Reactions to reading 'Remaining consistent with methods? An analysis of grounded theory research in accounting' - A comment on Gurd

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Remaining consistent with method? An analysis of grounded theory research in accounting”, a paper by Gurd. Design/methodology/approach - Like Gurd, the authors conducted a bibliographic study on prior pieces of research claiming the use of grounded theory. Findings - The authors found a large diversity of ways of doing grounded theory. There are as many ways as articles. Consistent with the spirit of grounded theory, the field suggested the research questions, methods and verifiability criteria. From the same sample as Gurd, the authors arrived at different conclusions. Research limitations/implications - In our research, the authors did not verify the consistency of claims with grounded theory. The authors took for granted that the article authors had understood and made operational the suggestions of the founders of the method. Practical implications - The four canons of grounded theory can be considered as reference marks rather than as the rules of the method. Accordingly, the researcher is free to develop his or her own techniques and procedures. Originality/value - This paper stimulates debate on grounded theory-based research. On the other hand, it conveys the richness and the variety of interpretive research. Two similar studies, using similar samples and methods, arrive at different (divergent) conclusions.


Introduction
This paper is a commentary on Gurd"s paper "Remaining consistent with method?An analysis of grounded theory research in accounting".This commentary is also the continuation of a previous research published in Comptabilité Contrôle Audit.Both papers conducted a similar bibliographic analysis, using similar theories and methods and somewhat the same sample.Notwithstanding, our conclusions differ significantly from Gurd"s.The present commentary is not an assault on his work.
It only aims to emphasise difficult points related to grounded theory as well as to raise questions and to stimulate debates.Gurd found that most scholars "have misunderstood or not applied the canons of grounded theory".
We observed that none of the founders of grounded theory research really provided a normative framework.Rather, they left room for imagination.Gurd introduced the four canons of grounded theory exclusively.But we claim that grounded theory allows diverse ways of producing scientific knowledge.Yet, like Gurd we concluded that the consistency of grounded theory was questionable in some papers.
Our commentary is divided into two sections.First, we question the strong assumption made by Gurd that there is one way of doing grounded theory research.Secondly, we introduce the findings drawn from our survey.Consistency with grounded theory is manifested in the diversity of canons.

Remaining consistent with interpretive research?
The finding that none of the papers studied is fair to them evidences that he sees the four canons as exclusive ways of doing grounded theory.On the other hand, he admits that "the grounded theory approach cannot be expected to be rigid and prescriptive, although there must be central tenets of the approach" (draft, p.8).Though a real effort directed at considering four variations, Gurd contradicts the claimed spirit of grounded theory.This research approach is supposedly open, whereas his is normative.This would leave no room for later developments on grounded theory.This would contradict the core argument of grounded theory.Gurd legitimates this, declaring "I have been unable to find a single paper on grounded theory method which disagrees with these four tenets of the method.I have not found an accounting researcher who disputes them."Probably no researcher questions the paternity of grounded theory approaches.In our survey, every scholar doing grounded theory or writing on it referred to the authors quoted by Gurd.However, we do think that Gurd"s reductionism does not allow seizing the properties of grounded theory.
Gurd draws on the technical evolutions of grounded theory and debates over three decades.
Unfortunately, he leaves aside the trajectory of grounded theory thinking.Taking it into account would have probably helped avoid such reductionism and subsequent normative views.Parker and Roffey (1997) and Locke (2001) recall the context of the original monograph (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).In 1967, two modes of research dominated the academia.The MIT model consisted of theorising without any empirical observations.On the other hand, the Harvard model consisted of the sole verification of prior theories.Several radical pamphleteers suggested alternative modes of research.Glaser and Strauss were two of them.Like most of their counterparts, they did not pretend to supply a working set of techniques and procedures.It is only in the aftermath that they endeavoured to suggest practicalities until Strauss and Corbin (1990) brought wise insights into techniques and procedures.In the foreword of the 1998 version of the book, Juliet Corbin stresses that the suggested protocol is neither comprehensive nor exclusive.It reflects what they had understood and practiced grounded theory for three decades.Nonetheless, this leaves room for variations and methodological innovations.In fact, the intent of the researcher and the purposes of the research do fuel grounded theory.Accordingly, teleology is the main criterion for assessing grounded theory approaches.It is not a single toolbox directed at solving research problems.
Gurd"s paper pretends not to be prescriptive or normative.But on several occurrences, he notes that authors do not comply with the canons and stresses inconsistencies.He sometimes happens to suggest alternatives until compliance.For instance, he strongly argues that "the research "questions" addressed by grounded theory are questions of process and therefore is more appropriate to "how" questions".Clearly, Gurd suggests what realms and research questions deserve grounded theory.At the same time as he expresses normative views on what grounded theory is and how it shall be practiced, he recalls its social constructivist foundations (draft, p.4).
Excluding types of research a priori from the scope of grounded theory seems not to be consistent with his understanding thereof.In fact, Gurd appraises social constructivist pieces of work on the basis of exclusive pre-established categories.Is this really consistent with his conception of grounded theory?We guess it is not.In the same vein, we have noted that Gurd uses on the several occurrences the same vocabulary as positivism and leaves aside that of social constructivism.We have noted that researchers "explain" and do not interpret.Is this a language abuse or confusion between conflicting views on scientific knowledge?Unless it is linked to the assumption that grounded theory is a method (a set of techniques and procedures) rather than a methodology (the interplay between ontological awareness, epistemological stance and methodological choices)?

