Accounting, a Multiparadigmatic Science

Once considered an intruder into the academic community, accounting has developed into a full fledged social science, with fierce competition among its different paradigms. Riahi-Belkaui explains that these paradigms, each striving for primacy through publications, conferences, and other means of self-exposure, are characterised by their exemplars, their image of the subject matter, their theories, and finally the methods they use. In doing so they have given accounting a certain new cachet. Riahi-Belkaoui thus provides a critical examination of each of these paradigms in an effort to guide researchers and policy makers in their search for proper interpretations and positionings of the products of accounting research. In six chapters each devoted to a specific paradigm, the book elucidates each paradigm’s contribution to accounting thought and practice. Covered are the anthropological / inductive paradigm, the decision usefulness / decision model paradigm, the decision usefulness / decision maker / individual use paradigm. The result is a book that uses philosophy of science concepts in accounting, and a book that will also have applications in university graduate-level courses in research methodology and accounting theory.