Which research methodology on the Management Control issues?
The aim of the article is to discuss how to strenghthen the process of internationalization of research, but preserving the basic values of Italian accounting thought, also in the methodological side, i.e. maintaining the integrated inductive-deductive method of research.Specific reflections are carried out on the more and more relevant role played by the analytical demonstrations of the research hypotheses, with an experimental approach typical of the “hard” sciences. In particular, the research hypotheses are often based on cause-effect relationships in a true-false logic, with reference to the available data bases or to data collected on a sample basis, often neglecting the accuracy of such a data. Even the language used is more and more the mathematical one, not suitable for the scientific communication in our community, because it neglects the qualitative variables, the interpretation of the data and the understanding of the multiple non-linear cause-effect relationships.With regard to the contents, the relevant issues seem to be no more those related to the understanding of the business complexity, but those that may lent best to the correlation analysis; in fact, the focus is on the quantitative methods, considered a priori better, and this increasingly determines the detachment from the business reality.
Keywords: research methodology, quantitative methods, qualitative methods, data accuracy.
