Does Accounting Need a New Methodology?

Accounting research that currently is dominated by the adoption of the natural sciences methodology has increasingly been criticized for alienating accounting from its social environment. The increasing use of alternative methodology in accounting research such as critical theory and interpretivism challenges the dominant use of hypothetico-deductive approach which assumes social phenomena as the domain of accounting research is similar with natural phenomena as the domain of natural sciences. This paper shows that the assumption is not right so that the methodology used in accounting research does not have to imitate the methodology of natural sciences. Unlike natural sciences, studying accounting cannot be separated from understanding behaviour of accountant because the accountant is receiver, user as well as creator of accounting systems