Accounting Research

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Accounting Research

• Reading Understanding Academic (Empirical)
  Findings

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Figure 1 The Scientific Method
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Characteristics of a Good Hypothesis

• In harmony with existing knowledge
• General in scope
• Comprehensive yet parsimonious
• Yield a large number of consequences distinct
  from those generated by alternative hypotheses
• Relevant to the question at hand
• Testable

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Table 1 - Four Levels of Measurement
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Figure 2Random Selection vs. Random Assignment
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Establishing Causality

• Covariation
• Changes in presumed cause must be related to
  changes in the presumed effect
• Temporal precedence
• Presumed cause must happen before presumed effect
• No plausible alternative explanations

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Experimental Design
R O X OR O O
R X OR O
R O X OR O OR X OR O
X treatment or event O observation R
indicates random assignment
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Research Design
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Tradeoffs in Research Design

• Internal validity
• External validity

Tip Look for discussion of limitations
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Table 2 Threats to Internal Validity
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Table 2 Threats to Internal Validity
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Table 3 Threats to External Validity
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Validity of Abstract Ideas Research Constructs
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Evaluating Statistical Analysis

• The basics
• Reasonable sample size
• Correlations
• Regression and adjusted R2
• Significance tests
• Take comfort from peer-review process

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Trade-offs in Research Design

• No perfect study ever!
• Knowledge grows through triangulation
• Analytical research can provide theoretical
  framework
• Survey might identify important issues
• Quasi-experiment with archival data to determine
  generalizability (external validity)
• Experiment on same topic to more firmly establish
  causality (internal validity)

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Reading Research Papers

• Organization
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Literature review
• Development of research questions
• Description of methodology
• Findings
• Limitations
• Conclusions