The evaluation of management accounting innovations; some methodological issues

This paper presents the results of a literature study of methodological issues of various forms of (quantitative) evaluation research, as it is frequently conducted in other social science disciplines. The objective of this study is to assess the potential of quantitative evaluation research within the Management Accounting discipline, based on the experience with this kind of research in these somewhat related disciplines. Both studies employing a cross-sectional and a longitudinal research approach are faced with a number of severe methodological problems, most of which are discussed in this paper.