Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Illustrative Example
June 1, 2016
The first author thanks the doctoral students at the University of Florida who participated in the Field Research
Methods special seminar in the winter of 2015. We also acknowledge the ongoing support of the Social and
Behavioral Accounting Brown Bag at Queens Smith School of Business for their discussions of our work especially
Bertrand Malsch and Pamela Murphy.
Responding to increased calls for financial reporting researchers to enter the field, the goal of
this article is to provide a basic primer on how to conduct field-based research using qualitative
interview methods. We start by reviewing the extant, but limited, field research literature in
financial reporting. We then assemble a set of resources that facilitate transfer of explicit (also
known as declarative, codified or textbook) knowledge about the interview method. Next,
reviewing how we carried out a study on earnings press release creation process. This example
driven approach allows us to not only illustrate how explicit knowledge of interview-methods
can be applied, but also provides a means to highlight the tacit knowledge about implementation
issues and choices. By following the advice in this article, novice field researchers in financial
reporting will gain a basic fluency in qualitative interview-based methods that will enable them
to more readily acquire the knowledge and skills to respond to the challenge of going into the
field and conducting valid, reliable, field based financial reporting research.
In recent years, leading general interest accounting journals (e.g., Soltes 2014a in Journal of
Accounting Research) have increased calls for field research to be carried out in financial
reporting. Indeed, the new section journal of the American Accounting Associations (AAA)
Financial Reporting Section (FARS), the Journal of Financial Reporting (JFR), explicitly states
that a large part of its mission is to provide an outlet for research that fills perceived gaps in
current journals. In particular, JFR wants to publish Research using underrepresented methods
such as field studies, small sample studies and analysis of survey data. Given the lack of
training in qualitative research methods in most English-speaking doctoral programs, this article
provides direction towards closing this important gap in the research methods training of
financial reporting researchers. While there are many types of field methods (see Bloomfield,
Nelson, and Soltes 2016 for a discussion of this),1 in this article we focus on the qualitative field
interview where the goal is to better understand the world from the perspective of the
participants who take part in it. As the premiere niche journal for behavioral accounting research,
it is appropriate that Behavioral Research in Accounting lead a discussion on how to carry out
archival research methods, with a small minority having training in analytical and experimental
1
Soltes (2014a) reminds us that field data can take many forms, including information from private databases within
organizations and surveys of particular field phenomena, and not just the interview-based methods used to collect
data that we call a field study in this paper. Further, others note (e.g., Ittner 2014) the ability to combine qualitative
methods with other forms of field data can make such studies much richer. Indeed, a large part of what Soltes
(2014a) does is to add a layer of field research onto a detailed archival markets study to provide a very different
interpretation of that studys results than what the authors had originally suggested (see Iliev, Miller, and Roth
2014).
research methods (Kinney 2003). Hence, if such researchers are to take up the call to conduct
field based studies, resources need to be made available to educate and train researchers on how
to do this type of research, at least until doctoral programs adapt to include the training of
The purpose of this paper is to provide basic guidance to financial reporting researchers
on how to carry out interview-based field research. We assemble a set of resources that facilitate
transfer of explicit (also known as declarative, codified or textbook) knowledge about the
interview method. Following the guidance from knowledge transfer theory (e.g., Szulanski 2000)
we emphasize research methods literature from closely related fields (i.e. management
accounting and auditing) and organize the resources by research stage to facilitate the knowledge
transfer. Further, following knowledge transfer theory, we recognize that acquisition of tacit
(also known as implicit or how to do) knowledge is needed to facilitate implementation of that
explicit knowledge (e.g. Nonaka and von Krogh 2009). Hence, we follow a key knowledge
transfer approach designed to bridge the knowing-doing gap (see Pfeffer and Sutton 2013) by
illustrating how to plan, conduct, and analyze the data collected in an actual interview-based
study we conducted on the creation process of public companies earnings press releases.3
We also address two myths about carrying out qualitative interview-based research.
First, there are researchers who believe that carrying out field research is a simple matter of
2
It should be noted that other disciplines in North American business schools offer coursework in qualitative
methods. For example, Harvard Business Schools doctoral program offers two courses in qualitative methods in the
management area (see http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/qualitative/pages/courses).Where such courses are not found in
business doctoral programs, they can be readily found in sociology departments. For example, at the University of
Pennsylvania, where Wharton Business School is located, the course SOC 604 focuses on qualitative methods (see
https://sociology.sas.upenn.edu/pc/course/2015A/SOCI604).
3
The study was never completed due to the exogenous shock of the financial crisis of 2008, which shut down access
to those involved in the earning press release process, given the gravity of the situation that faced managers at that
point in time. However, it makes an excellent exemplar of how to prepare for and execute interview-based field
research on a financial accounting research related topic.
2
going out and talking to people. Further, they believe anyone can do it with little or no training
and/or preparation. If novice researchers enter the field unprepared, the resulting research will
have little validity with the most likely result of simply confirming the researchers pre-existing
beliefs and interpretations and not reflect knowledge and insights that the researcher sought to
gain from entering the field. Second, there are some field researchers, trained in an interpretive
methodological research tradition (see Appendix A), that believe a researcher needs years of
specialist training along with a particular set of epistemological and ontological beliefs in order
to be qualified to carry out field research. Both of these myths are harmful to the evolution of
The basis for our claim to expertise is this area is that as an author team we have
collectively carried out seven full scale field studies, each including a large interview
component, that have led to the publication of seven articles (with more coming given one
project is only recently in working paper form) in top tier accounting journals over a twenty
plus year period (e.g., Salterio 1994, 1996; Salterio and Denham 1997; Gibbins, Salterio, and
Webb 2001; McCracken, Salterio, and Gibbins 2008; Free, Salterio, and Shearer 2009) in
addition to others in top niche journals (e.g. Gibbins, McCracken and Salterio 2005). Further,
two of the three authors did not receive formal doctoral level education in field research methods
as part of their doctoral programs, allowing them to identify with the financial reporting
researcher looking to educate themselves in interview methods. The third author received
the study that complements the self-training of the other authors. Finally, one of the authors has
edited and reviewed in excess of fifty field studies in his time as an Editor (in-chief), Editor, and
reviewer and the other two authors have reviewed multiple field studies for top tier journals.
3
Hence, collectively we are uniquely qualified to discuss how one self-educates on how to carry
We begin the paper with a brief discussion of what is field research in financial reporting,
including a review of the handful of recent studies that have been carried out and published that
investors, analysts etc.). We then note the theoretical support from research on knowledge
transfer (e.g. Nonaka 1994) that provides the basis for the approach we take in writing this
article. Following that literatures approach, we proceed to discuss the declarative (or
employ an exemplar field study in financial reporting on the creation of earnings press releases
(EPR hereafter) in public companies to aid in transferring of tacit (or how to do) knowledge
about interview based research. We explain, using the rationale we used in carrying out the
research, the motivation to enter the field to investigate EPR, our situating ourselves in the
academic and regulatory literature in preparation for creating the interview protocol (the formal
title for the document containing questions to be posed to interviewees), the development of our
interview protocol, the approaches used to obtain interview informants (the formal term in the
literature for those interviewed), and how we approached the analysis and reporting of qualitative
data (the formal term for the data produced from an interview albeit it is used to cover more data
than just interviews). We conclude our methods introduction with suggestions for managing a
pilot project so that the skills needed to carry out such a study can be refined prior to undertaking
4
The American Economic Review colloquially describes field research as involving interviews
with economic actors and visits to places they live and work (Helper 2000,228). Similarly,
Merchant and Van der Stede (2006, 118) describes field investigations as studies that involve
in-depth study of real-world phenomena through direct contact with the organizational
participants.