Diversity of canons as consistency with grounded theory
In the present section, we react to the content of Gurd"s research.Similarly to Elharidy et al. (in press), we attempt to draw on practicalities of grounded theory in interpretive research.We observed how scholars positioned their grounded theory scheme in interpretive research.In that respect, we question Gurd"s assumption that "the lack of adherence to generally agreed canons of the method may bring into question the quality of the research and cast doubt on the findings" (draft, p.5).Our realm was to appraise the contributions of grounded theory to scientific knowledge nowadays.Therefore, we were not interested in referring to normative models.We addressed the relevance of grounded theory vis-à-vis the purposes of the research.Therefore, the present section is divided into four sub-sections.First, we appraise the novelty of research questions addressed by grounded theorists.Secondly, we draw on the research protocols adopted.Thirdly, we appraise the scientific contributions of grounded theory.Lastly, we observe how interpretive grounded theorists prove the scientificity of their research.

Novel vs. traditional research questions
In order to understand the relevance of grounded theory as a contribution to scientific knowledge, we first drew on the nature of the research question addressed.Strauss and Corbin (1990) considered that grounded theory could be utilised for novel as well as for traditional research questions.When the research question is traditional, the researcher is expected to justify why doing grounded theory.Supposedly, he is to justify that he investigates those questions beyond saturation.
Likely, the intent is to bring other insights or alternative interpretations thereof.If the researcher"s intent is not expressed, the relevance of grounded theory is not obvious and can be questioned.We observe that scholars have effectively recourse to grounded theory, be their research question novel or traditional.Nonetheless, the researchers of our sample privilege grounded theory in case of absence of prior works.
Scrutinising the factors influencing planning and control in a religious denomination (Parker, 2001;2002) or in NGOs (Goddard and Assad, 2006) is quite new.So are the integration of social, ethical and environmental (SEE) disclosure into institutional investment (Solomon and Solomon, 2006) and the unpredictable relation of modes of production and management accounting and controls and culture in less developed countries (Wickramasinghe, Hopper and Rathnasiri, 2004).
In few cases, the interest of grounded theory can be questioned.The relations of financial managers and the advocates of the mission in a religious setting (Lightbody, 2000) have already been addressed in prior works.It is also the case of the factors impacting on the implementation of activity-based accounting systems (Norris, 2002).More rarely, the authors address traditional research questions.For instance, the content of accountability (Ahrens, 1996) as well as the impact of cultural environment on the design and the practice of controls in organisations (Efferin and Hopper, 2007) has been central in studies on accountability or in cultural studies.

