Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

The discovery of cumulative knowledge: Strategies for designing and

communicating qualitative research
Alan J. Richardson,
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The discovery
The discovery of of cumulative
cumulative knowledge knowledge

Strategies for designing and communicating

qualitative research 563
Alan J. Richardson
Odette School of Business, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance for designing and generating cumulative
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knowledge based on qualitative research.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on the philosophy of science and specific examples of
qualitative studies in accounting that have claimed a cumulative contribution to knowledge to develop a
taxonomy of theoretically justified approaches to generating cumulative knowledge from qualitative research.
Findings – The paper argues for a definition of cumulative knowledge that is inclusive of anti-realist
research, i.e. knowledge is cumulative if it increases the extent and density of intertextual linkages in a field.
It identifies the possibility of cumulative qualitative research based on extensions to the scope of the
knowledge and the depth of the knowledge. Extensions to the scope of the knowledge may include expanding
the time periods, context, and/or theoretical perspective used to explore a phenomenon. Extensions to the
depth of the knowledge may include new empirical knowledge, methodological pluralism, theory elaboration,
or analytic generalization. Individual studies can demonstrate their contribution to cumulative knowledge by
locating their research within a typology/taxonomy that makes explicit the relationship of current research to
past, and potential, research.
Research limitations/implications – The taxonomy may be useful to qualitative researchers designing
and reporting research that will have impact on the literature.
Social implications – The increased use of research impact as an evaluation metric has the potential to
handicap the development qualitative research which is often thought of as generating non-cumulative
knowledge. The taxonomy and the strategies for establishing cumulative impact may provide a means for
this approach to research to establish its importance as a contribution to knowledge.
Originality/value – The concept of cumulative knowledge has not been systematically applied to research
based on qualitative methods.
Keywords Qualitative research, Cumulative knowledge
Paper type General review

A hallmark of positivist science is the creation of cumulative knowledge. Each study seeks
to build on those done before, and part of the evaluation of articles submitted to
peer-reviewed journals is to determine whether the submission provides an incremental
contribution to the literature. A well-executed study that does not add to our cumulative
knowledge is unlikely to be published in leading academic journals, even though
replications are seen as necessary to validate research results (Smith et al., 2000).
The concept of “cumulative knowledge” is relatively easy to operationalize in fields based on
a realist ontology and quantitative methods. Realism implies that there is a single
independent reality that each researcher accesses, and the addition to knowledge can be
gauged against this truth. For example, a new theory, or method of analysis, will be judged
to make a cumulative contribution to our knowledge if more of the variance in a
phenomenon is explained, or a disparate set of empirical observations are subsumed within
Accounting, Auditing &
a common framework (Freese, 1972a, b; Willer and Willer, 1972). The use of quantitative Accountability Journal
methods also allows for meta-analysis and other techniques to refine variables and seek Vol. 31 No. 2, 2018
pp. 563-585
consensus across multiple studies. The very concept of a meta-analysis implies that © Emerald Publishing Limited
0951-3574
different studies can be combined to generate validated insights based on the increased DOI 10.1108/AAAJ-08-2014-1808
 AAAJ statistical power of the joint sample size of all the studies included (Schmidt, 1996). But for
31,2 researchers using qualitative methods, or holding anti-realist philosophies, does the goal of
cumulative knowledge still hold or is another approach to measuring the value of a study to
the literature necessary?
It might be argued that cumulative knowledge is a valid concern of etic qualitative
studies while emic qualitative studies are less concerned with building a cumulative
564 literature. “Emic” studies attempt to capture community behaviors, beliefs, and institutions
in community members’ own terms. Emic studies provide rich insights into specific settings.
“Etic” studies, by contrast, attempt to extract concepts and findings from the field in order
to identify patterns across research sites. Lett (1996) notes that the emic/etic distinction is
not about the source of data or research methods; it is about the intended use of data and the
community for which the data is meaningful. Thus, even interpretive researchers in
accounting (emic research) have raised concerns about the creation of cumulative
knowledge beyond their specific studies (etic uses).
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Ahrens et al. (2008), for example, have argued that the key to building a distinct
identity for interpretive accounting research (IAR) “may lie in emphasizing the
accumulation of interpretive knowledge on particular aspects of, or perspectives on,
accounting practice” (emphasis added). They go on to suggest that “[g]ood interpretive
research in the future […] would be much more than ‘yet another’ theoretically-informed
case study.” They continue:
“[p]robably the most important question in this regard relates to the contribution IAR has been able
to produce: what have we learned in toto from the multitude of interpretive case studies presented
and published every year? Has our knowledge accumulated? How?” “We’d like to be more
disciplined, sharpen our discussions, focus on the production of knowledge that really counts and
accumulate it.” (Ahrens et al., 2008, p. 844).
In a comment on Ahrens et al. (2008), Armstrong (2008), however, draws attention to:
[…] the tendential contradiction between the very concept of an interpretive epistemology and the
expectation that its findings should be cumulative. For if interpretations are theory laden and if, as
is self-evidently the case, fashions in theory are subject to change, it follows that the interpretations
of cultures which presently seem so persuasive will lose their resonance over time.
The distinction between emic and etic is intended to replace the epistemological debate
raised by Armstrong (2008) with a methodological solution[1]. In other words, emic and etic
studies differ primarily in what frame of reference makes the data meaningful. The emic
perspective privileges the meanings of subjects in context but this perspective does not
deny the possibility of moving from a specific context (single research site) to an
understanding of local data from a broader perspective (multiple research sites and
comparative analysis) (Ahrens, 2008). The discussion of cumulative knowledge must be
framed as an etic problem.
The debate recounted above makes the point that the concept of cumulative knowledge
in qualitative research is not additive in an algebraic sense, but, I will argue, qualitative
studies are cumulative in a discursive sense, i.e. cumulative knowledge is reflected in a
greater extent and density of intertextual linkages. The results of qualitative research are
not added together mechanistically to create a greater whole; they are part of a conversation,
debate, or argument about the nature of lived experience. Even if interpretations “lose their
resonance over time,” they remain part of that conversation both as a point of reference for
recognizing change and as data for beginning to parse the macro conditions that inform
temporal and spatial variations. The concept of “cumulative knowledge” I adopt takes this
broader perspective. Knowledge is cumulative if it references or is discursively embedded in
a broader field of inquiry, and increases the extent and density of intertextual links in that
field. Knowledge is thus not cumulative in the sense of moving toward “truth” but is
 cumulative in the sense of taking into account other knowledge and building a wider The discovery
discursive network. of cumulative
My concern with the problem of creating cumulative knowledge from qualitative research, knowledge
including interpretive research, is embedded in the increasing emphasis on the “impact[2]” of
academic research on the academic community and on practice (AAA Research Impact Task
Force, 2009; Cheek et al., 2006). The issue of communicating qualitative research and
generating impact beyond an academic community has been considered by others (Keen and 565
Todres, 2007; Ponterotto and Grieger, 2007) and the case can be made that qualitative research
is likely to be easier to communicate to a lay audience than quantitative research because of its
narrative structure. Within the academic community, a common measure of impact is citations
(in spite of problems with this metric; Seglen, 1997). The use of citations as a measure of
research impact, however, is implicitly based on a model of cumulative science (or “normal”
science in a Kuhnian sense) in which earlier papers that establish key research questions,
methods, theories, or results are cited by other researchers to position their work within a field
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(Geisler, 2005). If a field is not cumulative in this sense, then how do we measure the impact of
that work? Even the impact factor of the journal in which a paper appears is not helpful in this
case. Journals that focus on so-called non-cumulative results will typically have lower impact
factors (i.e. average number of citations per year per article) than journals publishing realist
work (Bluhm et al., 2011). It is not coincidental that the Nobel prizes in economics and the
natural sciences can be reasonably predicted based on citations to potential award winners’
work, while the Nobel prize in literature is seen as unexplainable (Atkins, 2013). However, the
perception of qualitative and interpretive research as non-cumulative may be more a matter of
citation practices within this literature than the de facto creation of research devoid of
connection to a broader field of inquiry. Part of my purpose in this paper is to argue for a
definition of “cumulative knowledge” that is inclusive of qualitative research based on anti-
positivist epistemologies.
This note explores these issues using the accounting literature to illustrate strategies for
creating and recognizing cumulative qualitative research. The note establishes the type of
research to which it applies and provides a generic definition of “cumulative knowledge”
that informs the identification of strategies. A taxonomy is then described that identifies
strategies observed in qualitative accounting research that has made an impact. The note
concludes by considering the implications of these strategies for authors, reviewers, and
editors of journals publishing qualitative research in accounting.