Among the advantages Merchant and Van der Stede listed for field research are: 1) the
study of accounting practices in their natural setting facilitates the generation of relevant
theory; and 2) it provides rich descriptions of practice that are particularly effective for
theory building (118). Furthermore, Merchant and Van der Stede note that field studies can be
used effectively for testing and refining existing theories (119), including the interpretation of
certain data regularities when multiple theories can be used to interpret the data. Helper (2000)
adds, from an economics research perspective, that field research allows researchers to ask
people directly about their objectives and constraints, facilitates use of the right data and
Merchant and Van der Stede (2006) indicate that field research is well established in
management accounting (with over 250 field studies published in the years 1981 to 2004
including over 80 studies published in the so called top five accounting journals) and has been
increasing in auditing (27 studies published in the period 1981 to 2004 including 17 in top five
journals). In addition, we observe that Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR) alone has
published nine management accounting interview-based studies since 2005, compared to two in
the period 1984-2004; and ten auditing interview-based studies since 2005, compared to three in
the period 1984-2004. Thus, interview-based field studies in those domains certainly have made
5
Yet, field research is rarely found in financial reporting (21 studies in the period 1981-
2004 with only six of those in top five journals) according to Merchant and Van der Stede
(2006). We observe that CAR has published only two financial accounting field studies since
2004 versus one published in the period 1984-2004. Furthermore, most of the extant financial
accounting field research has been carried out in the interpretive paradigm (see Appendix A for
important and valid (e.g. see Malsch and Salterio 2016 for a discussion of how interpretive
research and positivist research can complement each other), it is less likely to be of interest or
helpful to the understanding of financial reporting topics that are the dominant interests of
There has been a slow but steady growth, in recent years, in financial reporting field
research in the top five journals using mixed methods survey data plus qualitative interviews
(e.g., Graham, Harvey, and Rajgopal 2005, Dichev, Graham, Harvey, and Rajgopal 2013,
Brown, Call, Clement, and Sharp 2015). Graham et al. (2005) is the first study of its kind that
was published in top tier accounting journals and was the winner of the AAA Notable
Contribution to Accounting Research Award in 2006.6 While this study focuses on a random
sample survey of financial executives who are members of the FEI, the researchers employed
qualitative interviews to serve as a check on the interpretations they made from the survey data.
5
For example, Stolowy, Messner, Jeanjean, and Baker (2014) investigate how financial reporting and other related
practices were employed in the Madoff case to create an illusion of trustworthiness. Neu (2012) shows the
financial accounting related effects (among others) of undocumented workers (i.e. illegal immigrants to a country) in
an interview-based study of the restaurant industry. The connection of these issues to the concerns of analytical and
empirical (including experimental) financial accounting researchers is likely to be limited. Appendix A provides
pointers to articles in this paradigm and provides an introduction to the methodology.
6
Research on the auditor-client management interactions over the contents of the financial statements dates back to
2001 (Gibbins, Salterio, and Webb 2001) using a variant of the survey method called the experiential questionnaire
(see Gibbins 2001, Gibbins, and Qu 2005, and Salterio and Gondowijoyo 2017) as well as interview data
(McCracken et al. 2008). We exclude this literature from this paper, even though it focuses on CFOs (e.g. Gibbins,
McCracken, and Salterio 2007), because of its close links to the audit issues. For a review of this negotiation
research see Salterio 2012.
6
The authors discuss how their field study was designed to triangulate with analytical and archival
financial accounting research addressing the same questions. They advocated the use of
interviews as an opportunity to reinforce or clarify the survey responses but not as a research
The subordination of interview data to the more rigorous survey data has been
diminishing as researchers gained experience gathering such data. For example, Dichev et al.
(2013), building off Graham et al. (2005) approach, use both surveys and interviews as well.
However, Dichev et al. start the research by conducting pre-survey interviews to help them scope
the nature and extent of the survey questions. They also conducted post-survey interviews to
clarify the main findings of the survey, but with an added focus on investigating the surprising or
The interview data began to play a more equal role with the survey data in the reported
findings as financial reporting field researchers became more sophisticated with use of interview
data. For example, Brown et al. (2015) builds off an archival study by Soltes (2014b) that
investigated, using a set of proprietary field based data, the private interactions between firm
management and sell-side analysts. Brown et al. extend Soltes (2014b) research by directly
surveying and interviewing analysts to gain a deeper understanding of their interactions and
decisions. Brown et al. (2015) used the interviews to corroborate what was found in their survey
and in the archival data. However, they went beyond corroboration by using the interview data
to report additional findings based solely on the interview data. This added reliance on interview
based evidence can see seen in the papers results section where there is an increased use of
7
It is interesting to note that the authors spend a considerable amount of space defending the use of surveys and
interviews by discussing the weaknesses of existing archival research and how their field research overcomes these
weaknesses.
7
interview quotes interspersed throughout the survey data analysis, rather than the interview data
being included in a supplementary section to the main analysis that was in previous papers the
survey data. Brown et al. (2015) illustrates an increasing level of researcher (and editor/reviewer)
Yet to date, no study has been published in a top tier accounting journal on a financial
reporting topic that is solely based on interview data.8 Table 1 summarizes financial reporting
field studies published over the past decade. Populations sampled from have included financial
executives, especially CFOs (e.g., Graham et al. 2005), financial analysts (e.g., Yoo and Pae
2016), and tax executives (Graham, Hanlon, Shevlin, and Shroff, 2014). Topics have included
voluntary corporate disclosure decisions (Graham et al. 2005; Jong, Mertens, Poel, and Dijk
2014), earnings quality (Dichev et al. 2013), and firms incentives and disincentives for tax
planning and avoidance (Graham, Hanlon, Shevlin, and Shroff, 2014). However, we are still in
the infancy of financial reporting field research, as Table 1 represents a census of studies
published in top tier accounting journals to the start of 2016, not just a sample.
reporting researchers to interview-based methods. These methods produce qualitative data, hence
the use of the term qualitative interview-based research. The knowledge transfer research
recognizes that any attempt at transfer has a certain degree of stickiness to it (Szulanski 2000).
8
There have been a handful of exclusively interview-based articles published in accounting, outside of the top tier
journals, which adopted a positivist research methodology orientation that is the focus of our article. These include:
Holland (1998) on private disclosures UK public companies made to institutional shareholders in the early 1990s;
Cowton (2004) on the interplay among ethical investment fund managers between financial and ethical performance
information use in purchasing stocks within one ethical mutual fund; and Mayorga (2013) on how firms manage
their continuous disclosure obligations to stock markets in Australia.
8
That literature (e.g., Szulanski 2000) observes that difficult knowledge transfers are more likely
to involve complex and causally ambiguous practices, like the qualitative interview methods we
focus on. Further, the knowledge transfer research reminds us that to transfer knowledge one
must focus not only what the party attempting the transfer seeks to achieve but also needs to on
build off the existing capabilities of the recipient (Hansen and Hass 2001).
Knowledge transfer theories suggest that there are two main types of knowledge that
must be acquired in order for knowledge transfer to occur: explicit and tacit (Nonaka and von
Krogh 2009). Explicit knowledge (also known as declarative, codified or textbook knowledge)
can be defined as knowledge transmitted in a formal, systematic language (Nonaka and Takeuchi
1995, 59) that can be learned through the creation of documented models and processes (Nonaka
and Takeuchi 1995; Szulanski 1996; Morris and Empson 1998; Hansen, Nohria, and Tierney
1999; Hansen, 2000). Guidance from knowledge transfer theory (e.g., Szulanski 2000) that
suggests any new explicit knowledge must be synthesized into existing knowledge via a
process during which new, useful, practical, valid and important knowledge is connected to the
knowledge system (Nonaka, von Krogh, and Voelpel 2006, 1183). Hence, we emphasize and
provide reference to research methods literature from closely related fields (i.e. management
accounting and auditing). Second, to further aid in the acquisition of explicit interview based
methods knowledge, we organize the references according to the stages of research process (e.g.,
Tacit knowledge can be defined as somewhat context specific knowledge about how to
implement the explicit knowledge that is being acquired so that the knowledge can be used
(Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995, 59). In addition, tacit knowledge includes knowledge that cannot be
9
readily codified but is necessary to perform a task (Nonaka 1994). Knowledge transfer research
suggests that providing exemplars with reflections about why activities were undertaken aids in
conveying tacit knowledge and helps the novice with the acquisition of the explicit knowledge
(Nonaka, von Krogh, and Voelpel 2006). Thus, after introducing the explicit knowledge about
qualitative interview-based research, we focus our knowledge transfer activity on the reporting
of an actual study of the EPR creation process, including our reflections about the choices we
made and alternatives that could have been employed. Both of these approaches, the organization
of closely related fields explicit research methods knowledge by research stage and the use of an
exemplar to aid in the acquisition of tacit knowledge, are designed to address the knowing-
doing gap (Pfeffer and Sutton 2013) that hinders knowledge transfer.
based research in financial reporting we replicate the approach employed by the two authors who
did not have formal instruction in qualitative methods to acquire their methods knowledge.
