CASE STUDY METHOD IN ACCOUNTING RESEARCH: THE APPLICATION OF THE METHODOLOGICAL RIGOR IN NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS

Abstract

As a scientific method, the Case Study Method comprehends practices and specific care, once the distance between the theory from a field observation and the common sense is tenuous. As we do not know any paper which analyses the rigor of the expected methodology touched by the qualitative research literature, the developed study has the following research problem: How the Case Study Method has been used in accounting research? From the qualitative research literature, we have developed an analytical model with 16 points to been filled in the search of the methodological rigor expected from the literature. We have developed a census of the articles published by ENANPAD (268 articles) and the Journal of Accounting Research (184 articles) inside the period from 2002 to 2006. The results show that the Case Study Method has been used without methodological rigor specifically in Brazil.