Qualitative research and research philosophy

There are three important points to make before addressing the potential for cumulative
knowledge through qualitative research.
First, it is an important boundary condition that the work being added to our cumulative
knowledge possesses reliability and validity, or as Lincoln and Guba (1985) have translated
these terms for qualitative research, it must have “trustworthiness” consisting of credibility,
transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The concept of “transferability” refers to
the ability of research results to inform analyses in other settings. This may appear to be a
synonym for creating cumulative knowledge but the responsibility for “transferability” lies
with the person using the research and not with the person producing the research
(Krefting, 1991); it is not the researchers’ responsibility within this framework to worry
about their contribution to cumulative knowledge. In recent work, however, the call has
been made to move responsibility for the quality of qualitative work back to the researcher
from the reader (Morse et al., 2002). Consistent with this call, I propose that qualitative
researchers identify and make transparent their contribution to cumulative knowledge in
addition to generating “reliable” and “valid” research from the perspective of their chosen
research philosophy.
 AAAJ Second, too often, the relationship between research methods and philosophies of
31,2 science in accounting has been drawn starkly as polar opposites with positivism
associated with quantitative methods and idealism associated with qualitative methods
(Morgan and Smircich, 1980; Richardson, 2012). In fact, qualitative methods are
consistent with any philosophy of science provided that ontology, epistemology, and
methodology are aligned. This implies that the issue of generating cumulative knowledge
566 based on qualitative methods becomes moot when those methods are used within a
realist philosophy.
There are two circumstances in which realist qualitative research will contribute to
cumulative work. First, if the theory makes a deterministic prediction, then one valid
contrary case is sufficient to refute a hypothesis and make a contribution to the literature
(Richardson and Kilfoyle, 2009). Second, if the study is well designed and includes control
cases (i.e. Mill’s method of case analysis; see Savolainen, 1994), then valid inferences
concerning causality can be made from case studies and again contribute to our cumulative
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knowledge from a realist perspective. The primary concern with conditions for cumulative
knowledge based on qualitative research in accounting, therefore, arises when the research
is conducted from an anti-realist perspective including, but not limited to, interpretivism,
ethnomethodology, phenomenology, critical theory, and some forms of critical realism
(Ahrens et al., 2008; Durocher, 2009).
Finally, although a philosophy of science tends to be deeply engrained in individual
researchers, ultimately, these philosophical assumptions become embedded in the research
they produce so they become part of the artifact that lives on beyond the researcher. But,
to take a linguistic turn, once that artifact is created, the original author has no greater
interpretive priority than any other reader (this is reflected in Wimsatt and Beardsley’s
(1946) “The Intentional Fallacy,” and in Barthes (1967) declaration of the “Death of the
Author,” and further developed in Derrida’s (1981) deconstruction). So, for example, even
though a case study has been produced using interpretivist methods, this does not stop
another researcher from regarding it as datum and using it within a realist approach to
analysis. This use of qualitative studies may offend the purist since a qualitative study that
provides a deep description of a setting should, in principle, provide so many distinct
variables that any attempt to make the study appear as one dimension of a sampling plan,
or one “configuration” (Meyer et al., 1993) of a limited number of variables, would do
violence to the original intent of the study. However, the very concept of cumulative
knowledge must assume that there is some degree of continuity between an individual
qualitative study and others.
Given the provisos above, the primary audience for this research note is those qualitative
researchers working within anti-realist traditions who wish to establish the potential
cumulative contribution of their research. The strategies described below, however, also
apply to qualitative studies anchored in realist ontology.

