflection on the research process and outcomes, to incorporate multiple layers and levels of reflection within the research, based on the researcher’s positioning, and it can take different forms dependent on this positioning.