Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

Radicalizing accounting history: the potential of oral history

Theresa Hammond Prem Sikka
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Theresa Hammond Prem Sikka, (1996),"Radicalizing accounting history: the potential of oral history", Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal, Vol. 9 Iss 3 pp. 79 - 97
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 Radicalizing
Radicalizing accounting accounting
history: the potential of oral history

history
79
Theresa Hammond
Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and
Prem Sikka
University of Essex, Colchester, UK
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Introduction
Accounting research generally bears a facade of being neutral, rational,
concrete and objective. Likewise, histories of accounting are often written in a
manner which suggests smooth and impersonal progress towards the goal
which enables accounting to capture and reflect economic and social reality.
Such research focuses on the development of accounting/auditing rules and
standards, the successes of accounting societies in attaining government
recognition, and the theories of major personalities assumed to have led the
development of accounting thought.
These traditional histories elide the complexity of accounting change and
ignore both the impact on and the contributions of ordinary people’s struggles
in checking, advancing, facilitating and resisting accounting developments. As
a way to begin to challenge these dominant histories, we recommend that oral
history be used more frequently in assessing accounting’s past, present and
future. Oral histories are important because, first they focus on individual
experiences, interpretations, reactions and aspirations. Focusing on these
qualitative aspects of history problematizes the notion that accounting, and
accounting history, can be neutral, objective and verifiable. Second, most
accounting history ignores the role of human agency and struggles (except in
the case of a few accounting “heroes”). Oral histories’ focus on the individual
has the capacity to illuminate the dissension, resistance and accommodation
that shapes the development of accounting. Finally, while other calls for oral
history in accounting have emphasized the importance of interviewing the
major personalities in the development of the field (e.g. Collins and Bloom,
1991), we call for the use of oral histories to give voice and visibility to those
marginalized or otherwise adversely affected by accountancy. Oral history has
the potential to give voice to the subordinated, and we consider the examination

The authors would like to thank Christopher Napier, Christine Cooper, the participants in the
Academy of Accounting Historians 1995 Modernity Conference and the anonymous reviewers Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal,
for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. They appreciate, and miss, Tony Vol. 9 No. 3, 1996, pp. 79-97. ©
Puxty’s inspiration. MCB University Press, 0951-3574
 AAAJ of axes of power in accounting – especially along the lines of race, gender, and
9,3 class – a crucial but long neglected area of research.
The remainder of the paper begins with a brief description of the
development of oral history. This is followed with an examination of how the
goals we advocate can be used in accounting research. This is then followed by
some methodological suggestions for conducting oral history research. As this
80 research method has rarely been used in accounting, we draw from other
scholarly fields and provide a detailed bibliography for those interested in
pursuing radical oral history in accounting.