Cumulative knowledge as a system property

Cumulative knowledge is a property of the system, or population, of articles written and not
a property of individual articles. The concept of “cumulative knowledge” must be
distinguished from the issue of “generalizability.” The question of generalizability has been
extensively discussed in various literatures (in accounting; see e.g. Lukka and Kasanen,
1995; Cooper and Morgan, 2008). Generalizability refers to the properties of an individual
study that allow the results to inform inferences about a wider population of subjects or
contexts. But possessing generalizability is neither a sufficient nor necessary condition for
contributing to cumulative knowledge. For example, a paper may contribute to our
understanding of the boundary conditions of a theory, i.e. provide cumulative knowledge,
without possessing statistical generalizability. But a series of replications, each possessing
 generalizability in terms of the quality of their individual research design, would not The discovery
contribute to cumulative knowledge as this is typically understood (Schmidt, 1996). of cumulative
To this point in the argument, the meaning of cumulative knowledge has been specified knowledge
in a very generic way. In an epistemic sense, cumulative knowledge implies knowing more
about more. A realist or critical realist would have no problem reconciling the concept of
cumulative knowledge with our knowledge approaching “truth” (Modell, 2009).
A pragmatist would define cumulative knowledge in terms of its increasing ability to 567
serve as a guide to action (Corbin and Strauss, 2008, p. 4). A Kuhnian might accept the
possibility of cumulative knowledge during times of “normal science” (puzzle solving) but
would leave open the possibility that knowledge might be paradigm-specific and hence
cumulative only in a local sense even if not in a universal sense (Donaldson, 1999).
A semantic view of cumulative science would focus on the construction of networks of
concepts and results, and the integration of new knowledge into a structured world-view
(cf. Muller, 2007). The core of these views of what constitutes cumulative knowledge is the
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contribution of research to an elaborated view of the world. If this generic perspective on

cumulative knowledge can be adopted, then it is possible to speak of cumulative knowledge
also within an anti-positivist epistemology.
A relational view of the contribution to knowledge means that it is not the
characteristics of an individual study that matter but rather the connection among a
particular study, the underlying phenomenon, and our existing knowledge base
(the “literature”). If we perceive of the literature as a physical space with cumulative
knowledge contributing to our understanding of that space, then a cumulative
contribution to knowledge may improve our scope of knowledge (i.e. knowledge over
an increasing range of things), or our depth of knowledge (i.e. more detailed knowledge of
a particular thing). I use this metaphor to organize the discussion of strategies for
generating cumulative knowledge below. It is important, however, to reinforce the view of
cumulative knowledge used here. Knowledge is cumulative if it references and
discursively expands a field of inquiry. Knowledge is thus not cumulative in the sense of
moving toward “truth” but is cumulative in the sense of taking into account other
knowledge and building a wider discursive network. This view is consistent with Geisler
(2001) who notes that unlike organic evolution where a species may become extinct and its
DNA lost from the ecosystem, knowledge is not lost and may be “recycled,” conjugated, or
subsumed under different social conditions. He describes knowledge as cumulative and
“expansive.” As a practical matter, given our current norms of scholarship, cumulative
knowledge is signaled by the literature a particular study cites (i.e. the baseline of
knowledge against which a contribution is measured) and which subsequently cites that
study (i.e. evidence that the study has, in fact, made a contribution).

Finding our place in the literature

The commonality of the strategies to develop cumulative knowledge through qualitative
research listed below is that all would establish a claim to cumulative knowledge through a
typology or taxonomy within which the focal research can be located. The process of
building typologies as a tool of qualitative research has a long history including Weber’s
(1978) concept of “ideal types,” Lazarsfeld’s (1937) discussion of the “property space” of
research, and the introduction of “fuzzy logic” typologies (Fiss, 2011). A typology is a
system of categories based on one or more dimensions or properties. A typology reflects at
least an implicit theory of what makes various cases different but related. Taxonomy, by
contrast, is a system of categories based on empirically observable attributes of the cases.
These empirically observable attributes may not, ultimately, prove to reflect “true”
differences between cases but are sufficient in the field to make variations recognizable
(the biological analogy is the distinction between field guides, e.g. Audubon’s guides to
 AAAJ identifying birds based on bill shape, size, color, etc., vs species identification based on DNA
31,2 data). It is more common in the social sciences to refer to a system of categorization as a
typology, while in the natural sciences, the term taxonomy is more common.
The dilemma for qualitative researchers seeking to establish the place of their study
within a system of cumulative knowledge is that they may be reluctant to create, or
acknowledge, the place of their work within a typology/taxonomy outside the research itself.
568 But it is important to emphasize that the use of a typology to organize our understanding of
where a particular case fits within our knowledge does not limit the ontology or
epistemology one brings to the research:
As concepts, they are tools for conferring organization and stability on our thoughts about
reality. Like tools, they may be judged or found more or less useful for a particular purpose.
(Marradi, 1990).
There are three potential approaches to creating typologies that make this point clear.
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First, the typology may reflect logical possibilities and the existence/non-existence of
those categories in the field becomes a purely empirical issue. For example, if we conduct
a comparative study of users vs non-users of an accounting technique, we are creating a
(simple) logical typology within which to work (Innes et al., 2000; Jacobs and Kemp, 2002).
This approach to creating a typology should not conflict with anti-realism as it does not
make a priori claims about the categories used. Second, the typology may be seen as a
methodological bracketing, that is an analytic tool[3], which is not seen, in and of itself, as
having empirical validity (Whittington, 2011). In structuration theory, for example,
agency and structure are a duality – they are mutually constitutive – but studies
using structuration theory will analytically hold either structure or agency constant in
order to focus on the other (Scapens and Macintosh, 1996; Feeney and Pierce, 2016).
Finally, the typology may be regarded as an empirical research question and as such is,
ultimately, jointly determined in the field. In this case, either the field work suggests the
existence of other cases that the typology then captures, or a close reading of related texts
suggests the existence of boundary conditions that become part of the field work to
determine if those boundary conditions make sense (Sulaiman and Mitchell, 2005;
Chanegrih, 2008).
The recommendation implicit in all the strategies enumerated is to frame qualitative
studies within a typology/taxonomy that allows the researcher to identify existing studies
within the same or related problem space, and allows others to understand the position of
the current study within that broader domain. This allows qualitative researchers to
understand which work should be cited, and guides others who might cite the focal work.
This is the essence of building cumulative research. This approach should, of course,
already be reflected in the introduction and literature review sections of qualitative
papers, but the evidence of low citation rates among qualitative research papers suggests
that we are not building evidence of cumulative contributions in a systematic way (Bluhm
et al., 2011; Swygart-Hobaugh, 2004).
The creation of typologies/taxonomies also opens another layer of discourse among
qualitative researchers regarding the adequacy of these devices for guiding and
aggregating research. This provides a response to Ahrens et al.’s (2008) observation that:
Needed is cumulative knowledge as a product of ongoing debates that recognise certain forms of
commonalities and relationships connecting different spaces of the accounting arena.
These discussions, in themselves, may add to our cumulative knowledge by using
qualitative insights to provide a structured understanding of the phenomenological
world at a macro level. The creation of typologies will also facilitate “meta-syntheses”
or “meta-ethnographies” (Sandelowski et al., 1997; Britten et al., 2002; Finfgeld, 2003).
 Meta-synthesis is the qualitative analog of meta-analysis. A key to this process is The discovery
identifying qualitative studies that, in some sense, deal with the same theory or of cumulative
phenomenon. If the researcher is engaged in identifying the boundaries of their own knowledge
work, it becomes more reasonable and easier for others to assemble the set of studies that
should be synthesized.