Hence, the relative success that these authors enjoyed along with the principled theory based
approach to knowledge transfer aid us in debunking the myth that years of specialized training
Given that knowledge acquisition theory suggest that novice researchers need to acquire
certain explicit knowledge to conduct interview based research in financial reporting, Table 2
provides a list of resources that will help develop that explicit knowledge organized by stage of
the research process. Rather than attempting to summarize the contents of these resources we
make four general points about how to use them to develop the requisite explicit knowledge.
10
First, Table 2 presents a number of general overview of the method type articles,
followed by references to articles related to the three stages (planning and doing, analyzing, and
writing up) of conducting interview-based research, concluding with a set of references about
how to evaluate qualitative research. This classification of methods articles, by its very nature is
arbitrary, and with rare exceptions for articles with very limited focus (e.g. Morse 1995 on
saturation), most references at least touch on other aspects. We have also chosen to include a
couple of classic references from qualitative methodology based references (see Appendix A)
that we found particularly helpful in gaining our own appreciation and understanding of how to
do field research. Baxter and Chua (1998) describes the process of field research by contrasting
the what was being done in the field as activities during the study with the thoughts of the
junior field researcher about what she was doing during those activities. Baxter and Chua
(1998) is one of the rare studies that directly focuses on what the researcher experiences while
carrying out research in the field. We believe it warrants attention, especially from novice field
researchers.9
Second, many of the articles refer to case study research where the aim of the research
methods articles may seem, on the surface, to be rather different than the interviewing of many
individual informants across a number of organizations focused on a clearly defined topic (e.g.,
the creation of EPR). However, the how to do advice and knowledge contained in these
9
This paper has been extensively used by one of the authors in doctoral seminars around the world, including
seminars at predominantly archival financial accounting doctoral programs.
10
It is important that the reader not confuse case study research with the practice at many business schools of
writing teaching cases. Teaching cases, some of which may reflect interviews with the case participants, are
designed to focus on pedagogical issues and are not researched or written with the rigour that is required for case
study research. See Chapter 1 of Yin (2014) for a further understanding of the different objectives of a teaching case
versus a research case.
11
research case study resources can be readily adapted by the researcher to carry out cross
Third, all three authors of this study have benefitted significantly from reading and re-
reading Yins classic methods monograph entitled, Case Study Research: Design and Methods,
now entering its fifth edition (Yin 2014). In a short (less than 200 page) book, Yin walks the
novice field researcher through the entire process of carrying out interview-based study. He
illustrates the research process with numerous examples of studies he has been involved with,
mainly from the sociological and education literatures. We highlight the impact of this reference
book on our thinking by listing it by chapter under each of the research stages in Table 2.
qualitative methods literature in the social sciences, including business. Indeed, we have not
included all of the methods articles written in auditing and management accounting that provide
insights into carrying out interview-based qualitative research. Table 2 is an attempt to provide a
convenient and focused, yet comprehensive, starting point for the financial accounting researcher
eager to go into the field. Furthermore, we do not suggest that one has to read every reference in
Table 2 prior to going into the field. One or two articles from the overview section, combined
with careful reading of Yins monograph and Baxter and Chuas (1998) real world perspective
on doing research will provide a solid foundation upon which a novice research can build their
qualitative interview-based research skills. Of course, over time the researcher will want to
invest in a greater depth of research methods education and other sources on this list can be
consulted
12
According to the knowledge transfer literature (see Pfeffer and Sutton 2103) learning by
exemplar with reflections about why key activities are undertaken and choices are made is one of
the best means of acquiring tacit, and reinforcing explicit, knowledge about a subject. Hence, we
examine how to prepare for and execute an interview-based study on a financial accounting topic
that we actually carried out the creation of EPR within publicly traded companies. We first
provide the rationale for why we thought a field study was needed in this area. We then discuss
our specific approach to preparing for entry into the field as it related to our understanding of the
regulatory setting (e.g. accounting standards, SEC regulations, etc.) and the extant financial
reporting and related research that informed us about this topic. Third, we discuss how we
developed our interview protocol (i.e. the questions to be posed) and how we obtained access to
potential informants (i.e. interview participants). Fourth, we illustrate the analysis process and
some insights into the reporting of interview field data. In each case, we present extracts of how
the research paper based on the qualitative data would have read (see footnote 3 for explanation)
and then discuss the considerations that underlie how we conducted our research.
We documented our decision to enter the field to study the earning press release creation
process as follows:
Annual and quarterly earnings press releases (EPRs) that accompany the management
discussion and analysis (MD&A) and the financial statements have increased in
importance, length and level of content in recent years. Indeed, as Henry (2008) states,
somewhat tautologically, [f]irms have demonstrated the importance of the press release
by increasing its length (366). Thus, the release of the EPR tends to be a much
anticipated quarterly event for most companies. While the EPR is considerably less
extensive than the ever-growing regulated accompanying underlying documents (MD&A
and financial statements in Canada), researchers have speculated that the EPR, which is
largely unregulated, has been designed by managers to focus the attention of the
investment community more to managements message (Elliott 2006). In the United States,
13
quasi-regulatory guidelines outline, mostly at the stock exchange level, what should be
included and who should be involved in the development of the EPR.
Recent research in the U.S. context has demonstrated that corporate EPR content is value
relevant, even after controlling for the information content of financial statements (Davis,
Piger, and Sedor 2012). Researchers have also recently shown that the language employed
in the press release (i.e. optimistic or pessimistic), according to text analysis software,
results in a significant incremental market response to earnings announcements, after
controlling for other known factors affecting market responses to earnings information
(see Li 2010 for a summary of this literature).
There has been little research to date, however, that examines how firms create the
quarterly or annual EPR. Davis and Tama-Sweet (2012) document that the nature of the
language employed in the EPRs is much more optimistic than that in the MD&A and
attribute this difference to managers strategic reporting of the same information
differentially across communication outlets. We focus on the creation of EPRs as prior
research has documented that the market tends to process information in EPRs more
efficiently than in the more regulated disclosures (e.g., Levi 2008). Hence, through the in-
depth examination of companies EPR creation processes, we gain a better understanding
of the actual processes employed including who is involved in the EPR creation process,
the relative prominence of accounting information within the EPR and the considerations
that affect the content and structure of an EPR.
Hence, our initial motivation to enter the field was based on the apparent reliance of market
participants on this unregulated disclosure and from insights in academic literature that are
suggestive of deliberate language differences between the more regulated MD&A and the less
regulated EPR. Given that extant research had focused on the end product, the press release, we
thought that deeper understanding of the process issues involved might be informative about that
product.
In general, there are two broad areas that a financial reporting researcher should consider
in preparation for entering the field to study a topic: 1) the regulatory environment, including
securities regulators, accounting standard setters and others (e.g. professional bodies) who have
influence on the institutional context related to the topic; and 2) what the extant analytical,
14
archival, and experimental research in financial accounting and related topic areas have to say
various securities regulators websites including related regulations (the SEC in the USA and the
OSC as representative of the CSA in Canada); the major stock exchanges websites (NYSE, ASE,
NASDAQ and TSX), especially their listing requirements, as well as their ongoing disclosure
In the U.S. the regulations that have been published with respect to press releases and pro-
forma disclosures include the content, the composition of the committee that oversees and
writes the document and the timing of its release and come from a variety of different
sources, including, but not limited to, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), the New
York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the American Exchange (AMEX). The regulations
caution against unwarranted promotional disclosure, inappropriate wording, overly
optimistic forecasts and states that any projections should be based on sound, qualified,
conservative and factual information. It is also highlights the notion of the release being
written in plain English something that is comprehensible to the layman. Depending
on which stock exchange the companys shares are traded in, the wording of the
regulations will vary slightly though the main concepts are the same across American
stock exchanges. Furthermore, there was ongoing interest in limiting the use of non-GAAP
measures in the press releases.