Diverse ways and means of doing grounded theory
Gurd seems to consider interviews as the sole practicality consistent with grounded theory.Glaser and Strauss (1967) suggested that (contemporarily discovered) ethno-methodologies could be applied too.Strauss and Corbin (1990) note that any other type of data could be utilised too, including secondary data.However, we do justice to Gurd by noting the prevalence of interviewbased-papers in our sample.
To Gurd, scholars are very evasive regarding their conception and conduct of grounded theory.We observed that every methodology section introduced how the authors would position towards the founders.Two of them offer didactic developments on coding techniques and procedures (Norris, 2002;Goddard, 2004).Another one addresses the issues in doing grounded theory in accounting research in a rich appendix to the paper (Efferin and Hopper, 2007).The authors do not only evasively refer to grounded theory in a footnote!To a lesser extent, researchers opt for ethno-methodology.Ahrens (1996) describes how he observed two British and German managers at work.Wickramasinghe, Hopper and Rathnasiri (2004) detail how they were associated to actors in their everyday practices all along the data collection process.In both cases, the scholars conducted post-observation interviews in order to fill gaps in their observations and in order to make sense to them.Both ethnographic reports were based upon anecdotes drawn from research diaries.
Every single method referred either to Glaser and Strauss or to Strauss and Corbin.Accordingly, restrictive and rigid canons seem not to be consistent with the spirit of grounded theory.So far, we reason that Gurd has been very severe vis-à-vis the works of his sample.

Contributions to scientific knowledge
Gurd focuses on the consistency with the canons of grounded theory.Doing this, he unfortunately ignores the coherence of the approach.We would have expected him to point out the interplay between consistency with the four canons and contribution to scientific knowledge and criteria of the trustworthiness in constructivist research.The present section endeavours to fill that gap in Gurd"s research.In fact, founders of the grounded theory approach argue that it aims to develop theories at the same time as it supplies detailed empirical studies.Parker and Roffey (1997) and Quattrone (2000) note that such an approach can also bring methodological insights into scientific knowledge.To our opinion, GT has to be assessed on its ability to produce theoretical, empirical, methodological contributions.Anything goes despite the contributions.Technically speaking anything goes but the process must be in line to the specific contribution of grounded theory.Scientific criteria of grounded theory have also to be relevant with a constructivist research.

Theoretical contributions
Every article of our sample aimed to generate a theory from data in an interpretive scheme.We noted that the discovery of formal theories is rare.Grounded theorists rather generate substantive theories or confirmatory theories.Ahrens (1996) theorises accountability as the interplay between financial and operational issues, whereas prior works ignore non-financial items.Since then, most works on accountability have referred to his and have de facto granted it the status of a formal theory.Wickramasinghe et al. (2004)  To a larger extent, grounded theorists develop substantive theories and call for further investigations.Lightbody (2000) enriches the sacred-secular-divide-theory with the conclusion that financial managers are guardians of the church resources whereas ministers and parishioners are advocates of the mission.Parker (2002) refers to those findings and enriches them onwards.
imagine the organisation as if he were there.They all offer a large variety of empirical incidents based upon descriptions, anecdotes and quotations.
We noted that other works were more evasive or allusive regarding empirics.In thee cases, the consistency of the approach with the spirit of grounded theory can be questioned.Indeed, why doing grounded theory if the contribution to empirical knowledge is poor?We connected this to the fact that they dealt with better-known empirical contexts.None of them explicitly purported to contribute to empirical knowledge.Consistent with Glaser and Strauss and with Strauss and Corbin, novel empirical objects deserve to be brought before the academia.Accordingly, detailed descriptions are a significant contribution to scientific knowledge.

Methodological contributions
Very few papers do offer a methodological contribution.Ahrens (1996) and Efferin and Hopper (2007) offer two ways of approaching cultures in accounting research.Ahrens suggests studying cultures as empirical objects that emphasise accounting practices.Understanding contextual specificities is to contribute to the production of scientific knowledge on accounting objects.Efferin and Hopper diverge from Ahrens on the role of cultures in the cycle of knowledge production.To them, the researcher is to theorise on cultural specificities before theorising on accounting.For that purpose, they suggest conducting trans-disciplinary research.
Methodological contributions to scientific knowledge have made possible because the canons of grounded theory were defined very broadly.We assume that reductionism in Gurd"s paper prevents from considering innovations on grounded theory.We do not dispute the four canons.Like the scholars of our sample, we take them as extensible reference marks in interpretive research.