Oral history and objectivity

Histories of accounting that focus on the continuing improvements in the field,
parallel histories of Western civilization that mythologizes a story of continuing
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progress, taking mankind from the barbarity of slavery and feudalism to the
enlightenment of the modern mass media, consumerism, professionalism, and
liberal democracies. This view of history has been challenged by many who do
not see continual improvement in the quality of life and who highlight the
detrimental effects of much of the “progress” witnessed in recent centuries (see
Bauman, 1988; Giddens, 1990; Held, 1980; Lyotard, 1984). Capitalist
development may have raised the standards of consumption and living for
many Westerners; but it has also been accompanied by colonialism, economic
imperialism, slavery, environmental damage, exploitation, poverty and
degradation unparalleled in human history.
The attitude that capitalism represents the pinnacle of progress has been
embraced by researchers in accounting and finance, where the story of
continual progress is based on the sanctity of private property rights and a
formal separation of “public” and “private” spheres (Tinker, 1985). In this story,
institutions of accountancy and leading accountants (Accounting Standards
Board, 1991; Financial Accounting Standards Board, 1978; Kitchen and Parker,
1980; Solomons, 1991) are assumed to be devoted to producing a neutral and
faithful account of reality, mainly through an imitation of pseudo-scientific
research methods (Chua, 1986; Hines, 1988, 1989). This story of continual
improvement in accounting research and practice is institutionalized in
chronological histories of accounting (e.g. Bell and Wright, 1995; Chatfield,
1977; Edwards, 1989; Parker, 1981).
These ostensibly apolitical histories have increasingly been challenged by
what Miller et al. (1991) call “New Accounting History”. Through the recent
development of “critical schools” of thought in accounting (e.g. Hopwood, 1987;
Merino and Mayper, 1993; Miller and Napier, 1993; Tinker and Neimark, 1987,
1988), we now have a better understanding of the intertwining of accounting
with qualitative aspects of social, economic and political life. However, while
accounting researchers have begun to focus on the social, they have yet to use
oral history to give sustained visibility to the lived experiences of the wide
variety of communities affected by accounting.
 There have been calls for the use of oral history in accounting (Collins and Radicalizing
Bloom, 1991; Zeff, 1980), but these authors advocate a functional approach to accounting
oral history. Collins and Bloom state that oral history should be used “to history
confirm or refute any hypotheses involved in analyzing recorded history” (1991,
p. 23); and both Collins and Bloom (1991) and Zeff (1980) warn against
respondents who might modify “actual” events. Our position is much different.
Instead of using oral history to produce some monolithic “truth”, we recognize 81
that history is experienced and viewed very differently by the various people
who shape it and are affected by it. Oral history, we argue, should be used to
problematize claims that there is a single true universal story to be uncovered
and should emphasize the multiplicity of experience that results from
accounting practices. Instead of following Collins and Bloom’s (1991) and Zeff’s
(1980) suggestion that accounting researchers use oral histories to supplement
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and verify other forms of history, we believe oral history can be used to
problematize and contradict the traditional stories of accounting. These efforts
will underscore the importance of perspective when discussing history and,
thus, undermine the idea that there is a single “true”, “official”, history.
For example, Bell and Wright (1995, p. 27) emphasize the development of
auditing research as that of continual progress towards a comprehensive theory
of auditing. Auditing conferences are described as markets of auditing ideas
where the best theories are adopted and built on (Bell and Wright, 1995, p. 29).
The mutually beneficial relationship between auditing practitioners and
researchers is highlighted. All these descriptions emphasize one view of the
development of auditing thought; the use of oral history might reveal another.
Of course, one of the reasons oral history is so exciting is that, frequently, it
leads to unexpected results. Interviews might reveal disagreement as to what
course the research should have followed and what disputes were suppressed or
over-ridden. Interviews with participants and would-be participants in the field
of audit research might reveal exclusion from the mainstream of auditing
discourse due to the political motivations and aspirations of those who
dominated the field, such as editors of journals, leading researchers at major
universities, and research funders. Certainly, oral histories have a potential to
reveal different representations and interpretations of the “same” set of events,
since they go beyond what the official written evidence privileges. Oral history
would thus contribute to the understanding that accounting history, like all
history, is subjective and, in contrast to the recommendations of Collins and
Bloom (1991) shows that history is a lived experience which is full of
contradictions, contestation and unforeseen consequences.

Oral history and giving voice to the silenced

A second way in which we differ from previous calls for oral history in
accounting is that we advocate its use explicitly for the purpose of illuminating
the history of those who are not usually heard from in accounting. Collins and
Bloom (1991) and Zeff (1980) recommend interviewing major figures in the field,
with Zeff (1982) writing about the ordeal of Kenneth MacNeal, and this practice
 AAAJ has been well established in accounting research. For example, Parker (1994)
9,3 interviewed Louis Goldberg (and his colleagues and friends), a leading
accounting educator in Australia, to provide a rich interpretation of
accounting’s development in Australia. Mumford (1991) interviewed successful
accountants in his examination of the development of accountants as managers
in the UK. Loft (1987) also interviewed early members of the Chartered Institute
82 of Management Accountants (previously known as the Institute of Cost and
Works Accountants) to shed some light on the way accountancy bodies attained
state recognition. Many of those interviewed came from humble origins, but
they were interviewed as a result of their success and fame in furthering
accounting. In contrast, we urge the use of oral history to shed light on the
experiences of those who are affected by accounting, but whose voices are
seldom heard.
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Our disagreement with the suggestions of traditional accounting researchers