There are no regulations pertaining to EPR creation in Canada, and often the press
releases of those Canadian companies that are not registered with the SEC contains a do
not release in the United States disclaimer on the top of the release. The content in
Canada is regulated under the National Instrument 51-102 produced by the provincial
securities commissions. It contains rules as to what should be discussed and presented
within the press release provides that the only acceptable method of full dissemination of a
news release in Canada is through Canada Newswire.
We also examined the news media for articles about EPRs both the issues surrounding
their creation in general as well as the specific press releases of the companies that we
approached to include in our study. This research lead us to discover that the professional
investor relations bodies in each country (the National Investor Relations Association (NIRA) in
the USA and the Canadian Investor Relations Institute (CIRI)) produced best practice guidance
15
for earnings press releases.11 Table 3 Panel B provides a summary of what we found about best
There is relatively little need to examine accounting standards in this study, as EPR
content is not covered by generally accepted accounting standards either in the USA or
internationally. Further, there were no audit standards that might have indirectly affected the
EPR creation process.12 Hence, while we did our due diligence in the area of accounting and
auditing standards, for this particular topic there were no standards relevant to our topic.
accounting and related areas. Utilizing the full text search capacity of bibliographic data bases
(e.g. ABI Info Global) we discovered three primary areas of research interest around EPRs. The
first, older literature surrounding press releases focused on them being used to determine the
timing of the public release of potentially value relevant information so as to increase the
accuracy of event determination in financial reporting event studies (e.g., Hoskins, Hughes and
Ricks 1986). The second research area concentrated on the use of non-GAAP measures in the
EPR (e.g., Schrand and Walther 2000). However, that research focused on the difference
between the non-GAAP and GAAP performance measures the EPR was mainly noted as a
venue for non-GAAP measures release albeit later research emphasized where in the EPR the
non-GAAP performance measures were placed (e.g. Bowen et al. 2005). The most recent
research area focuses on how the wording (or tone) used in the press releases conveyed
11
Five of the six companies were reporters under both USA SEC and Canadian CSA standards, while one firm was
only listed to trade in Canada.
12
At the early stages of our research, we thought that audit standard setters discussions about expanding the
requirements for auditors to review Other information beyond the financial statements might affect our study.
However, in the end the revised standard (ISA 720) was limited to annual report type documents and explicitly
excluded earnings press releases from the scope of the standard.
16
information to the market, beyond what information is literally conveyed. We summarized this
Henry (2008) examines the tone within EPRs and highlights the various regulations
surrounding their release, including plain English requirements and non-GAAP disclosure
requirements. Henry found that a longer press release diminishes the positive market
impact of unexpected earnings (p. 394) and that a more numerically intensive press
release diminishes the positive market impact of unexpected earnings (p. 395). . . . . .Most
prior research, however, examined the usefulness of the disclosure information through the
market reactions to the EPRs or the reaction of the market to the timing of EPRs
(Bhattacharya, Black, Christensen, and Mergenthaler 2004; Bryan and Lilien 2004; Elliott
2006). See Li (2010) for a comprehensive review of this literature.
Increasingly, the content and nature of the wording of the EPR is being studied with
respect to how it affects markets (e.g. Davis, Piger and Sedor 2012). . . . . . Archival
researchers (e.g. Davis, Piger and Sedor 2012) using text analysis software have found
that the tone of the press release (i.e. pessimistic versus optimistic) affects markets to a
greater extent even after controlling for other regulated documents disclosures (i.e.
MD&A, financial statements). . . . .
Focusing on the content of the documents, Davis and Tama-Sweet (2012), employ text
analysis software and find that relatively more optimistic and less pessimistic language is
found in the EPR versus the MD&A of a large sample of firms. The researchers attribute
this latter finding to management strategic intent and find that the language differences are
greatest under conditions where management has greater incentives to emphasize the
positive results (e.g., where they barely met consensus analyst forecasts). However, this
also implies that large public companies have a process that deliberately leads to the
creation of such differences. . . . .
Based on this literature, we conclude the following about the assumptions that extant research
Underlying the reviewed research in this area, there is a strong assumption, either
explicitly or implicitly, that most managers are behaving strategically and/or
opportunistically when creating and issuing press releases. Some of the research explicitly
assumes that managers deliberately mislead investors by choosing to emphasize the
earnings metric that portrays the more favourable firm performance (Bowen et al. 2005;
Black and Christensen 2009; Black et al. 2012) and that management has incentives to
meet or beat earnings benchmarks and manipulate pro forma statements to do this (Brown
et al. 2012).
We also found evidence that the EPR, despite its problems, is a highly important
communication from management to investors (Files, Swanson and Tse 2009; Davis et al.,
2012). Research has found that the wording of EPRs is more optimistic and less pessimistic
17
than MD&As (Osma and Guillamon-Saorin 2011). Further research also shows that
managers as if they are aware of the EPR importance to investors as they seem to
strategically place information in EPRs (placed in headline, first couple paragraphs, at the
end) depending on how much attention they would like to draw to the information (Bowen
et al. 2005).
Thus, our review of the regulatory requirements and research literature makes it clear that
companies providing accurate and complete information to enable investors to assess the facts
in question (see Table 3) in EPRs, whereas academic researchers view is that managers are
acting in a strategic and/or opportunistic manner when creating EPRs. This tension adds to our
curiosity based motivation documented in the previous section as to why we should go into the
The description of the interview protocol (the list of and approach to asking the questions in
the interview) development process for our EPR study read as follows:
We developed an initial interview protocol, which we reviewed with colleagues and then
pre-tested with contacts at CIRI as well as an investor relations professional. As part of the
pre-testing we discussed with the interviewees the purpose of or our research and our data
gathering goals. We then adapted the interview protocol, based on the feedback received.
The interviews were conducted in person by one or more of the authors on the paper
except one interview that was done by phone at the request of the interviewee. See
Appendix B for interview guide. This guide was slightly customized depending on the role
of the interviewee (e.g. CFO versus auditor). The interviews were then transcribed and
returned to the interviewee for approval.
This short description embeds a large amount of assumed tacit knowledge about how to develop
an interview protocol. We began to develop the protocol by, as noted above, immersing
ourselves in the regulations surrounding press releases, the academic literature on EPRs as well
as reading a large number of EPRs to understand the language used and messages being
18
conveyed. This immersion facilitated our understanding of the purpose, timing, content, and
messaging of EPRs.
The interview protocols reason for existing is to aid the researcher to elicit responses to
questions that enable the researcher to understand what, how, when, and to a lesser extent, why
the informants do what they do as part of their normal work. However, it is the interview-based
researchers duty to develop questions that will elicit raw qualitative data from the informant.
The researcher then analyzes the qualitative data and interprets it so as to be able to answer the
research questions posed. Thus, the interview-based researcher has the same role as an archival
or experimental researcher who collects data then analyzes and interprets the resultant
quantitative data analysis. Researchers carrying out interview-based research to find answers to
the question what do managers say they do still have full responsibility for the data collection,
analysis, and interpretation similar to researchers employing other methods. The interview-based
researcher does not simply a reporter who merely collects managements interpretations and
recalls about what managers do in general as they carry out a financial reporting activity. That
is, addressing the first myth about field research, the researcher does not just go out and talk to
people and then summarize what they say but rather, in order to conduct high quality
interview based research the researchers must employ rigorous research methods to the data.
The interview protocol we developed for our earnings press release study (see Appendix
1 and 2) and a highly structured interview protocol (see for example Appendix B - Question 3)
(see Bernard 2002 Chapters 9-11). A semi-structured approach allows the researcher to focus on
a topic, but also allows the interview to proceed naturally along the lines that the informant
wants to follow. The semi-structured aspect of the protocol, however, always brings the
19
informant back to the topic of interest. In the alternative, a structured interview is more like an
in-person version of a mail or internet survey.13 The researcher must rigidly follow a pre-
determined order of questions and not deviate from that order (e.g., see Question 3 with its very
directive approach) when interacting with the informant.14 We chose a combination of semi-
structured and structured interview questions to ensure that we comprehensively collected our
qualitative data. However, note that the main focus of the protocol and data gathering is on the
semi-structured portion of the protocol as those questions allow us to better peer into the minds
We embedded in the interview protocol three reminders ourselves to follow the norms of
good interviews while carrying out the actual interview. These three reminders have broader
implications for the conducting interview-based field research and warrant additional discussion.