Strategies for generating cumulative knowledge from qualitative studies 569

Table I summarizes the strategies for building cumulative knowledge through qualitative
research. These strategies include three approaches to increasing the scope of knowledge
and four approaches to increasing the depth of knowledge. This taxonomy is neither
regarded as comprehensive nor are the approaches listed mutually exclusive, i.e. a given
study may add to our knowledge drawing on more than one strategy at the same time.
The intent is to encourage the self-conscious use of these strategies in designing and
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reporting qualitative research.

These strategies can be used in two ways. First, in designing qualitative research, the
strategies provide a way of conducting literature reviews and identifying where a
contribution to knowledge is possible. In some cases, the process may be reversed where
an interesting research site is encountered, and the question is whether or not exploration
of this site through qualitative research could make a contribution to knowledge. Second,
once the research has been completed and the results are being written up, the taxonomy
may help to position the work within the broader literature. The research contribution can
be gauged with respect to existing literature related to the study in one of the ways
described below: as a contribution to the scope of our knowledge or a contribution to the
depth of our knowledge.

Focus of
cumulative Claim to cumulative
knowledge Relevant literature to be cited Macro-level framing knowledge

Cumulative knowledge of scope

Time period Studies done on the same topic based Periodization Empirical findings in a new
on data from other time periods time period
Context Studies done on the same topic based Cultural or Empirical findings in a new
on data from other contexts institutional variations context
Theoretical Studies done on the same topic based Ontological and/or Interpretation of empirical
pluralism on data from other theoretical epistemological data from a new theoretical
perspectives variations perspective
Cumulative knowledge of depth
Empirical Studies of the same phenomenon/ Existing empirical Empirical findings that
elaboration research site using new empirical knowledge extend understanding
data
Methodological Studies of the same phenomenon/ Methodological Empirical findings based on
pluralism research site based on data from variations a new method of data
other methodologies collection/interpretation
Theoretical Studies drawing on the same Existing theory Ancillary hypotheses,
elaboration baseline theory boundary conditions, or
new theoretical predictions Table I.
Analytical Theories that have been applied to Criteria for theory Strong inference tests of the Cumulative knowledge
generalization the phenomenon choice applicability of existing and qualitative
theories methods
 AAAJ Scope contributions
31,2 Any empirical observation or research study is implicitly bounded by a set of conditions, not
all of which may be observable, that allow the scope of knowledge generated to be compared
with others. Within realist research traditions, these are primarily concerned with time and
space; within anti-realist traditions, empirical observation is also affected by the theoretical
commitments of the researcher. A qualitative researcher may claim a contribution to
570 cumulative knowledge by demonstrating that their study deals with a unique aspect of a
phenomenon compared with others positioned within a typology reflecting one or more of
the scope conditions.
Period. The idea that social phenomena vary over time is discussed in a wide range of
literatures. Gergen (1973), for example, has argued that social psychology is historically
dependent in the sense that patterns of human interaction and attitudes are not universal
but tend to be stable within particular periods of time. The psychologist, according to
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Gergen, is thus more a historian than a natural scientist, observing regularities of behavior
anchored within particular temporal periods. Observations of family behavior in the 1880s
could neither generalized to the 1950s, nor could family behavior of the 1950s be generalized
to the 2010s. This view of the importance of time is also related to the “performativity
thesis” in economics that suggests that economists are not simply studying a natural
phenomenon but are actively creating that phenomenon through their impact on students
and policy. This thesis suggests that each addition to knowledge changes the underlying
social reality that we observe such that we cannot use observations about one period to
generalize to all periods. The performativity thesis also suggests one form of path
dependence in the observational world.
One implication of this view is that “replications[4]” done in different time periods are
doing more than simply examining the same phenomenon again; they are capturing
potential variations in time-dependent causal relations. A pure “replication” (i.e. finding of
the same results as a previous study), in this sense, is confirmation of the continuity of a
previously observed relationship, which should be just as surprising as observing a
changed relationship (Hubbard and Lindsay, 2013).
In order to make a cumulative contribution based on periodization, the study must
establish what makes the period in focus different from that examined by others
(Lieberman, 2001; Hollander et al., 2005). Typically, periodization will be based on
exogenous shocks (e.g. major frauds, economic recessions, or the death of a CEO);
technological developments (e.g. the introduction of a new management accounting
technique such as the balanced scorecard); or institutional changes (e.g. changes in
governance requirements after SOX and their subsequent evolution). Zan (1994) makes the
observation that the choice of periodization is both theoretic and cultural suggesting that
there may be an interaction effect between period and context (considered below). Quattrone
(2005) further calls on researchers to recognize the social construction of time, opening a
variety of ways to periodize history recognizing subjects’ view of events and change.
The case study of Delco reported by Tinker (1980) provides an early example in which
periodization within a history is used to provide internal contrasts to support inferences.
Cooper’s (1980) discussion of this paper raises the issue of the choice of periods as crucial to
determining whether or not the findings are valid. Studies of accounting in the UK coal
industry provide an example of building on prior research by varying the period on which
the research focuses (e.g. Berry et al., 1985; Bougen et al., 1990). The National Coal Board was
the focus of industrial action and government policy for an extended period of time allowing
researchers to examine the role of accounting in these disputes over multiple time periods
reflecting different constellations of policies, economic environments, and strategies
(Cooper and Hopper, 1988). By positioning research within a distinct historical period, each
 study provided a cumulative contribution to knowledge of the research site and the use of The discovery
accounting under different conditions. of cumulative
Context. The idea that observed relationships depend on historical period, by analogy, knowledge
also applies to different cultural and institutional contexts. Qualitative studies frequently
motivate or justify their existence based on the unique context in which the study was
conducted. Implicit in this motivation is the idea that the relationship of interest varies
because of some (perhaps unknown) attribute, or set of attributes, of the new context. 571
These studies often start from the observed difference in practices in different contexts and
attempt to use detailed qualitative investigation to identify these variations
(Annisette, 2006). A qualitative study can thus establish its contribution by identifying the
variety of contexts in which the phenomena of interest have been studied and positioning
the current study as an expansion of our knowledge of the phenomenon in a new context.
One of the areas that has developed a cumulative literature based on this approach is
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the examination of the effect of “empire” on accounting (Annisette and Neu, 2004; Poullaos
and Sian, 2010). While it is widely recognized that the UK was the source of many
professional accounting institutions, the professionalization of accounting across
countries is diverse. Qualitative work has been used to identify some of the key
dimensions of this variation within the British Empire. Further building on these themes,
the literature has also begun to explore variation in professional organization in