parallels disputes about oral history’s use in other fields. Oral history was first
accepted as scholarly work in the 1920s when the Chicago School used them as
a means of investigating the world of criminals and deviants (Lummis, 1987,
p. 16). In the 1930s the US government sponsored the Federal Writers Project, a
job creation programme designed to mitigate the high unemployment levels of
the depression years. Hundreds of writers undertook the first large-scale oral
history project, gathering over 10,000 interviews. The writers interviewed
factory workers, rural farmers, miners, and other ordinary Americans. Because
of its focus on the marginalized, participants in the Federal Writers Project
conducted 2,000 interviews with African-Americans who had been enslaved.
Written evidence from the same period was rarely produced by people who had
been enslaved; the Federal Writers Project made records of experiences
available that would otherwise have irretrievably been lost.
With the advent of more widely available tape-recording devices, the interest
in oral history surged in the 1950s, but with a focus on “great men”. The
(American) Oral History Association was established in 1948 with the increased
interest in political history that followed the Second World War. Allan Nevins at
Columbia University began recording and collecting the reminiscences of US
Presidents and cabinet members (Frisch, 1990; Thompson, 1988). Nevins
believed that the new taping technology and the focus on “great men” would
increase the legitimacy of oral historians among traditional historians, but the
project did not have a major influence as other historians remained suspicious
of narratives and stories, which seemed to them to lack the pseudo-scientific
reliability and objectivity associated with written evidence (Crapanzano, 1984).
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, new social movements, such as the civil
rights movement, provided challenges to the enlightenment story of continuing
progress. Despite the official rhetoric of equality, human rights and democracy,
grassroots movements arose over common experiences of discrimination on the
basis of gender, ethnicity, colour, and sexual orientation. Traditional histories
concerning only powerful individuals and institutions came to be seen as totally
inadequate (Hampton and Fayer, 1990). This renewed interest in the use of oral
 history to illuminate the lives of ordinary people expanded not only in the USA Radicalizing
and Europe, but in other societies as well (Thompson, 1988, ch. 2). Within a accounting
short period, oral history became a recognized way of challenging conventional history
histories rather than merely transmitting the views of the influential. (For
example, see Curb and Manahan, 1985; Duberman et al., 1989; Frisch, 1990;
Gluck and Patai, 1991; Hill, 1991; Humphries, 1981; Kann, 1981; Marcus, 1992;
Okihiro, 1984; Passerini, 1980; Roberts, 1984, 1994; Robinson, 1989; Smith, 1974; 83
Stead, 1987; Thompson, 1984, 1988; Tonkin, 1992; Wyatt, 1987; Yow, 1995.) Oral
history came to be seen as a means of challenging the very nature, meaning and
purpose of history. It questioned why some histories are written while others
are neglected and why some historical experiences are privileged while others
are ignored (Buhle, 1981; Dunaway and Baum, 1984; Thompson, 1988).
There are innumerable opportunities in accounting where the voices of the
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marginalized, unemployed and dispossessed, could be given visibility to

problematize the dominant story told in accounting research. The voices of
those who are negatively affected by accounting decisions are rarely examined,
and many accounting articles continue to examine history from the perspective
of the powerful, especially stockholders, regulators and corporate boards.
These articles celebrate maximization of stockholder wealth, profit
maximization and new accounting/auditing techniques. The human side of this
story is ignored.
Many capital market papers concern events with important social
consequences, yet they focus on “firm value” and “stock market reaction” as if
these impacts are indisputably the most important concern of the accounting
researcher. For example, Blacconiere and Patten (1994) analyse the Union
Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India through an investigation of the impact of
environmental disclosures on firm values. An oral history approach might
investigate the dangerous cost-saving techniques implemented, within the
prevailing accounting logics, by Union Carbide, which may have contributed to
the disaster. Interviews with the Indian employees, community members,
survivors, and relatives of those killed by the chemical leak would surely
provide a different perspective on the interaction between accounting and this
catastrophe. Instead, stockholder wealth is elevated over the consequences for a
poverty-stricken and exploited Indian city.
Another capital markets paper which takes a narrow view is DeAngelo and
DeAngelo (1991), which found that reported accounting income, white collar
pay, and dividends were all reduced during union negotiations in the steel
industry in the 1980s. The paper emphasizes the competitive pressures that
resulted in layoffs and reductions in union wages. The authors admit that the
white collar pay and dividend reductions may have bolstered the industry’s case
that union concessions were necessary, and they note that reductions in
accounting earnings resulted primarily from discretionary charges. A radical
oral history approach to the topic, however, would shift the focus towards the
impact of these manipulations on the lives of the 300,000 steel workers who lost
their jobs in the 1980s.
 AAAJ Titles such as Plant-closing Decisions and the Market Value of the Firm
9,3 (Blackwell et al., 1990) clearly indicate the ideological focus of most accounting
research. Plant closures and their impact on reported accounting numbers are
examined in light of their impact on the stock market prices, not in light of their
impact on the displaced employees, which could appropriately be examined
through oral history research. Likewise, the effect of accounting standards on
84 ordinary people are not often explored. Numerous papers examine the impact
on the stock market of Financial Accounting Standards Board pronouncements
with major social consequences, such as standards concerning pensions and
retiree health benefits (e.g. Ali and Kumar, 1994; Amir, 1993; Espahbodi et al.
1991; Francis and Reiter, 1987; Khurana and Loudder, 1994; Mittelstaedt, 1989;
Mittelstaedt and Regier, 1993; Mittelstaedt and Warshawsky, 1993; Stone, 1987;
Thomas, 1989; Warshawsky et al. 1993. These standards were shown to result
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in cutbacks in retiree income and health coverage, yet the vast preponderance
of accounting papers on the issue do not concern the negative impact on
individuals. Oral histories investigating the experiences of those elderly whose
benefits were cut off would enrich our understanding of the human impact of
accounting standards and undermine efforts to foreground stockholder wealth
as the primary concern of accounting researchers. Fortunately, Baker and Hayes
(1995) used oral history as part of their exploration of the McDonnell Douglas
decision to terminate health care benefits for non-union employees. The paper
is unusual in that it privileges the voices of the retired employees, and
emphasizes their feelings of vulnerability and betrayal. Unfortunately, this
approach is all too rare in accounting.
In addition to studies that examine the impact of accounting standards on
ordinary people, oral history could be used to advantage in moving tax research
in a more radical direction. Instead of the current focus on taxpayer compliance,
incentives and motivations, an oral history approach might examine the impact
of increasingly regressive tax reforms on the poor and disadvantaged. Instead
of focusing on the revenue generated by special tax programmes, the impact of
these programmes on the disadvantaged and disenfranchised could be explored
and humanized through oral history. For example, oral history would help to
reveal the impact of special tax credits for job creation in areas of high
unemployment. An oral historian might examine the complexity of the US
Congress’s current plan to drop a major tax credit for employers in Puerto Rico.
Interviews with employees of firms that might leave Puerto Rico if the tax credit
is revoked, with employees who lost jobs when the firms moved from the US
mainland to Puerto Rico, and with employees in depressed areas around the
world where these firms might move would help undermine the notion that this
is a simple issue of maximizing revenue for the US Treasury and emphasize the
historical precedents that lead the US Congress to these decisions.
Another area ripe for examination by oral historians concerns the recent
expansion of accountancy firms into offering advice on mergers, takeovers and
cost-cutting programmes, often resulting in layoffs. Such economic
restructuring has led to additional fees for firms and higher profits for their
 partners, but redundancies for employees, including accountants. What are the Radicalizing
politics of consultancy and how do stakeholders feel about the intrusion of accounting
consultants who collect fees, but are rarely there to face the consequences? An history
oral exploration of such issues has the potential to provide some reflection and
evidence showing that accounting and economic ideologies (possibly reflecting
stock market pressures) which encourage short-term profits by reducing
expenditure on research and development, health and safety, environment and 85
employee welfare, are misguided. Through oral history, accounting’s role in
generating unemployment (Bryer and Brignall, 1986) can be made more vivid
and questioned in a social rather than a technical sense. Such explorations may
encourage reflections on the social and disciplinary role of accounting with the
possibility of deeper reforms. The alternative stories have the potential to show
that accountancy firms’ actions (re)distribute wealth and that while they may
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lead to private economic gains they impose considerable social costs.

