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Christopher Humphrey: The Management School, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
Robert W. Scapens: Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
In some respects it is disconcerting to have to respond in defence of a paper which is seen as dangerous, absurd, promiscuous and unsettling, of attacking the wrong enemy and in danger of facilitating the rebirth of old orthodoxies. But then, in other respects, such language is comforting as it serves to emphasize a central point of the paper - that theoretical discourse in accounting, as in any other academic discipline, is largely a rhetorical process.
The term "rhetoric" was used in its classical sense, meaning the efficient processing of argument, rather than its later pejorative sense (see Warnock, 1992; and Amernic, 1996). It is believed that the use of rhetoric in this sense can open up new ways of thinking and encourage greater scholarship, rather than relying on established modes of theorizing. In short, rhetoric in accounting research is seen as the use of persuasive argument which has purpose and can change things. It is not the cliched embodiment of irrelevance or cynicism, although we acknowledge that it can include diasyrmus, the disparaging of opposing arguments (McCloskey, 1985); for example, by the use of labels such as dangerous, absurd, promiscuous and so on.
In the classical sense, rhetoric is more than mere words, it is about how words influence action - i.e. the use of persuasive arguments to produce practical impacts which affect actions. For example, Cantor (1989, p. 161) argues that "Scientific narratives ... are rhetorical, in the accepted sense of the term, since they aim to persuade and influence". A major concern informing the paper was the belief that accounting research studies should have real impacts in a world which is increasingly controlled and ordered around accounting technologies.
In responding to the two commentators, we find in the case of Sue Llewellyn's commentary that we disagree little with the general thrust of her arguments. Our only objection is that she has taken some of our comments to an extreme - most notably with respect to the general rejection of realism. Here, we were referring to the rejection of the realist character of much of mainstream accounting research. We do...