non-British colonies and relate these variations to different forms of empire (Dyball et al.,
2007; Brock and Richardson, 2013). In these cases, reference to other studies exploring the
influence of empire on accounting puts the current study into perspective and helps in
identifying the contextual variables that bound the results presented. For example,
differences in the effect of empire on accounting in settler colonies, exploitation colonies,
and protectorates are emerging in this literature, thus building a cumulative knowledge
across forms of colonialism (Poullaos and Sian, 2010).
Theoretical pluralism. If we accept the anti-realist view that data and observations are
theory-dependent, then one approach to building cumulative qualitative knowledge is to
systematically vary the theoretical perspective brought to bear on a phenomenon.
Importantly there is no attempt to reconcile these theories, or to use evidence to determine
which is “right”; instead, each theory is regarded as constructing a different way of knowing
reality, i.e. of expanding the scope of our knowledge not its depth (Hoque et al., 2013).
A qualitative study claiming this form of contribution may begin by reviewing studies of
the same phenomenon from various theoretical perspectives, thus establishing that the
theoretical perspective to be used has not been applied to this setting. Alternatively,
the review may identify other theories applied to the setting and provide a justification for
exploring the site again from a new theoretical perspective ( Jacobs, 2012).
One of the more systematic attempts at this approach is reported by Fleischman et al.
(1996), Fleischman (2000), Bryers et al. (2005) who used Foucauldian, Marxist, and
neo-classical economic perspectives to interpret cost accounting history in general, and
one company’s archive (the Carron Company) in particular. This type of theoretical
triangulation or theoretical pluralism is seen as having great potential for building
cumulative knowledge (Llewellyn, 2007; Hoque et al., 2013). More commonly, studies adopt
one particular theoretical perspective and attempt to demonstrate unique insights from
that perspective. In other cases, studies re-interpret an existing study in order to
demonstrate the value-added of a particular theoretical lens (Armstrong, 1994;
Anisette and Richardson, 2011). These approaches must be used carefully to avoid
simply retelling a qualitative story using a different vocabulary: a different theoretical
perspective must bring new insights in order to add value and hence truly be considered a
contribution to cumulative knowledge.
 AAAJ Depth contributions
31,2 The scope contributions described above assume that a qualitative study is done on a “new”
research site in adding to our cumulative knowledge. That is, cumulative knowledge is
added by recognizing boundary conditions that might affect one set of results and
systematically exploring the phenomena under a different set of conditions. In this section,
I examine opportunities to develop cumulative knowledge on a particular research site using
572 anti-realist methods. Unlike “archival” (i.e. based on large-scale, commercial databases)
studies, a field study is embedded in a particular time and place. In this sense, qualitative
studies are not replicable. In some studies, however, re-entry into the same site can occur
with minimal changes in conditions such that qualitative work can be seen as making
contributions to our depth of understanding rather than just the scope. This is particularly
the case in accounting history where the “residue” of past actions (i.e. documents,
photographs, etc.) remains relatively stable although the interpretation of that residue can
change. I also include as a cumulative contribution to the “depth” of our understanding
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situations where the object of attention is a theory rather than an empirical site.
Empirical elaboration. The empirical contribution of qualitative research to our
cumulative knowledge lies in expanding the depth of description of a particular
phenomenon. More significantly, one of the key ways in which qualitative research can
generate impact is through its focus on the specifics of time and place. While quantitative
research tends to emphasize statistical averages and generalizable relationships,
qualitative research emphasizes the detailed understanding of how particular social
choices influence specific stakeholders and vice versa. The exploration of the impact on
the variety of stakeholders of public policy, for example, is better addressed by detailed
qualitative work than attempts to create abstract variables and capture large sample
correlations (Falk and Guenther, 2006; Falk, 2007). Empirical elaboration occurs when new
sources of data or re-examination of research sites leads to a greater understanding.
The baseline against which a study claims to have made a contribution is the existing
empirical understanding of a case.
In historical research, for example, finding a new archive, or even a single document, can
sometimes add significantly to our understanding. This approach has two variants. First, an
existing study may acknowledge limitations due to lack of access to certain informants or
documents that a subsequent study may overcome (Richardson, 1989; MacDonald and
Richardson, 2004). Cumulative knowledge is thus created through additional data being
analyzed from a single source. Second, a study may focus on a new aspect of a known
research site. For example, accounting historians have gone into archives of organizations
that were known for certain management innovations and sought out the accounting
processes that supported these innovations. The addition of knowledge of the accounting
process adds both to the initial literature on that organization/management practice as well
as our understanding of accounting. This approach can be seen in the examination of the
accounting records of Wedgewood Potteries (Hopwood, 1987; Hoskins and Macve, 1986), the
Springfield Armouries (Tyson, 1990; Hoskins and Macve, 1994), and Caterpillar (Miller and
O’Leary, 1997; Arnold, 1998) among other sites. Walker (2008) captures this process by
describing accounting history as an “argument without end” as new data are discovered and
new interpretations offered.
Methodological pluralism. Although quantitative and qualitative methods are typically
used to address different research questions, there is increasing advocacy of the use of
mixed methods in accounting (Parker, 2008; Modell, 2009, 2010; Grafton et al., 2011). While
it is common to see the call for mixed methods within a given study, there is no reason
why mixed methods cannot be applied sequentially to the exploration of a phenomenon.
For example, a finding based on archival (large sample) methods may subsequently be
 explored with interview methods, or a finding based on qualitative methods may then be The discovery
followed by experimental work and quantitative analysis. Depending on one’s philosophy, of cumulative
this may be seen as triangulation (Modell, 2005, 2009), i.e. multiple methods designed to knowledge
provide a more accurate picture of a single reality, or as revealing different, and not
necessarily integrable, insights into a phenomenon (i.e. multiple realities, Llewellyn, 2007).
The use of mixed methods sequentially is particularly likely to generate incremental
contributions to knowledge compared with, for example, replications of studies using the 573
same methods.
An example of sequential application of methods arises where historians have
challenged quantitative analyses of US regulatory changes based on in-depth analysis of
archives. Merino et al. (1987), for example, re-examined Chow’s (1983) study of the origins
of US security regulation, raising questions about his classification of events as positive or
negative and his periodization. O’Dwyer (2002) provides a variation of this approach by
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exploring the motivation for corporate social disclosures through direct interviews with
decision makers rather than, as is more common in quantitative models, assuming rational
self-interest. One of the current areas where mixed methods is beginning to bear fruit is
the detailed examination of the sites of market activity and accounting practice
(e.g. Bettner et al., 1994; Haigh, 2006; Lounsbury, 2007). Another approach developing in
the political science literature is to create databases of coded case studies to allow theory
testing across multiple case sites using quantitative methods (Lieberman, 2010).
This approach has not yet been applied in accounting but would allow individual
qualitative studies to be used in meta-analytic procedures that would establish the
cumulative contribution of those studies.