Accounting also plays a major role in the new regimes of “flexible”
accumulation (Drucker, 1994), and in the pursuit of greater profits and
commercial objectives, accountancy firms themselves are implementing these
regimes through cost and time budgets, close supervision, monitoring and
inculcation of trainees (Hanlon, 1994). Instead of working evenings and
weekends without pay, some accounting trainees appear to be resisting such
pressures through falsification of audit evidence, schedules and files (Page and
Willett, 1994). Under pressure to retain clients, major firms are keen to appease
clients and modify their reports (Department of Trade and Industry, 1992,
ch. 6). Professional ethics appear to be disposable in the pursuit of fees (Mitchell
et al., 1994) and trainees appear to be under pressure to retain clients at all costs;
any concern with social or public objectives appears to be missing from their
training (Hanlon, 1994). Thus reasons for audit failures may be closely
connected to the surveillance and reward practices of the firms and education
policies of the profession in general. Through oral histories of auditors, and the
audited, we can appreciate new forms of resistance by professional workers,
new understandings of the reasons for auditor litigation and audit failures and
we can challenge the notion that accountancy firms, relative to other
professions, are somehow less interested in profits, market shares and niches.
These examples barely scratch the surface of opportunities for oral history
research in accounting as a vast potential exists. It could also be used in audit
judgement research to trace changes in attitudes towards various roles of
auditors and show that judgemental aspects are not standardized among
trainees or auditors. Furthermore, such research may show that many auditees’
expectations from an audit are based on their interactions with auditors, i.e.
they talk about audits with auditors and then come to form the view that audits
are about fraud detection and reporting. Thus, different light may be shed on
the much publicized “expectations gap” (Sikka et al., 1992). Oral history’s
potential could be used in accounting ethics research to emphasize the personal
experiences and individual differences which contribute to ethical development
and it could be used more often in studies of cost accounting changes which
 AAAJ rarely privilege the perspective of those who are impacted directly by these
9,3 changes: the workers (Arnold, 1995, is a notable exception).
Oral histories can also be used illuminate the politics of accounting research.
Faced with oppressive pressures from financial sponsors and the need to get
published, some research avenues may be downgraded (Puxty et al., 1994). How
accounting academia in the USA changed focus from accounting practice to
86 research disassociated from practice (Bell and Wright, 1995; Lee, 1995) can be
explained through the lived experiences of academics. The reliance on official
history of influential bodies (e.g. the American Accounting Association),
journal publication records, and faculty statistics, at best only offers a very
selective and partial story of the creation of élite accountants. The ambiguities,
struggles and challenges, perhaps, can only be explored through oral histories.
In endorsing oral history as a radical approach to the study of accountancy,
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we also recognize that some critical histories of accounting could be approached

from an oral history point of view. Tinker and Neimark (1987) provided an
interesting critical examination of General Motors annual reports and the
representation of women therein; interviews with women involved in the
company and their perspectives on their portrayal in the annual reports over
the years would also be fascinating.

