Quantitative Empirical Research in Management Accounting: A Proposed Typology and Implications for Internal versus External Validity

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is twofold. First, we propose a typology of quantitative empirical research in management accounting based on two design features: presence of control group and sample representativeness. Second, we discuss implications of the methods for trade-offs between internal and external validity.
 Method: Based on previous methodological studies we develop a typology with eight quantitative empirical methods.
 Results: Based on the two design features, we propose eight quantitative empirical methods for management accounting studies: (1) laboratory experiment, (2) crowdsourcing experiment, (3) field experiment, (4) natural experiment, (5) single entity survey, (6) proprietary archival study, (7) large-scale survey and (8) pre-structured archival study. In addition, we critically compare the trade-offs and discuss the implications of these methods for internal and external validity.
 Contributions: The contribution is twofold. First, the proposed typology can help junior management accounting researchers increase the familiarity with the available empirical methods, some of which are still incipient in Brazil. Second, this study states that the choice of an empirical method typically implies benefits in terms of a validity type (e.g. internal validity) at the expense of other validity type (e.g., external validity). Claims of causality and results generalizability depend on which validity type is prioritized and remedies adopted to increase the overall validity of a study’s results.