First, a good interview always starts with obtaining informed consent from the informant
(usually there is an appropriate form that is approved by a university ethics board along with
their approval of the entire interview-based research study plan). During and after this signing
off, the goal of the researcher is to attempt to build rapport with the informant (see Script in
Appendix B). Common ways of seeking to develop such rapport include discussing
13
There is a third interview type called an unstructured interview where the researcher explores general themes of
concern about a topic with an informant, with little structure being prepared in advance other than the topic. While
this can be used in positivist research, it is an approach that is mainly associated with the interpretive methodology
based research where broad global concerns motivate the researcher to enter the field (see Malsch and Salterio for
a discussion of this).
14
In many ways, if one is going to use a structured interview approach, the researcher should consider if there is any
way to change the research method to that of a survey questionnaire given that the presence of the researcher asking
the questions is almost superfluous to carrying out the structured interview. The main advantages over the survey
questionnaire is that the researcher is certain as to who is answering the questions (i.e. responding to the survey was
not delegated to a more junior persons) and can readily determine the amount of thoroughness of thought that the
informant is giving each question. On occasion, in a structured interview, the interviewer may be permitted to
clarify questions for the informant, which is often cited as an added benefit from the interviewer being there in
person.
20
graduating from/attending the same university), referring to someone that the informant knows
that provides assurance to the informant that you are an ethical researcher (e.g. discuss how you
know the key contact who arranged this meeting and how long they have known you), and if
applicable, your promise to return the interview transcript for them to review/correct and to
provide them with a copy of the paper prior to its finalization for their comments.
Second, assure the informant that you are interested in learning about their world from
their point of view and that you will not discuss what they tell you with others in the company.
They are the experts in this area and you are learning from them. Further, you should attempt to
get the informant to speak freely by asking a broad open ended question early in the interview
that allows the informant to tell a story about the issue that you seek to learn about. For
example, our first interview question/item for discussion was 1. a. Please describe the process
that culminates in the quarterly or annual earnings press release, whichever is more recent
in your memory. Several important points are implicit in the construction of this initial
question:
a) The focus on recent or salient events that the informant took part in. Both recent and
salient events are more likely to be readily recalled from episodic memory (Craik and
Tulving 1975) and be more accurately recalled than events that are in the distant past
and/or that made little impression at the time.
b) Process stories around a single activity are more easily recalled than asking the
informant to recall things that were common or uncommon across multiple events or
activities. Our memories are not well suited for these latter types of searches and
hence asking questions in that manner is likely to result in highly unreliable data
(Jacoby and Brooks 1984).
c) Encourage the informant to talk at length so that the interview does not become
bogged down discussing the specific issues that your preparation has lead you to
expect to be covered. Mind you, as illustrated by the list of items after Appendix Bs
question 1. a., the researcher needs to keep track of the specific issues that your
preparation suggests might be discussed by the informant so that eventually you can
21
ask them about the items they did not mention. However, if the researcher starts by
interrogating the informant about each item the researcher expects them to consider
important, it is highly likely that the informant will only respond to those items even
if there are other factors that might have emerged had the researcher allowed the
informant to tell their story.
d) Note the caution in the protocol after question 1. a. that states After several
prompts and receiving no additional detail, use these specific prompts to fill in
details where necessary. In other words, do not assume that because the informant
has not mentioned an item that your prior research suggests is important or may affect
the informants activities, that it is not important. That item might have been
considered too obvious by the informant to mention (e.g., the practice that the CEO
has the final edit of an earnings press release and can veto any part of a draft he/she
does not want to see in it). Or there might be something unique about this specific
incident that the informant is recalling that makes that item unimportant in this
context but would have been important in a different context.
Note that only in a structured interview approach near the end of the interview, do we move
away from process and/or factually oriented questions towards the informants opinions about
what they are doing (See Appendix B - Question 3 item d). In other words, we avoid asking the
informant to interpret the data for us until after we have collected the vast majority of our
interview data.
Third, if as a researcher you cannot resist asking in general questions as part of your
interview protocol, please only do so only after eliciting a recent or salient specific example of
what you are studying. As noted above, the human memory for daily events at work is generally
not set up to encode and discover empirical regularities in what is happening (Jacoby and Brooks
1984). Note that we do not employ this in general type of question in our interview protocol
except for our very broad final question 4: Is there anything else youd like to tell us about the
Fourth, while it is not always possible, having two interviewers can make the process go
smoothly. One interviewer can concentrate on the posing of initial questions, keeping appropriate
22
eye contact with the informant and otherwise facilitating the flow of the meeting. The second
interviewer can make notes as well as keep track of which additional prompt items that the
informant cited during their initial response (i.e. the items below the general questions as seen in
Questions 1 and 2 in Appendix B). The second interviewer can do the follow-up questions
where the first interviewer then takes notes. Field notes are an invaluable supplement to audio
recordings (and a substitute if the recording becomes corrupted) as they can be used to report on
mood, tension in responses and other qualitative aspects of the interview that might not be picked
up by audio.
The formal description of the interview process that describes the set of firms and
In this study, data was collected from three main sources: (i) semi-structured interviews,
(ii) online press release archives of both the firms themselves and the dissemination agency
(e.g., the CNW group) and (iii) the on-line SEDAR system.15
The individuals we interviewed were all members of their companies disclosure
committees. The disclosure committees, though different across companies, are typically
comprised of an individual or two from investor relations, the chief financial officer, legal
counsel and business unit heads. Table 4 Panel A provides demographics for the
companies examined, Table 4 Panel B provides the job titles and pseudonyms for the
individuals interviewed and Table 4 Panel C provides details about each firms disclosure
committees.
Again, this very short quote embodies a large amount of both explicit and tacit knowledge about
carrying out the study. Our research was designed so as to obtain at least three different members
from each firms disclosure committee so that we could triangulate the data across the informants
(see reference article Jonsen and Jehn (2009) about strengthening data validity via triangulation
15
The SEDAR system is the Canadian equivalent of the USA SECs Edgar system. It is described as the official
site that provides access to most public securities documents and information filed by public companies and
investment funds with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) in the SEDAR filing system. See
http://www.sedar.com/homepage_en.htm accessed on February 15, 2013.
23
of different peoples interviews and over multiple data sources).16 Further, to aid in developing
common ground and understanding of the company, we gathered as much publically available
information about the firm as we could. This background research ensured we were fully
prepared (and were seen by the informant as prepared) to conduct the interview so that the
informant did not have to spend valuable interview time explaining publically available
background about his/her company. Further, this archival research aided with our analysis and
Securing the appropriate participants for an interview-based study is key to the success
and contribution of the study. For the EPR study, we started by considering the set of contacts
we had developed over the years of carrying out fieldwork in negotiation research from the CFO
perspective (see Gibbins, McCracken, and Salterio 2007 and McCracken, Salterio, and Gibbins
2008). We then reached out to others within the authors professional and social networks.
Deans and with their permission members of the School and University Advisory Boards;
Faculty that were known to have connections with the C-suite in the various firms they
did consulting work with;
Our schools alumni relations departments, especially those who were responsible for
classes from the 1950s and 1960s and those with relationships with executive MBA
graduates;
Our schools fundraising departments, especially those who had responsibility for
fundraising with public companies; and
Our own social networks dating back to our undergraduate student days.
16
Recall from footnote 3 that the study was not completed as designed due to the shock of the global fiscal crisis of
2008. Hence, we did not obtain the requisite three informants from each firm that agreed to participate nor did we
obtain the remaining four of five planned Canadian only listed firms. Part of the research was to understand
differences in EPR creation in relatively more related USA SEC environment (hence our five firms registered with
the SEC) versus the less regulated Canadian environment.