Methodological issues
In the tradition of the Columbia Project, technical books and articles focusing on
techniques for maintaining accuracy in oral histories continue to proliferate
(e.g. Broussard, 1984, p. 73; Clark et al., 1980; Lummis, 1987; Passerini, 1980;
Seldon and Pappworth, 1983; Vansina, 1973). Much of this is a response to
traditionalists who regard oral history as soft, subjective, affected by the biased
intervention of researchers, incomplete and easily manipulated. An engagement
with such criticisms is essential so that some theoretical and political issues can
be explored (Bertaux and Thompson, 1993; Dunaway and Baum, 1984; Gluck
and Patai, 1991; Plummer, 1983; Samuel and Thompson, 1990; Stanfield II and
Dennis, 1993; Thompson, 1988; Tonkin, 1992; Wyatt, 1987). Through oral
history, the traditional idea that only elites and powerful make history has been
challenged to provide a richer tapestry of social life and change (Okihiro, 1984,
pp. 195-211). There is now a widespread recognition that all history is selective
(Chomsky, 1989; Said, 1994). In traditional approaches, the researcher’s
influence is always there but rarely explicitly acknowledged. The very choice of
topic, research methods, questions for interview or questionnaire, hypotheses
and conclusions are all dependent on the subjective feelings of the researcher.
Such choices are political in that they prioritize or marginalize some issues.
Since the researcher’s influence cannot be avoided (Haley, 1964), oral historians
urge that it be acknowledged openly (Gluck and Patai, 1991).
Oral history exposes the constraints imposed by the written record. Printed
evidence is one-way: silent and unable to respond to comments, questions and
observations. Oral history provides an opportunity to get at the untold story of
those who were affected by accounting but not consulted when the official
 written record was produced. Indeed, some research can only be carried out Radicalizing
through oral history (e.g. the history of early African-American accountants accounting
(Hammond and Streeter, 1994)), especially when those who keep written history
historical records do not consider the information to be important (for example,
not all aspects of business decisions are committed to paper, especially if they
are made in a golf club or other informal setting).
Radical oral histories emphasize understanding how people define and 87
evaluate their own experiences. Thus, the best interviewers should not
primarily be concerned with completing some preselected list of questions. Rich
oral histories reflect a sensitive balance between the narrator’s agenda and the
interviewer’s agenda. This requires patience to enable the narrator to construct
and reflect the interview in his or her own terms. Historians need to give careful
attention to what the narrators say – or try to say, but decide to withhold – as
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well as pauses, gestures, and other non-verbal responses (Thompson, 1988;

