Actor-reality construction

Qualitative research and pragmatic constructivism. Pragmatic constructivism, by providing a means of investigating and explaining how people relate to the reality in which they exist, also provides frameworks for the conceptualizing of how the practitioner can construct themselves successfully in relation to the business environment and for the conduct of empirical qualitative research. What facts are recognised? Which possibilities are identified as inherent in the facts? What values determine possibility selection? How is communication effected? Answering these questions leads to an understanding of how and why people act as they do. It, thus, provides a way of researching accountants as they act in practice and this special issue demonstrates this being done in a variety different research studies. The close attention to actual practice and its pragmatic aims also makes it possible to analyse the dynamic introduction of new practices and norms of accounting, as these apply to the dynamic and shifting values, environments and possibilities of organisations. There are many phenomenon to analyse as well as many ways to obtain and conceptualize knowledge within the pragmatic constructivism. The papers published in this special issue provide new conceptual insight in the understanding of the management accounting in the construction of functioning practices.