作为一类重要的研究方法，实地研究兼具感性和深入的优点，但同时也非常难以驾驭。著名管理会计学教授Mark Young 在 Accounting Horizons第13卷第1期（1999年3月）发表的一篇评述论文探讨了实地研究方法在管理会计学领域中的应用、贡献和拓展空间。本篇摘列该文的引言部分；有兴趣的同学可找全文一读。

Field Research Methods in Management Accounting

S. Mark Young (Associate Dean and a Professor at the University of Southern California)

Accounting Horizons Vol. 13 No. 1 (March 1999) pp. 76–84

INTRODUCTION

Field research has a very long history of application in many disciplines including anthropology, sociology and business. Field research differs significantly from other research methods in that trained researchers document the interactions of people as they live and work in naturally occurring settings. These characteristics make field research one of the most challenging forms of social science investigation to master. In the history of management accounting research, there have been some noteworthy field studies (cf. Simon et al. 1954; Hopwood 1972), however, prior to the early 1980s, field studies comprised less than 5 percent of published research.

Over the past 15 years, there has been a renewed interest in conducting field studies in management accounting, particularly in manufacturing contexts. A major influence on this resurgence was the publication of Robert Kaplan’s (1983) article, “Measuring Manufacturing Performance: A New Challenge for Managerial Accounting Research.” Kaplan (1983) argued that global competition had altered the U.S. manufacturing environment so significantly that current management accounting methods, used for measuring manufacturing performance, were at best insufficient and at worst obsolete. Kaplan (p. 700) opined that, “if management accounting is to be a central discipline in the design and evaluation of information and control systems of corporations, the field will need to expand its vision beyond summary financial measures of manufacturing operations.” Of most relevance for this discussion, Kaplan (p. 700) suggested that “much time will need to be spent at factory sites to gain first-hand knowledge of the revolution in manufacturing technology that is occurring in many U.S. corporations.”

Rather than summarizing research findings, the purpose of this article is to discuss our progress in using field research methods in studying the application of management accounting methods primarily in manufacturing organizations. The three central issues I address are: (1) Compared to other fields, what is the range of field methods in management accounting? (2) What contributions are field methods making to the management accounting literature? and (3) How can we advance our use of field methods?