Yow, 1995). In contrast, oral historians (e.g. Anderson and Jack, 1991; Anderson
et al., 1987) urge interviewers to abandon the usual presuppositions and attend
to the narrators’ self-evaluative comments and emotional responses.
Researchers need to be alert to the multiple (often contradictory) identities of
the subject. For example, a person defrauded by the Savings & Loans or Bank
of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) closure is not just an investor;
she/he might also be a father, mother, daughter, son, employee, neighbour and
citizen. His/her narrative may reflect conflicting gender perspectives framed by
the dominant position of men in the culture (e.g. in banking, accounting and
society generally) and by the more immediate realities of the woman’s personal
experiences. Researchers need to be alert to the possibility that where
experience does not fit dominant meanings, alternative concepts may not easily
be available and narrators may mute their own feelings and thought[1] as they
try to describe their lives and experiences according to publicly acceptable
conventions (Anderson and Jack, 1991).
Oral historians emphasize the importance of language and meanings
systems in the production of oral histories. With documentary records, we can
only infer what the language means, but with oral history we can ask living
people. Simple words, such as “cheats”, “auditors”, “accountants”, “profes-
sionalism”, “ethical”, “nervous breakdown”, and “justice”, may have con-
notative meanings which informants should be encouraged to describe. As the
discussion progresses, the particularities of the narrator’s experiences begin to
emerge from the veil of the familiar[2]. Digression and responses to questions
which have not been asked should be explored to help in understanding new
factors and influences which shape people’s lives (Evans, 1987).
Reflecting the influence of traditional positivistic research methods, some
expect oral historians to seek out random samples. Such beliefs, however,
assume that inequality, silence, oppression, pain and other human experiences
are randomly distributed. From the very beginnings, oral historians have
believed that oppression, discrimination and silence of social subjects are not
 AAAJ random, but reflect a pattern of power relations. In a commercial setting, people
9,3 affected by corporate collapses and audit failures (e.g. Savings & Loans or
BCCI) are not necessarily homogeneous. They have different levels of
investment, assets, income, family support, family responsibilities, education,
professional inculcation, access to attorneys and ethical concerns. Some may be
unwilling to have their lives and experiences probed and recorded by a stranger,
88 while others may be shy or consider themselves to be inarticulate for
participation in research which may appear to be an élitist and forbidding
exercise. Some subjects may be too frail or sick to be interviewed. Access to the
chosen subjects is a key issue and this may often depend on personal rapport
with groups, their spokespersons or selected individuals. Within such
constraints, oral historians seek a “purposeful” rather than a random sample
(Facio, 1993).
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There are also concerns that the very processes associated with research
present challenges and may inhibit transmission of narratives and oral
histories (Yow, 1995, ch. 9). First, to facilitate dissemination through books or
articles, oral histories need to be transcribed (Rosengarten, 1984, p. xxiv), an act
which causes “loss” (especially of non-verbal responses). Intonations,
inflections, laughter and tears are all excluded from the final document (Portelli,
1981, p. 178). Most researchers eliminate their own questions from the
transcription and printed text, and that leaves the reader to wonder who
directed the topics, the informant or the interviewer. Transcriptions should be
returned to the narrator since it would be unethical to publish the jointly
produced text without giving the narrator an opportunity to check, correct and
edit it. But on seeing an account of their lives, some informants may wish to
revise their original comments, thus eliminating spontaneity and some
emotions. Fearful of possible (hostile) reactions from their neighbours, family
and work colleagues, some may even refuse permission to publish their
testimonies[3].
Despite the recognition that avoiding bias is impossible, timing is important
in conducting an interview. Some oral historians believe that retirement (or near
retirement) is the best period in which to conduct an interview. At this juncture,
some psychologists believe that a “life review” leads to a desire to share stories.
It could also result in less self-consciousness and more candor since the
experiences are seen as past. Stories may be more coherent, but they may also
have been revised as the informant attempts to make sense of his or her life’s
work (Thompson, 1988; Yow 1995). Many oral historians interested in
documenting a distant part of history are concerned that the interviews be
conducted before it is too late (Peukert, 1980; Portelli, 1981). It is not surprising
that the prominent examples of the use of oral history in accounting all
concerned interviews primarily with retired people (Loft, 1987; Mumford, 1991;
Parker, 1994). Hammond has found that retired African-American certified
public accountants seem more willing to be openly critical of their experiences
than are those still in the profession (see Hammond, 1996; Hammond and
Streeter, 1994).
 The relationship between the interviewer and the narrator is important. Radicalizing
Surveys have found that informants give different responses to black versus accounting
white and male versus female interviewers[4] (Thompson, 1988, p. 118). This history
does not, however, mean that one type of interviewer will necessarily elicit a
more “accurate” response; rather it is a reminder that social bonds (based on
age, gender, or ethnicity, for example) may lead to a different selection of
memories and self (Thompson, 1988, p. 119). This choice of what is shared may 89
compromise some part of the oral history data and as a safeguard Thompson
(1988, p. 197) recommends that researchers should gain thorough familiarity
with the subject before embarking on any field work. This desire for familiarity
may be a reason that oral historians in accounting have thus far focused their
efforts on accountants (Arnold, 1995; Hammond and Streeter, 1994; Loft, 1987;
Mumford, 1991; Parker, 1994) rather than those affected by accounting.
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To win rapport and secure access, researchers may send some prior work to
potential interviewees, but there is a danger that instead of getting fresh
information the respondents may simply confirm the prior work. Hammond
found an unexpected result when she sent a working paper on African
American CPAs to a new group of informants. While it did, as intended,
convince her informants that she was well-acquainted with the issues, it also
reduced the spontaneity of responses. Many informants said, “It was just like
your paper”, instead of sharing their unique experiences.
Oral histories can provide evidence for supporting and transforming
theories from a variety of modernist, post-modernist, feminist, anti-racist,
marxist, radical, critical and traditional frameworks. However, the very
commodificatory processes associated with publishing scholarly research
present dilemmas. In view of the joint production of the text produced through
oral histories, the appropriate level of analysis is not always clear. If the
narratives are presented without any comment, it might appear to the reader
that the interviewer believes he or she has had no influence on the content and
style of what the narrator related. This is deceptive as it implies that the
narratives were unaffected by the circumstances of their production. There is no
real option of leaving the histories uncontaminated; the very act of transcribing
the interviews and taking them out of their original contexts render any effort
to retain purity futile (Tonkin, 1992, p. 59; Tyler, 1987). While the transcription
may be worthwhile to increase the possibility of dissemination, it leads to the
charge that the work is adulterated.
On the other hand, scholarly traditions expect a theoretical analysis of the
material. This creates the impression that narratives only gain significance
when the “expertise” of the interviewer is brought to bear. Over-analysis can
result in quoting informants only when their statements fit into the researchers’
preconceived theories, thus obscuring the contributions of the informants
(Behar, 1990, p. 226; Kann, 1981, p. 9; Thompson, 1988, p. 242). Instead of
sharing authority (Frisch, 1990), the author is upstaging the contributions of the
narrators. Researchers have openly expressed their dilemmas over this balance
(Behar, 1990, 1993; Frisch, 1990). Portelli (1981, p. 179) recommends that all oral
 AAAJ history should lead the author to being self-reflexive as well as reflective of her
9,3 or his subject matter. The proper balance is impossible to pinpoint, and many
authors are criticized for the choices they make. For example, Behar (1993), in
her oral history of a Mexican marketing woman, also includes extensive self-
analysis. She juxtaposes the experiences of a poor Mexican woman with her
own as a middle-class American woman trying to “make it” in the male-
90 dominated field of academia. In doing so, she runs the risk of offending readers
by implying more commonalties in these two lives than many would see when
comparing the life of a bourgeois US academic with that of a poor Mexican
woman (Perera, 1993). On the other hand, Mellon’s (1988) collection of edited
slave narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project has been criticized widely for
its lack of context: in addition to not revealing the manner (gender and race of
interviewer, location of interview) in which the interview took place, he often
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leaves out the age of the informant. Perhaps because of an unwillingness to

