ACCOUNTING AND THE PROBLEMATIQUE OF IMPERIALISM: ALTERNATIVE METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO EMPIRICAL RESEARCH IN ACCOUNTING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Abstract

This paper examines the alternative frameworks adopted in empirical research in accounting in developed and colonised developing countries, and suggests that a more appropriate methodological framework is necessary to explain the emergence and subsequent development of the accounting profession in the colonised developing countries. In this regard, the paper rejects the claim that the expansion of the Western-based accountancy bodies into colonised developing countries is inevitable. Rather it posits the view that the influences of the U.K.-based Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants (ACCA), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) and the dominance of Western accounting practices in the colonised developing world are intertwined with the local historical, global and cultural circumstances. Therefore, the problematique of imperialism is critical and significant for understanding the context in which the accounting profession has developed in former colonised countries. Bearing this in mind, the paper argues, then, that in order to adequately and validly investigates accounting issues in any former colonised developing nation; one has to adopt the frameworks of cultural imperialism and globalisation to fully contextualise the nature of accounting in colonised developing countries.

Citation

Bakre, O.M. (2004), "ACCOUNTING AND THE PROBLEMATIQUE OF IMPERIALISM: ALTERNATIVE METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO EMPIRICAL RESEARCH IN ACCOUNTING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES", Lehman, C.R., Tinker, T., Merino, B. and Neimark, M. (Ed.) Re-Inventing Realities (Advances in Public Interest Accounting, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1041-7060(04)10001-1