24
We always asked for permission to mention the name of the person who referred us to the
contact.17 We followed what some call the snowball technique (Miles and Huberman 1994)
where we would ask our initial informants in an organization if they would arrange for
interviews with other members of the organizations disclosure committee. We also had some
success with asking informants to refer us to other organizations and providing the introduction
to a key contact there. Hence, as can be seen from the variety of approaches, there are multiple
ways to obtain access to potential informants to allow for opportunity for the researcher to
Attempting to describe how to analyze qualitative data in a short article is like attempting
to explain econometrics or experimental design and analysis in a few paragraphs. There are
several excellent resources suggested in Table 2, including the classic text, newly updated for
this century - Miles, Huberman, and Saldana (2014). Much of the research methods writing
about qualitative data analysis is based on the premise of long term in-depth field research of the
case study variety rather than the more focused interview-based studies that we are discussing in
this article. Hence, normally the research needs to employ only a subset of the methods in these
resources (e.g. see Lillis 1999 for a discussion of this applied to management accounting).
The data analysis undertaken adapts three principal methods proposed by Eisenhardt
(1989) and Anderson (1995). The first method of analysis involved arranging the interview
transcripts and notes into a chronological order. The transcripts and notes were
superimposed on one another and common and unique perceptions of the process both
17
One of the challenges of field research under the mandates of university ethics boards is to be able to put together
recruitment scripts that enable the researcher to adapt to a number of possible recruitment scenarios for potential
informants.
25
within and across firms were identified. This process highlighted areas where further
investigation was required.
The second method of data analysis involved re-organizing the original transcripts and
notes by company, by position, and by question to allow for the identification of relevant
themes. Third, iteratively throughout the research analysis, the transcripts were reviewed
and reread for additional insights and findings.
Finally, we compared the interview data about what was actually done to the normative
regulatory and best practices documented in Table 3, as well as, the assumptions that were
embedded in the extant research literature about how EPRs are created.
As noted previously with respect to other methods information documented in the final research
paper, the description about how qualitative data is analyzed assumes that the reader has both
explicit and tacit knowledge about qualitative data analysis. Most researchers (e.g. Schutt 2015)
who undertake interview-based research would agree to the following as underlying qualitative
data analysis:
1. Get to know your data read and re-read it through a variety of lenses. As noted in our
data analysis description, we read the interview data chronologically by informant (as we
did not interview the informants in each organization then move onto another
organization), across informants in a given company, across the same type of informant
across companies (e.g. legal counsel), and by answer to the same question across firms
and informants.
2. Code the data identify and organize categories of relevant concepts related to the
study.
a. We chose to approach our data from the perspective of letting the data speak
that is inductively developing categories and themes about the EPR creation
process. For example, one of the themes that emerged across our six companies
was on creating a message that we described as follows
To begin the process, the lead person consults with the different business
units regarding the key events or activities for the quarter. On average,
the companies tended to identify the 10 key items for the quarter, which
would then be analyzed and reviewed to determine the key message(s) of
the EPR. For example, IR 2 described the process at his company as
starting with the financial reporting manager holding meetings with
business units and function heads to identify top issues and out of the
norm things that would need to be explained. At IR 1s company the
process of identifying issues or items important to the quarter proceeded
as follows: theres a business consultation process at the beginning of
26
the process. So well look to the major trends. Well do financial analysis.
Well do business analysis. Well do variance analysis.
b. After that analysis was completed, we then compared what the informants had
said to the normative regulatory and best practices literature on EPR and the
assumptions about how EPRs are created in the extant research literature. For
example, related to our messaging theme, we concluded
Overall, our research finds that the EPR process is set up to ensure that
the EPR reflects the message that management wants to convey to the
investment community. This supports the inferences of archival
researchers (e.g. Davis and Tama-Sweet 2012) that managements
strategic intentions are reflected in the language of EPRs as we find that
messaging is deliberately planned and designed into all six of our
firms EPRs.
In some studies, ex ante categories may be the focus of the data coding (e.g. such as those
in our study based on the normative regulatory and best practices literature). The
researcher must make a judgment call on the specific data analysis strategies to apply,
based on their perception of the current state of knowledge about the topic (i.e. the more
that is known about the topic, the more likely that ex ante categories can be identified that
will be meaningful and complete). The researcher must always be alert when coding the
data to ensure that attention is given to what does not fit into the current coding
scheme, and this caution is even more important when starting with a set of ex ante
categories to code the data.
3. Connect the categories and concepts together show how categories and concepts
appear to influence one another. This might involve:
a. Describing categories by theme, such as similarities and differences about the
same item by informant. For example,
We heard from several of our interviewees that after the general
messaging theme is determined, senior management relies on the
disclosure committee and related staff to gather the details for the EPR
and vet the first couple of drafts. Senior management then weigh in when
the numbers and message are close to being finalized. As one interviewee
described it, after three iterations, the draft EPR goes to the president and
CEO. This did differ for what were described as more hands-on CEOs
who chose to remain heavily involved throughout the EPR drafting
process.
b. Grouping categories together so as to relate the parts to the whole process;
c. Attempting to measure the relative importance of various categories and themes
within categories (e.g. by counting the number of times a particular theme
occurs);18 and
18
The tendency to apply data counts to the exclusion of all other types qualitative reporting is often found among
novice interview-based researchers. While some count data might well be helpful in understanding relative
importance attached to concepts and categories by these informants, the interview-based researcher is not attempting
27
d. Identifying relationships between categories (see Spradley (1979, 111) e.g. a set
of semantic relationships that can vary from strict inclusion where X is a kind
of Y to function where X is used for Y etc.)
4. Create tentative conclusions based on the analysis
5. Corroborate those tentative conclusions by:
a. Evaluating alternative explanations (e.g. based on different theoretical
perspectives),
b. Focusing on disconfirming interview evidence that contradicts the tentative
conclusions, and
c. Searching the data set carefully for negative cases of material that does not fit into
the tentative conclusions.
breakdown in the interview process where the researcher has lead the informants (explicitly or
this unanimity in our EPR study where, as seen in the above quote about CEO involvement with
Before concluding the data analysis section, we point out two, potentially labour
intensive, activities that have to be undertaken when dealing with qualitative data. The first is the
transcription of the interviews and/or the field notes that were created during or immediately
after the interviews so as to create the qualitative data. While there are computer voice
recognition and transcription programs that are becoming increasingly better at automatically
transcribing electronic interview data, careful review of the accuracy of such transcriptions is
required by the researchers. The requirement to check transcripts for accuracy, prior to returning
to the informant for approval (if promised and appropriate), must be done even if the interviews
to generalize to a population based on a random sample of informants. Rather, the goal is to deepen the researchers
and the readers understanding of the issue by obtaining and understanding the in-depth insights from those who
actually perform the task. Hence, endless recitation of means, median and standard deviation of count data from
interviews totally misses the point of carrying out qualitative research.
28
The second labour intensive activity is the coding of the qualitative data that is discussed
in Step 2 in addition to the connecting the concepts coding discussed in Step 3. With a small set
of relatively focused interviews, one can carry out both steps manually. As we found in our
study, however, as the number of informants increased, the manual data coding approach that we
started with would have needed to be transitioned into computer assisted coding. Indeed, even
implementing Step 1, where we read the interview data chronologically by informant (as we did
not interview the informants in each organization then move onto another organization), across
informants in a given company, across the same type of informant across companies (e.g. legal
counsel), and by answer to the same question across firms and informants, became increasingly
computer packages that are designed for the coding of qualitative interview data (e.g. Nvivo and
Atlas.ti are two prominent commercially supported packages along with a number of freeware
packages).
Most interview-based researchers start from the premise that interview evidence should
focus on transmitting, to the extent possible and without overwhelming the reader with minutiae,
the richness of the phenomena as experienced by the informant (see Ahrens and Dent 1998).
Richness means providing direct quotes to support the claims of the researcher in a systematic
fashion (see examples from our EPR study in the preceding section). To avoid overwhelming the
In some instances tabulation of qualitative data is necessary. Normally items that are
chosen for tabulation tend to be descriptive of tendencies found in the data, so considerations
29
about reliability of the data coding need to be addressed (see Armstrong, Gosling, Weinmann,
themselves are called upon to do independent readings of the interview transcripts, make their
observations and then discuss them with their co-authors until a common view is reached.
Qualitative data research reporting should not devolve into a presentation of means,
medians, and standard deviations to each tabulated question as this approach loses the richness of
the field data, typically a key motivation to go into the field in the first place. Further, as each
informant is reporting on their own experience, emphasizing central tendencies loses the
individual knowledge and experience being sought by the researcher from the informant (see the
discussion in Trotman and Trotmans (2015) study of internal audit's role in GHG emissions and
energy reporting of the trade-off between reporting central tendencies and individual
knowledge).
