Reflections from the Editor’s Desk

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets ¹

Over the past year, I have had the welcome opportunity to travel to several international conferences and workshops, some tied closely to AHR, others less so. In March, AHR was fortunate to partner with L’Association pour l’Histoire du Management et des Organisations (AHMO) to host a joint AHMO-AHR conference in Nantes, France. September brought the AHR community together at the Museo Regionale Interdisciplinare di Messina for a splendid workshop hosted by the University of Messina Department of Economics. At the University of Sydney Business School in December, I had the privilege to deliver a plenary address at the 14^th Annual AAHANZBS Conference.² Our conversations were engaging, fruitful, and thought provoking. Accounting historians are no different than colleagues in other disciplines in seeking novel research, strong evidence, and clarity of contribution. While our frameworks and theories differ, our expectations of what makes for ‘good research’ are quite similar.³ Thus, this editorial returns to earlier ones to reflect on our AHR journey and various aspects of (accounting) historiography and the historian’s craft.

In 2014, I noted that we had shifted from accounting history to accounting in history, with deep reflections on the role of accounting in multi-faceted and institutional contexts. As argued at that time, ‘[w]hile trends and themes have emerged, dominated, changed and resurfaced over time, clear evidence exists of AHR’s consistency with respect to high quality scholarship that challenges our disciplinary boundaries of what is “accounting history”’ (McWatters 2014, 1).

The landscape has changed considerably in the decade since this editorial. We have seen the explosion in availability of online and digitised sources, collaborative research, and the long-term impacts of COVID-19. The first has made it easier to do work remotely and conveniently, but it also has led to the expectation that researchers seek or can search for yet another piece of evidence. At times, it results in a lack of adequate evaluation of the evidence as if more data, in themselves, compensated for argumentation and analysis. Collaboration has altered research processes and protocols and encouraged transdisciplinary dialogue. COVID-19 has shifted our priorities and outlook. Its impact includes greater difficulty, expressed by many editors, to find referees – and engaged ones – willing to contribute to a process of developmental and constructive manuscript review, for which AHR is known and upon which this editor relies heavily.

In the following paragraphs, I turn to four elements amongst those which I raised in speaking engagements during 2023, namely ‘theory’, ‘speculation versus explanation’ and on a more practical level, author teams and the ‘big name’.

‘Theory’ – or should it be ‘THEORY’?

We have seen growing and heated debates and questioning of the role and understanding of theory – in terms of its place within historical research. Workshop studies are presented apologetically with the ‘need to find a theory’ as if a theoretical stance replaces solid research and analysis. To return to an earlier editorial:

Through our work as researchers, teachers, authors, referees, and editors, we have become familiar with the multitude of theories that have enriched our research and writing. We have seen them come and go, quickly become the latest trend and craze, only to drop off the scene with the arrival of an upstart. … . These theories, whether overt or covert, shift from one generation of historians to another in non-linear fashion, frequently returning to where we once began. (McWatters 2020, 254–255)

However, our fascination with theory can come at the expense of disciplinary diligence. Many studies – at many journals – suffer from what has been labelled – including frequently by reviewers – the sandwich model. A theory is introduced at the outset of the manuscript, returned to in the conclusion, but left missing from the filling. While being catholic in our tastes, we also fail at times to do the heavy lifting – and reading – to understand and internalise the implications of our theoretical choices. We are prone to adopt theory writ large (and not a particular one) as something that is required, but not convincingly utilised. All of us need to work diligently to keep up with new interpretations of existing theories. We also need to use theories to inform our work, not drive it in a deterministic fashion or apply them as a tool kit. Theory does not compensate for evidence, analysis, and rigour. Besides our theoretical stance, researchers need to understand and consider speculation versus explanation.

Speculation versus explanation

While it is useful to speculate, especially when dealing with the development of abductive inferences, explanation must follow. It is a ‘dance’, as Bolin (2009, 110) argues, between our building on ‘fragments of a known past’ and ‘a world constructed through reasoned imagination and grounded speculation’. Historians select evidence, follow one course of action over another, and have the ability to discard alternatives that do not work as readily compared to other possibilities deemed to be more convincing and plausible. All good in terms of reflection, as long as we keep front and centre critical common sense.⁴

Author teams and the ‘big name’

To return to the practical side and the creation of an article that captures reader attention, I offer editorial comments. Over the years, as in other areas of research, we have seen the emergence of multi-authored studies, compared to sole-authored works or those written with one or two co-researchers. Given the pressures to publish, levering author teams could be a viable strategy. However, it might also lead to studies that lack a clear authorial voice, a set of parts written separately then put together at the end. On another level, when asked to judge an application for promotion, a research grant or an academic appointment, as many of us are requested to do, it is essential to distinguish contributions and what people brought to the research. It can prove difficult to assess.

Author teams include what I term the ‘big name’, where established colleagues join a project with early-career researchers. Both sides can gain from this experience, from mentoring those who will be the future of our discipline, gaining incremental publications, to adding a recognised name on the manuscript to get the editor’s attention. Where this effort can go awry is when early-career researchers are left alone during the review process, the stage at which the experience and judgement of seasoned researchers are essential and requisite features. Thus, I would encourage all of us to reflect on how we can best contribute to the research agenda by fostering collaboration and critical dialogue. Published manuscripts – whether sole- or multi-authored – all go through a rigorous review process. Engaged reviewers are authors too. In both roles, we know the value of a developmental review process to move a project and our discipline forward in novel directions. The collective wisdom and engagement of our AHR community provide essential ingredients to invigorate our research.

To close, I wish to thank the researchers who have chosen AHR as the home for their work and the expert reviewers (who span many disciplines) who have offered their insights and knowledge to support our authors.⁵ I encourage you to delve into AHR, both this current issue and past ones, as frequently those ‘old and discarded’ questions lead to novel ideas.

Notes

1 T.S. Eliot (1971), ‘Little Gidding’, Four Quartets, 145.

2 To learn more about the AAHANZBS, do visit the Business and Labour History Group website at the University of Sydney: https://www.sydney.edu.au/business/our-research/research-groups/business-and-labour-history-group.html

3 I offer this comment as Department Editor at the Journal of Operations Management, which might seem to be a strange bedfellow for an historian. I have learned much from my ‘ops’ colleagues with respect to interdisciplinary thinking, rigour, relevance, empirical evidence and novelty.

4 McWatters (2016) discusses speculation, history and speculative history. The editorial outlines the decision to consider a manuscript that sought to balance the ‘what-ifs’ with the evidence initially judged as ‘highly speculative’. After rich debates with the authors and the reviewers, we published Dean Clarke and Capalbo (2016) with the critiques by Bryer (2016) and Toms (2016) to present a variety of perspectives.

5 In the past, we published a list of ad hoc reviewers to recognise and thank colleagues for their contributions. Privacy legislation requires us to seek approval for inclusion on this list, rendering its publication less comprehensive and potentially misleading.