Losing One’s Reason: On the Integrity of Accounting Academics

Abstract

Amplifies and addresses a number of issues raised by Gray (1992) in his review of the Fabian paper Accounting for Change: Proposals for Reform of Audit and Accounting. It explores the terrain of self‐reflection where the accounting academic struggles with the question of what it may mean in practice as well as in theory, to aspire to intellectual honesty and integrity. Argues that attention to the politics of scholarship is helpful in understanding the comparative novelty of Accounting for Change as well as the vocabulary that it adopts. Contends that Gray′s identification of inconsistency and loss of reason in Accounting for Change reflects a taken‐for‐granted commitment to a particular, monological concept of reason. Contrasts this with an alternative, dialogical conception of reason, arguing that the latter takes fuller account of the socially negotiated and consequential nature of communication.

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