Examples of financial reporting studies that report interview only data are non-existent at
present in top tier accounting journals. However, there are several corporate governance
studies that provide excellent templates for how to assemble a qualitative interview-based study
report that is sensitive to the issues above. In particular, we refer to Beasley et al. 2009, Cohen et
al. 2010, Hermanson et al. 2012, and Clune et al. 2014 as studies that exhibit best practices in
of the above steps, allows one to better understand the rigorous processes required to conduct
high quality, publishable interview based research in financial reporting again debunking the
first myth that interview based research is all about going out and talking.
30
As the calls for field work and interview-based research in financial reporting have
increased, the need for training on how to conduct interview-based research has risen. This paper
aims to fill this research methods gap by guiding researchers to appropriate resources to enrich
their knowledge base prior to entering the field and on how to plan, conduct and analyse data
collected in interview based research. Guided by knowledge transfer theory this enhanced
understanding of interview based research methods should lead to more valid and reliable
Using a step-by-step knowledge transfer approach, we walk the reader through a field
study that examined the creation of EPRs, highlighting both the steps taken and important
literature and concepts needed to successfully conduct qualitative research. From motivation,
preparation for study, and development of the guide, to seeking informants, analyzing data, and
reporting your findings, the six steps highlighted in the paper outline the basic approach to all
interview-based studies, with sub-steps and processes for each step elaborated on as necessary.
By providing these steps and describing the work involved in our EPR study exemplar, we are
able to demonstrate interview based field research myth that just going out and talking to
people is not the proper way to conduct qualitative interview-based research. In addition, as a
qualitative researcher, the effort does not stop when the interviews are completed, but rather, the
data collected must be coded and analyzed, just as in archival and experimental research using
rigorous methods.
The second myth we addressed was the need for years of specialist training to do field
research. While certainly more methods training is preferred to less, in principle, just as we do
not insist our economics based or psychology based students master fully econometrics and
research design, we articulate an approach that complements acquiring book knowledge with
31
practical how to do it knowledge. Our paper demonstrates that a positivist approach to
interview based field research can be successfully learned without years of training as contended
by some in the qualitative accounting methodology research community. We provide the basics
that researchers need to know about their field, their role, and the type of preconceived notions
they have entering the field and how these affect collecting, analyzing and presenting the data
analysis.
This paper provides the how to knowledge transfer of conducting interview based
research as well as the key resources a researcher should consult when conducting qualitative
field work and interviews. We have provided an initial list of additional papers and books to
consult throughout the research process to gain the explicit knowledge needed to carry out such
research. One of the key take away messages from our paper is that interview-based qualitative
financial accounting research studies have a place in all accounting journals. Though the work to
be done can be time consuming and requires rigorous preparation and execution, the
opportunities and contributions for financial reporting researchers are boundless. The insights
gleaned by asking the how questions to those directly involved in the work can help lead to
highly insightful original research findings of similar scale to those found in auditing and
management accounting research as well as providing closer links to practitioners concerns and
32
Appendix A
This appendix introduces the different assumptions underlying research done in the
qualitative accounting methodological tradition and provides an introduction to the larger set of
published research related to financial accounting that has been generated by researchers in that
tradition. See Parker (2007) for a literature review that contextualizes this line of research vis a
observation) which aim a producing qualitative data and qualitative methodology which is
focused on the view of the world held by the researcher. Chua (1986) suggests there are three
different views of the world each having an underlying set of assumptions that informs the
way researchers view the purpose of research and impacts how the research is conducted. These
different views of the world can be labelled as positivist, interpretive, and critical schools of
thought, although the latter two are often grouped together under the overarching label of
characterized by the belief that reality exists independently of humans or at least can be best
studied as if it is (Burrell and Morgan, 1979). This implies that researchers should attempt to
objectively observe the world and the people in it. Positivist researchers primary concern is to
generalize via developing cause and effects based theories of some phenomena of interest and
that by studying inductively the researcher can develop causal theories (Malsch and Salterio
2015, 5). Carrying out positivist financial reporting research employing qualitative methods (e.g.
33
Chua (1986) describes two alternative schools of thought about the nature of the world
believe that social reality is individually created but made real by the interactions between those
individuals. Qualitative methodology researchers tell stories; they retell history for what people
think it is, attempt to provide explanations, and in the end understand the social world as created
by those who are in it (Ahrens and Dent 1998; Myers 2009; Berg and Lune 2012). Within
accounting (e.g., Hopwood 1983; Dent 1991; Wickramasinghe and Hopper 2005) then in
financial accounting (e.g. Ouibrahim and Scapens 1989; Carpenter and Feroz 1992) and more
recently have begun to be employed in audit research (e.g., Power 2003; Malsch and Gendron
2011).
within the organizations and how they affect the individuals involved or how the individuals
involved view them. They also highlight the diversity of meanings that can be attached to
assign meaning (Ahrens and Chapman 2006; Myers 2009). Accounting ramifies, extends and
shapes the social (Burchell, Clubb, and Hopwood 1985, 385). The understandings that are
sought by qualitative methodology researchers highlights how accounting plays out across
different organizational backgrounds and social activities (Ahrens 2008) including how
individuals develop their meanings in these situations. Although the field reality that is
deconstructed and interpreted is always localized in a specific time and space context, it is not
disconnected from the larger global empirical and theoretical issues that sent the interpretivist
34
The standard method of qualitative methodology research is an in-depth and long term a
field case that includes sets of interviews, content analysis, and observations focused on one or a
few organizations. For those interested in learning more about qualitative methodology there are
a variety of useful resources (c.f. Patton 2001; Hammersley and Atkinson 2007; Berg and Lune
2012) that can be consulted. The theoretical base for much of qualitative methodology
accounting research comes from theories in sociology or philosophy including actor network
theory (e.g. Gendron and Barrett 2004; Gendron, Cooper, and Townley 2007), institutional
theory (Suddaby, Cooper, and Greenwood 2007; Shapiro and Matson 2008), and structuration
theory (Ahrens and Chapman 2002; Coad and Herbert 2009). Though these theories are
unfamiliar to most positivist accounting researchers, the use of such theories can lead to findings
or analysis that can provide insights into aspects of individuals, organizations, or society that
Financial reporting research themes in recent years have included the introduction of new
standards, particularly IFRS, throughout the world (e.g. Chen et al. 2014). For example, Chen et
al. (2014) and Kwok and Sharp (2005) both examined the adoption of IFRS through interviews
while Lantto (2014) and El-Tawy and Tollington (2013) explored the change in valuation of
intangible assets and their effect on recognition and value creation. Corporate governance has
been a theme in recent qualitative accounting methodology studies. For example, Johed and
Catasus (2015) explored the institutional logic behind and surrounding annual general meetings
highlighting how the shareholders association prepares for and reacts at the annual general
research from a corporate governance perspective. Environmental reporting has also been in
35
focus as evidenced by Haigh and Shapiros (2012) examination of carbon reporting, questioning
The other topics include the use of financial accounting and financial reporting at work
(Collier 2001; Roberts, Sanderson, Barker, and Hendry 2006; Neu 2012; ONeill, McDonald,
and Deegan 2015); the introduction of new country-specific regulatory requirements (Haigh
2006; Rutherford 2003; Hinest, McBride, Fearnley, and Brandt 2001) or new accounting systems
(Connolly and Hyndman 2006). In addition, there were articles examining the Madoff Ponzi
scheme (Stolowy, Meyer, JeanJean, and Baker 2014), education in Africa (Chung and Windsor
2012), and communication methods for financial accounting information (Christensen and
Skaerbaek 2005).
Table A1 provides a brief summary of studies from the last 15 years that have used
theoretical basis, examining concepts from power or knowledge, to police work or the interaction
between shareholders associations and institutional investors, each paper used a predominantly
qualitative methodology framework. Though the theory used to analyse the data in interpretive
accounting studies may be unfamiliar and confusing to a general accounting audience, we can
learn from their findings and perhaps enhance the qualitative and quantitative positivist studies
being conducted. Bushman and Smith 2001 and Cooper and Morgan 2008 provide reviews of
36
Table A1
37
Parker, L. 2007. Financial and external Corporate Social 12 interviews
reporting research: The broadening governance constructionist and document
corporate governance challenge. analysis
Accounting and Business Research 37 (1): (literature
39-54. review)
Connolly, C., and N. Hyndman. 2006. Accrual New public 15 interviews
Actual implementation of accrual accounting management
accounting. Accounting, Auditing, and
Accountability Journal 19 (2): 272-290.