undertake this difficult balancing act, many who use interviews in researching
accounting history tend to underplay their contributions to the final product.
Loft (1986, 1988) used interviews in investigating the history of cost
accountants, but did not include verbatim quotations from her informants.
Tyson (1994) also conducted interviews in his study of collective bargaining in
the US men’s clothing industry, but, again, did not use quotations. Perhaps
because of continued questions about their value as evidence, manuscripts with
extensive verbatim quotations (Hammond, 1994; Loft, 1987) might have trouble
gaining recognition as publishable research (see Walker, 1994).
One route for those trying to balance the need to give voice to the silenced
with academic demands for analysis would be to attempt to show how local
practices are shaped by broader macro-influences (Thompson, 1988, p. 61).
Sociological theories, such as Marxist theories, focus on structures divorced
from the individual. Psychological theories (e.g. from Freud) focus on the
individual as if she or he resides “outside of” history. Thompson (1988) believes
that oral history can help lead to an integration of these theories by examining
the ways in which the institutional structures impact personal development.
These investigations can help us understand the influence of micro- and macro-
factors on shaping human subjectivity (Thompson, 1988, p. 261). In the Federal
Writers’ Project example, the institution of slavery had clear macro-economic
effects. The variation in individual experience revealed through the narratives
problematize the claims of overly deterministic theorists. The narratives also
reveal the power of institutional structures (like racism) in constraining peoples’
choices (Behar, 1990, p. 225; Kondo, 1990; Tonkin, 1992, p. 102). Through such
linkages, oral history can make a major contribution. Unlike some earlier oral
historians, however, (e.g. Vansina, 1973), the contemporary oral historians (e.g.
Behar, 1990; Kondo, 1990; Robinson, 1989; Tonkin, 1992) are not seeking
generalizability nor narrators who are “representative” (Behar, 1990, p. 225;
Tonkin, 1992, p. 87). Instead, the richness of the data provides insights, but not
the illusion of a complete picture (e.g. Tonkin, 1992, p. 87).
 Unlike the traditional methods where the researcher is expected to be Radicalizing
dispassionate and detached, the oral history researcher is deeply involved and accounting
is thus likely to encounter moral and ethical dilemmas which subtly will affect history
the outcome of the project and the nature of information collected (Punch, 1986).
To manage the ethical dilemmas, the interviewer, first, must consider the impact
of his or her interviews on the informant. If the subject discussed is painful, do
the interviews provide the opportunity for release and healing for our 91
interviewees, or do they merely cause the pain to resurface? Or are the
informants glad that someone cares to hear and disseminate their
experiences?[5] As researchers, we need to be aware that we may be exploiting
others’ experiences for our own gain (e.g. tenure, publications). Just as the
informant assists the interviewer through participation in the research project,
the interviewer should consider how he or she could assist the informant or
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causes important to the informant. For example, someone who interviews blue-
collar workers about the transformations brought about by new costing
techniques might offer to discuss the rationales behind those techniques with
groups of union members in order to help them in their debates with
management.