Theory elaboration. The concept of theory elaboration through case studies was
popularized by Eisenhardt (1989). This is a systematic process that uses detailed qualitative
work to identify aspects of a phenomenon that are not adequately explained from an
existing theoretical perspective and to identify the theoretical amendments, i.e. boundary
conditions or ancillary hypotheses, that would be necessary to bring the observations within
that theoretical frame. This is related to the idea of “theoretical saturation” in the grounded
theory but typically uses new research sites rather than working within a single site to reach
that point in theory development (Strauss and Corbin, 1994).
What counts as “theory” in qualitative research is subject to debate (Llewelyn, 2003) but
each of the five “levels” of theory identified by Llewelyn (2003) – metaphor (generating
understanding by comparison with familiar things), differentiation (identifying comparative
categories), concepts (establishing ontologies to guide perception of the world), setting
(generating models of specific relationships), structure (so-called grand theorizing of the
principles that organize society) – would be subject to some form of theoretical elaboration.
Llewelyn (2003, p. 671) notes that “[c]hallenge to key dualities and categories (and other
levels of theorization) is an important component of theoretical development as they
[i.e. theories] can impede as well as enable new (and possibly more productive) ways of both
thinking and doing.” These challenges would allow for elaboration of the theory through
which we perceive events.
An example of qualitative research providing theory elaboration is in the area of regulatory
competition. Dye and Sunder (2001) and Sunder (2002) advocate competition among standard-
setting bodies to create financial reporting rules, suggesting that firms with different business
models may prefer different reporting rules and would satisfy stakeholders at a lower cost than
complying with general purpose rules. Richardson (2011) examines a setting where a second
standard-setting body was proposed in a specific jurisdiction but failed to gain support against
an entrenched standard-setting organization. This study suggests necessary conditions for the
existence of multiple standard-setting organizations as a pre-condition for standard competition.
 AAAJ Townley et al. (2003) and Dambrin et al. (2007) also use theory elaboration methods to
31,2 understand the process of translating institutional logics into management control system
techniques. Their work questions the previously theorized linear nature of institutionalization
processes. Another approach to theoretical elaboration is to conduct comparative case studies
across sites that vary in a hypothesized boundary condition. Cormier and Gordon (2001), for
example, compare social and environmental reporting strategies across electric utility
574 companies that varied in being either publicly or privately owned. Their design allowed our
existing understanding of CSR disclosure practices to be extended into a new context (a scope
contribution), but the use of a comparative case study across these two contexts was also
explicitly intended to extend the existing theory.
Analytic generalization. Yin (2003, pp. 31-33) introduced the distinction between “analytic
generalization” and “statistical generalization” to explain a key difference between how
quantitative and qualitative work contributes to our cumulative knowledge. Statistical
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generalization is based on the assumption that our sample represents a random draw from a
larger population. This relationship between the sample and population allows us to make
inferences about the larger population and to specify the degree of confidence that we
should have in those inferences. Analytic generalization, by contrast, is about the lessons
that may be drawn from a particular case study to the theory or theories that may be
relevant to understanding the case. Although theory elaboration and analytic generalization
are sometimes treated as equivalent procedures, analytic generalization seeks to identify the
theory that best fits the observed data in order to better understand the applicability of that
theory, while theory elaboration begins with a specific theory and seeks to understand how
it needs to be altered to accommodate the data.
Analytic generalization is a qualitative equivalent to strong inference (Platt, 1964) in
quantitative methods. Strong inference identifies theories that make competing predictions
and pits one theory against another. When strong inference is used repeatedly, a pattern of
relative successes allows the superior theory to be identified. Similarly analytic generalization
identifies specific case results that are more consistent with one theory than another. This
approach is more often cited than honored in practice. A common complaint of reviewers
regarding theoretically informed case studies is that the choice of theory is not justified. When
the objective of the study is theoretical elaboration, this question is moot; the work contributes
to the development of a particular theory, and the choice of that theory is not usually
questioned. But the use of a theory to interpret a case without explicit elaboration implies that
the case is best explained by that theory. The author then needs to establish why the data best
support this theory rather than another. This can be a daunting task and is rarely done
systematically. In some cases, literature reviews of a set of theoretically informed case studies
come closest to the ideal of analytical generalization (e.g. Spicer, 1992).
The study by Agndal and Nilsson (2010) on open book accounting practices uses a
limited version of analytical generalization. They use their case studies to interpret which of
the various theories of open book accounting best captures variations across their three case
studies. Ultimately, however, they use their results to suggest theory elaboration rather than
to privilege an existing theory.
A slightly different approach to developing a better fitting theory is to engage in
theoretical bricolage (Kincheloe, 2005) or hybridization:
“If it works then use it” may become a more common cry amongst such researchers, rather than an
insistence upon theoretical and methodological consistency and purity. In short, the research thrust
may lie in attempting to integrate and consolidate the variety of theories and methodologies which
have emerged in recent years, rather than seeking to add yet more (Hopper et al., 2001).
This may be seen as a combination of theory elaboration and analytic generalization more in
line with the example of Agndal and Nilsson (2010).
 Discussion The discovery
The strategies discussed above adopt an etic perspective on the potential contribution of of cumulative
anti-realist research to our knowledge. The intent is to provide guidance in the design and knowledge
reporting of qualitative research. Each strategy identifies a set of studies that provide the
baseline against which a contribution can be gauged and establishes the discursive space to
which the study contributes. By explicitly integrating these studies into the design and
reporting of qualitative research, a cumulative literature, i.e. a more extensive and intensive 575
intertextual network, will emerge.
A key concern in this paper, however, is to improve the perceived impact of qualitative
research within the academic community and within the system of metrics currently used to
evaluate academic performance (Torrance, 2013; De Rijcke et al., 2016). A recent debate in
the British Medical Journal highlights the issue. The editor sent a desk rejection letter to a
qualitative researcher on the grounds that “Our research shows that they [qualitative
studies] are not as widely accessed, downloaded or cited as other research.” This has been
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met with an open letter to the editors (Greenhalgh et al., 2016) challenging the journal to “join
other intellectual leaders in moving beyond a ‘quantitative strong, qualitative weak’ stance
and develop a proactive, scholarly and pluralist approach to research that aligns with its
stated mission.” This attempt to change the status quo view of the value of qualitative
research, however, may be more difficult than changing the way that qualitative research
recognizes its own contributions to knowledge.
In this section, I return to these issues adopting a pragmatic perspective on the
relationship between anti-realist research and research impact, identifying some
implications of the analysis for journal editors and reviewers, and raising a caution not
to fall into the trap of means-ends-reversal in implementing these ideas.