Haigh, M. 2006. Managed investments, Reporting Agency theory 11 interviews
managed disclosures: financial services standards and content
reform in practice. Accounting, Auditing, analysis
and Accountability Journal 19 (2): 186-
204.
Neu, D. 2006. Accounting for public space. Accounting in Institutional Archival,
Accounting, Organizations and Society 31 everyday life sociology interviews, and
(4/5): 391-414. focus groups
Roberts, J., P. Sanderson, R. Barker, and J. Investor Foucaults power Interviews, and
Hendry. 2006. In the mirror of the market. Relations and and knowledge direct
Accounting, Organizations and Society 31: Finance observations
277-294. Directors
Chee Chiu Kwok, W., and D. Sharp. 2005. Accounting Power 30 interviews
Power and international accounting standards and document
standard setting. Accounting, Auditing, and review
Accountability Journal 18 (1): 74-99.
Christensen, M., and P. Skaerbaek. 2005. Communication Actor network 10 interviews
Framing and overflowing of public sector theory
accountability innovations. Accounting, Framing
Auditing, and Accountability Journal 20
(1): 101-132.
Holland, J. 2005. A grounded theory of Corporate Grounded theory 25 interviews
corporate disclosure. Accounting and governance and document
Business Research 35 (3): 249-267. analysis
Lye, J., H. Perera, and A. Rahman. 2005. Reporting Grounded theory 13 interviews
The evolution of accruals-based Crown standards
(government) financial statements in New
Zealand. Accounting, Auditing, and
Accountability Journal 18 (6): 784-815.
Rutherford, B. 2003. The social Reporting Social Content analysis
construction of financial statement standards constructionist
elements under Private Finance Initiative
schemes. Accounting, Auditing, and
Accountability Journal 16 (3): 372-396.
Collier, P. 2001. Valuing intellectual Accounting in Knowledge sharing Participant
capacity in the police. Accounting, everyday life observation,
Auditing, and Accountability Journal 14 at work interviews and
(4): 437-455. document
analysis
Hinest, T., K. McBride, S. Fearnley, and R. Reporting Institutional theory 16 interviews
Brandt. 2001. Were off to see the wizard: standards
38
An evaluation of directors and auditors
experiences with the Financial Reporting
Review Panel. Accounting, Auditing, and
Accountability Journal 14 (1): 53-84.
39
Appendix B
A. Script:
Thank you very much for your time. The information you provide will help us understand your
role better and improve our research and teaching accordingly.
We are interested in your involvement with press releases containing financial information.
There has been some research on press releases themselves, but little on the process itself.
We are told by others in your company that you have significant involvement in the financial
press release process for your company. That is why we are talking to you.
B. Questions
a. Please describe the process that culminates in the quarterly or annual earnings press
release, whichever is more recent in your memory.
{After several prompts and receiving no additional detail, use these specific prompts
to fill in details where necessary.
Overall questions:
o Are you comfortable with the process and timing involved with generating and
releasing earnings press releases?
o Have you ever been required by the review process to make any changes to an
earnings press release? If so, please describe the circumstances and how it was
resolved.
b. Are there any differences for the quarterly or annual earnings press release (whichever
was not talked about originally).
40
2. Focus on other press releases that contain financial information other than earnings
press releases.
Please describe the process that culminates in a recent press release being released that
contains financial information other than an earnings press release.
{This list of prompts is to be used only after several prompts to get additional detail and
no additional detail is being provided Use the following prompts for elaboration where
the issue was not covered.
3. Overall Questions
41
c. The review process.
Please describe the review process.
o Who is involved (titles of the individuals) in reviewing and/or approving them?
o What other information is provided to reviewers (i.e. financial statements,
contracts, etc.)?
o Has a reviewer of a press release ever requested additional information? If so,
what was it?
o Has a reviewer ever required that a change be made to the press release? If so,
please describe the circumstances and how the issue was resolved.
o How long does the process take?
o Does the process require a positive approval (i.e. a meeting, e-mail or phone call),
or an implied approval after a certain period of time?
4. Is there anything else youd like to tell us about the press release process?
42
Table 1
Article Methods
Survey Interviews
Graham, J. R., Harvey, C. R., 401 Financial Executives, 20 Chief Financial Officers
and Rajgopal, S. 2005. The mainly CFOs one-on-one in person or
economic implications of via internet and in person via telephone
corporate financial reporting. paper surveys cross section - different
Journal of Accounting and
Economics, 40 (1-3), 3-73. 10.4% response rate industries, analyst
12 questions, 5 pages long coverage and market
capitalization
40-90 minutes questions
similar to survey
Dichev, I., Graham, J.R., 169 Financial Executives 12 Chief Financial Officers
Harvey, C.R. and Rajgopal, S. mainly Chief Financial and 2 accounting standard
2013, Earnings Quality: Officers setters
Evidence from the Field, via internet one-on-one via telephone
Journal of Accounting and cross section - different
Economics 56, 1-33. 5.4% response rate
10 questions industries, analyst
coverage and market
capitalization
most were pre-survey
interviews to develop
survey
a few post-survey to
clarify survey findings
43
Shevlin, T.J. and Shroff, N. via internet
2014. Incentives for Tax 64 questions, 12 pages long
Planning and Avoidance:
26.5% response rate
Evidence from the Field, The
Accounting Review 89, 991-
1023.
Jong, A., Mertens G., Poel, M. 306 Financial Analysts (had to 21 Financial Analysts
and Dijk, R. 2014. How does follow at least one firm) used to clarify survey
earnings management influence 48% response rate results
investors perceptions of firm survey questions similar to interviews lasted nearly 7
value? Survey evidence from Graham et al. 2005 hours
financial analysts. Review of
Accounting Studies. 19 (2), 606-
627.
Soltes. E. 2014. Private Data
Interaction Between Firm set of private meeting records
Management and Sell-Side from the sample firm and
Analysts. Journal of Accounting data from public databases
Research. 52 (1), 245-272
executives at a large
capitalization, NYSE-traded
firm agreed to maintain
records of their private
interactions with sell-side
analysts
75 private interactions
44
twin questions (either ask
EF or SR), 3 unique question
for EF or SR 23 different
questions in total, but 14 per
survey
used Qualtrics to deliver
survey
10.9% response rate
donate $10,000 * response
rate to charity
* See Appendix A for financial reporting field studies that take an interpretive approach to the
research.
45
Table 2
46
Jonsen, K., and K. A. Jehn. 2009. Using triangulation to validate themes in qualitative studies.
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal 4 (2): 123-
150.
Lillis, A. 1999. A framework for the analysis of interview data from multiple filed research sites.
Accounting and Finance 29 (1): 79-105.
Miles, M. B., A. M. Huberman and J. Saldana. 2014. Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods
Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Morse, J. M. 1995. The significance of saturation. Qualitative Health Research 5 (2): 147-149.\
Writing up interview research
Yin, R. K. 2014. Chapter 6 Reporting Case Studies. Case Study Research: Design and
Methods 5th Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Evaluation of strength of interview methods used
Atkinson, A. A. and W. Shaffir. 1998. Standards for Field Research in Management Accounting.
Journal of Management Accounting Research 10:41-68.
Dub, L., and G. Par. 2003. Rigor in Information Systems Positivist Case Research: Current
Practices, Trends and Recommendations. MIS Quarterly 27(4): 597-635.
Malsch, B. and S. E. Salterio. 2016. Doing Good Field Research: Assessing the Quality of Audit
Field Research. Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory 35 (1).
47
Table 3
Regulatory Requirements and recommended best practices in the United States and Canada
*Appendix X1 and X2 are not included in this article but we prepared them as part of our study
so as to be able to provide readers and reviewers with more extensive information about this little
known set of best practice guidelines.
48
Panel B: Implementation guidance
49
Table 4
Obtaining participants
50
Panel C: Corporate disclosure committee composition
51
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