Conclusion
Oral history has rarely been used as a research tool in accounting, and even
then its main concern has been to give visibility to the views of well-known
accountants (Mumford, 1991; Parker, 1994) rather than to give voice to the
people who have been excluded, oppressed and exploited in the onward march
of the institutions of accountancy and accounting calculus (for an exception, see
Hammond and Streeter, 1994). Reflecting its earlier development and concern
with the condition of enslaved persons, the poor and the agricultural and
working classes, oral history has been useful in challenging established history.
This potential could be used in accounting to enrich our understanding of the
impact of accounting on people’s lives.
However, those considering using oral history may feel that though the
method is capable of shedding much light on the lived experiences of people,
industrial relations, class antagonisms, gender/race discriminatory practices of
firms and professional bodies, it provides little illumination of the construction
and refinement of accounting techniques and practices. Such a view assumes
that accounting practices are driven by some internal technical logic of their
own and are not intertwined in wider organizational and social practices.
Indeed, there are no neat boundaries which one can draw in any exclusive way
around accounting. As the purpose of oral history is to question the very nature
of dominant approaches to writing accounting history, it is not surprising that
it may loosen and challenge the views about what constitutes accounting
history. Without oral history, the role of accountancy practices and firms in
colonizing organizations (Armstrong, 1987), influencing unemployment,
divestment (Bryer and Brignall, 1986), crime (Mitchell et al., 1996) and
industrial disputes (Berry et al., 1985), remains ill understood. It is our
 AAAJ contention that oral history can offer deeper and different understandings of the
9,3 role and influence of accounting.
It may also be argued that, under the influence of dominant discourses and
ideological inculcation, oral history narrators might not necessarily associate
their experiences and fate with the visible hand of accounting practices and
thus oral histories of ordinary people may shed little light on the way
92 accounting may have affected their lives. Such outcomes, however, cannot be
taken for granted and can only be illuminated by research. There is some
evidence to suggest that trade unions and workers (Arnold, 1995; Cooper et al.,
1993) are becoming increasingly aware of the way accounting practices
influence their access to material and symbolic goods. If further research was to
suggest that ordinary people consider accounting to be a neutral and innocent
tool, this itself would open a further field for research. Questions such as how
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has accounting managed to render itself invisible, would be appropriate.

Finally, right from the beginning oral history has been seen as a vehicle for
sharing concerns and raising issues which for a variety of reasons may not be
asked (see Frisch, 1990; Gluck and Patai, 1991; Thompson 1988 for a
discussion). Thus, there is a potential that through oral history research, critical
researchers can ask narrators to consider the impact of accounting on their lives
and in so doing encourage reflection and become a vehicle for change. As Puxty
(1995) noted, accounting too often privileges the commodity over the person.
Oral history offers the opportunity to change the focus towards accounting’s
effects on people.

Notes
1. Some feminists argue that women’s responses will be shaped by normative standards for
women’s behaviour (Anderson and Jack, 1991; Anderson et al., 1987). As women have
traditionally been the primary child-care provider, girls grow up feeling connection and
intimacy, whereas boys grow up feeling difference and separation. But women do not feel
they can express this desire for intimacy. Because, again, of male domination of the field,
this desire for intimacy is often interpreted by psychological professionals as dependence.
So feminists urge that women’s experiences should be explored, through oral history, not
condemned based on an extant framework of preconceived (male) notions. Researchers
must ask the meaning of words women use. Anderson et al. (1987) found that women
described their own feelings as “dependence”, a word with negative connotations, due to
the cultural conditions that defined the desire for closeness as a weakness. They argue that
historians cannot treat oral history as a “window” into women’s reality, because cultural
norms shape the responses of our informants.
2. Often oral history is conducted on a male model. Questions like “What did you do?” instead
of “How did it feel?” or “What did it mean to you?” predominate in many inquiries. The
message conveyed by the interviewer might be that she is trying to get at patterns, that the
interviewer is only interested in generalizable information, not that she is interested in
individual experience. Oral history’s potential is unusual in that it is the only data source
we can interrogate. We can ask "What do you mean by that?", yet this potential is often
ignored. We are more comfortable, given our cultural constraints, with just sticking to the
“facts”.
3. Painter (1979, p. viii) quarrelled with her informant as to who was the “author” of the
biography that resulted from her interviews with Hosea Hudson.
 4. Similarly, Spike Lee, a noted African-American film director, argued that only a black Radicalizing
director could make The Autobiography of Malcolm X in part because only a black director
could elicit the effective history from Malcolm X’s associates (Hruska, 1993; McDonald, accounting
1992). history
5. Rosengarten (1984), cited frequently as an excellent example of oral history (e.g. Buhle,
1981, p. 212; Thompson, 1988, p. 237), believes that Mr Shaw found renewed strength in the
interviews; it sustained his belief that his work organizing the Sharecroppers Union had
been worthwhile (Rosengarten, 1984, p. xx). 93
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