Anti-realism and research impact

The taxonomy of strategies for developing cumulative knowledge above is likely to be
met with the claim that qualitative research is not, and should not be, cumulative.
Qualitative research, a purist might say, is designed for understanding not prediction
and therefore cumulative knowledge is not the goal. Qualitative research, a purist
might insist, provides idiographic descriptions of specific times and places and not
nomothetic reductions of the complexity of life into variables and correlations.
Qualitative research provides a particular researcher’s perspective on the field, and
attempting to generate cumulative knowledge from different researchers’ perspectives
is equivalent to adding together paintings by Constable, Monet, and Picasso to better
understand a garden.
At a fundamental level, these criticisms of the attempt to create cumulative knowledge
from anti-realist research may be fair. It goes back to the observation cited in the
introduction that Nobel prizes in economics and the natural sciences are predictable
(based on previous citations) but Nobel prizes in literature are not predictable (based on
any quantifiable measure of prior use/criticism). The social value of a qualitative study
may not be as closely related to its connection to a body of literature as it is to the insight
that the work generates and the complex emotional and intellectual effect of the work on
its readers. While this may be comforting to the purist, a pragmatist must look at the
social context of qualitative research and inquire into the conditions under which such
work will be supported in the academy as it is currently evolving. There is an
unmistakable trend toward the corporatization of academe and an emphasis on short-term
benefits of research (Torrance, 2013; Parker et al., 1998). This has become crystallized in
the idea that research must demonstrate its academic “impact.” It is not enough to be
published; work must be used (cited) by other academics in their work and/or have an
impact on society.
 AAAJ While approaches to the measurement of impact are still developing, a time-honored
31,2 approach within the academic community is to examine article citations as an indicator of
the use of research by other researchers. Without claiming that this is a necessary or
sufficient indicator of research impact, the taxonomy above has implications for generating
research impact through citations of qualitative accounting research. Beyond this metric,
I will turn to some implications of qualitative research methodology that may benefit the
576 measurement of research impact.

Qualitative methods and research impact

Ahrens et al. (2008) note that “IAR does not have strong institutions for communicating
IAR’s value to the world.” This needs to change. The issue of how to measure and
communicate the research impact of qualitative research, including interpretive research,
can be addressed in two ways. First, the practice of writing and publishing qualitative
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research can change to create a cumulative tradition. This is the primary recommendation
of this research note. Second, we can develop alternative methods for judging the
academic contribution of qualitative work and work toward having these methods
institutionalized.
The first alternative is the most straightforward and could be implemented through the
work of authors, reviewers, and editors. Any qualitative work is related in some way,
possibly in one of the ways outlined above, to other work in the field. In quantitative work,
the cited work tends to focus on those papers directly related to the focal study’s research
question, methods, or theory. The relationship with other work is, therefore, primarily
vertical in the sense of prior work providing the foundation on which the current study is
built. In qualitative work, the relationship may be either vertical or horizontal but,
typically, the horizontal connections are not recognized in the focal paper. For example, if
a study is being done in a new context/period, the focal paper could recognize the work
that has been done in other contexts/period, and establish what aspect of the focal study’s
context differs from the previously explored context/period to suggest, a priori, that new
insights may be gained. This will serve two purposes: first, to recognize previous work
that the current work engages in conversation; and, second, to establish, for future
researchers, where the present work fits and hence what work remains to be done to fill in
the typology within which the work is located. If an author does not initially recognize
these connections, then reviewers and editors who are concerned with the “impact” of
work published in their journal may suggest that these connections are part of the
published contribution.
The second alternative, developing alternative methods for gauging impact, is much
more problematic. It is interesting, however, that the UK Research Councils’ “Pathways
to Impact” project focuses on qualitative methods of demonstrating impact. They
suggest that academic departments identify research that has impact and produce a
short narrative that argues for this impact. A second aspect of the Pathways method is to
engage stakeholders both in the design of research and in the distribution of research
findings. For qualitative researchers, these should be natural activities in terms of the
strong narrative tradition of qualitative research and because various forms of
qualitative research require the active involvement of subjects in the production of
the work (e.g. analytic interviews; Kreiner and Mouritsen, 2005) or use subjects as a
structured part of the validation process (Lukka and Modell, 2010). It has been claimed
that qualitative research avoids the analytic abstraction of quantitative work, making
it more accessible to readers. This implies that it should have a greater likelihood of
having the broader policy, social, economic, and environmental consequences that
underlie the calls for monitoring research impact. It becomes the responsibility of
qualitative researchers, however, to monitor the policy process and stakeholders’ use of
 the material to build the impact narratives that will justify continued public support for The discovery
qualitative research. of cumulative
While this suggests that qualitative research may be able to establish its impact on knowledge
social, economic, and environmental issues, demonstrating that impact within the academic
community independent of citation data remains challenging. There is a growing body of
literature concerned with the implications of using citation counts and journal rankings as
metrics for academic evaluation (Huber, 2016; De Rijcke et al., 2016). In the long run, the 577
critique of these metrics may succeed in changing institutional evaluation systems
including grant agency criteria, promotion and tenure standards, and journal acceptance
criteria. This change, however, may not occur quickly enough to allow current qualitative
researchers to advance their place within the academy.