Verifiability
Consistent with the large diversity in grounded theory discovery, we found a large scope of trustworthiness criteria, all of them being consistent with a constructivist approach.We found almost as many ways of evidencing and verifying the conclusions of grounded theory-based research as research protocols.In that scope of criterion, three criteria dominate our sample.
The first criterion that we found is discourse analysis and coding.Gurd developed these issues very much in his paper.As the main criterion utilised, it is consistent with the canons of grounded theory.In our paper, we agreed with Gurd on that issue.Therefore, we do not detail it further.
In the original monograph, Glaser and Strauss stated that the reader,.as the end user of research, is to be convinced.Accordingly, the second most utilised verifiability criterion is plausibility and coherence.These are due to comprehensive and convincing descriptions.In the pieces of work relying on plausibility, the reader was invited to imagine the organisation, to anticipate issues and reactions and more generally to feel concerned with the story (Ahrens, 1996, Wickramasinghe et al., 2004).Lightbody (2000), Parker (2001) and Goddard (2004) stress the convergence of discourses.From individual discourses, they reconstructed an organisational meta-discourse.The persuasiveness of the research rests upon the coherence and the cohesion of individual"s discourses within the organisation.Lightbody (2000) as well as Parker (2001) demonstrates the cohesion of managers on the necessity of management devices and the cohesion of ministers on their rejection.Goddard outlines the convergence of local government members" stances vis-à-vis budgeting.All individual stances converge to the perception of budgeting as devices of transparency towards citizens.
Persuasiveness is not granted.It can be appraised only subjectively either by the reader or by the researcher himself.Accordingly, there is a need for reflexivity from the researcher and from the other actors involved in the research.

Gurd incidentally evokes the subjectivity of research when explaining the divergence of Strauss and
Corbin from Glaser and Strauss.To our opinion, this is a crucial issue in grounded theory-based research.Therefore, we develop here further our findings.In order to handle one"s and the others" subjectivity, some researchers submitted their observations to the people met.
In the methodology section, the authors specify that they systematically discussed their interpretations with the actors who finally confirmed them.Confirmation consisted of the actors recognising themselves or recognising the organisation in the descriptions and the analysis.
In the rich appendix of their paper, Efferin and Hopper (2007) evidence their work with a double reflexivity, i.e. theirs and that of organisational actors.They specify that they did so, for they were not allowed to tape-record the interviews.They went back several times to the actors and asked them at each time the same questions.They also submitted them their prior responses and commented them on together.The reflexive capability of the actors outlined temporal discourse convergence and coherence.Doing this, Efferin and Hopper followed Glaser and Strauss" prescriptions.
Reflexivity vis-à-vis the text consisted of considering organisational actors as literate readers.In that capacity, they were privileged readers of the research.If they were not convinced or if they did not recognise the organisation, the research would have been assumed invalid.In all cases, they recognised themselves.The authors provided along the text insights into these pot-operation validations.

Conclusion
Naïvely, we assumed that nobody gratuitously claims grounded theory.We took for granted that such claims corresponded to reflected positions.Although there is no single way of doing, we noted that every author developed a systematic research protocol encompassing methods and tools for verifiability.In line with prior works on grounded theory, we considered that it is a philosophy and a label for a type of constructivist research.To us, the variety of uses of grounded theory evidences that it is a methodology rather than a method.Consistent with Strauss andCorbin (1998), Parker andRoffey (1997) and Locke (2001), we do believe that grounded theory is sort of a coherent and comprehensive Weltanschaung.
The diversity in the use of grounded theory is due to the plurality of possibilities at each stage of the research process.For each canon in our survey, we were able to identify several specific subcategories.Admittedly, several pieces of work could be located in the same sub-category.The observation of the interplay between those sub-categories let us conclude that there are as many ways of doing grounded theory as articles.Consistent with the spirit of grounded theory, it seems that the field suggests the research questions, methods and verifiability criteria.In sum, from the same sample as Gurd, we arrived at different conclusions.
also arrived at a formal theory.Cultural, political and economic factors prevent from the effective application of traditional modes of controls in developing countries.When integrating issues of development, they can contribute to political emancipation and to democratisation.No prior works had considered economic development as an issue for accounting.Like Ahrens" conclusion, theirs have been referred to in most works on accounting in developing countries (see the 2007 special issue of Journal of Accounting and Organizational Change on accounting in developing countries).