Avoiding means/ends reversal

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It is important to recognize that while the intent of the suggestions above is to improve the
citation profile of qualitative research, this is the ends and not the means. There is evidence
that concern with impact factors and citation counts is leading some to take unethical
actions to build their citation profile[5]. This includes authors colluding to cite each other’s
work (so-called citation circles or citation cabals) or editors requiring authors to include
citations to papers in their journals prior to publication (so-called coercive citations) (Wilhite
and Fong, 2012; Teodorescu and Andrei, 2014). Many publishers and individual editors
have released policy statements indicating opposition to these practices. For example,
Elsevier[6] has stated:
“An editor should never conduct any practice that obliges authors to cite his or her journal either as
an implied or explicit condition of acceptance for publication. Any recommendation regarding
articles to be cited in a paper should be made on the basis of direct relevance to the author’s article,
with the objective of improving the final published research. Editors should direct authors to
relevant literature as part of the peer review process; however, this should never extend to blanket
instructions to cite individual journals.” And, they continue: “a higher Impact Factor should reflect
a genuine improvement in a journal, not a meaningless game that reduces the usefulness of
available bibliometric measures.”
Similarly, a group of editors of finance journals[7] jointly released a statement that:
The editors of JF, JFQA, JFE, RAPS, RCFS, and RFS hereby affirm that it has been, and will
continue to be, our policy to avoid coercive citation practices. While we retain professional
discretion to suggest that authors cite particular papers, we will do so only when scientifically
appropriate, and without regard to the journal where the cited paper is published.
These policy statements, however, do not provide guidance on what constitutes literature of
“direct relevance” or “scientifically appropriate” to an article under review. The strategies
identified in this paper provide a philosophically sound basis for expanding the connection
of a particular article to a broader academic dialog.

Conclusion
This note explores an etic perspective on the possibility of cumulative knowledge based
on qualitative accounting research. It makes three points. First, the concept of “cumulative
knowledge” in qualitative research must be expanded beyond a Cartesian model of
aggregating knowledge to produce a single “truth” and into a discursive model where
cumulative knowledge refers to an increase in the extent and density of linkages within a
discursive space. Second, the paper provides a taxonomy of strategies for designing and
reporting qualitative research that recognizes its contribution to cumulative knowledge
based on increasing the scope of knowledge (time period, context, theoretical pluralism)
 AAAJ or increasing the depth of knowledge (empirical elaboration, methodological pluralism,
31,2 theoretical elaboration, analytical generalization). In each case, the strategy involves
identifying the literature that is related to the focal work either directly or through its
contribution to understanding other aspects of the typology in which the focal work is
embedded. Finally, the paper provides three approaches to creating typologies that should
not violate the philosophical commitments of anti-realist researchers: typologies as a set
578 of logical possibilities; typologies as a methodological bracketing of the research space
being explored; or typologies (taxonomies) as an empirical outcome of engagement with
a phenomenon.
The practical imperative for the consideration of cumulative knowledge within an
anti-realist tradition is the increasing pressure to demonstrate the impact of our research on
and to various stakeholders, and the overwhelming use of citations as an imperfect but
readily available measure of academic impact. If the qualitative literature does not
appreciate the cumulative nature of its knowledge, it will not cite other qualitative work nor
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be cited by others. This will result in less appreciation (based on citation metrics) of the
impact of qualitative studies, and the journals in which such work is published, and
ultimately result in reduction in support for qualitative research. This concern leads to
suggestions for editors, reviewers, and authors for increasing the recognition of the
cumulative nature of qualitative work and for research designs that show a priori concern
for these issues. Beyond a concern for the place of qualitative research within a flawed
academic measurement and reward system, the strategies identified may help qualitative
researchers to identify where real contributions to knowledge, policy, and social, economic,
and environmental conditions can be made.

Acknowledgment
The author is grateful to his co-authors on various projects for conversations that have
helped to crystallize for him the strategies for building cumulative knowledge with
qualitative research. Previous work on which this research note builds was supported by the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Schulich School of
Business, York University, and Odette School of Business, University of Windsor.
The author would like to acknowledge the comments of Brian Jones and Mark Tadajewski
on earlier versions of the paper.

Notes
1. This observation appears in many sources but is frequently traced to Saussure’s methodological
distinction between “langue” and “parole” (formal language and speech).
2. The concept of “impact” appears to have replaced the call for “relevance” (Nicolai and Seidl, 2010)
in recent discourse about the connection of academe to the economy and society.
3. Bracketing was first suggested by Husserl as a method to support phenomenology. It has since
been elaborated within other philosophies (Gearing, 2004). The dimensions suggested above for the
creation of typologies is, at a macro level, consistent with this approach.
4. A distinction can be drawn between replication and reproduction (or conceptual replication;
Schmidt, 2009). Strictly speaking, conducting a study in a new time period would constitute
reproducing the original study.
5. See https://familyinequality.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/journal-self-citation-practices-revealed/ for
specific examples across a range of journals.
6. https://www.elsevier.com/connect/citation-ethics-for-editors
7. http://jfe.rochester.edu/coercive.pdf
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Corresponding author
Alan J. Richardson can be contacted at: [email protected]

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