Agreeing on Problems, Where are the Solutions? A Reply to Quattrone

Abstract

It seems that Paolo Quattrone (PQ) shares in his interesting commentary some of the concerns we expressed in our manuscript. In a good post-modernist spirit, he criticizes our work, which of course is far from being beyond critics. But does he provide any solutions or insights on how to overcome those concerns we all seem to share? He credits us for calling action and debate. A good debate, at least to our taste, would be between alternative solutions. Now the only option we have is to debate on the merits and demerits of what we propose, as there are no other solutions suggested. If post-modern means only criticism, but no progressive efforts, we are happy to "have never been post-modern". In this reply we try to address some of the issues PQ sees in our paper. Our presentation will follow the structure of PQ's commentary: the purpose of our original manuscript, assumptions, definitions and paradoxes.

Keywords: Management accounting, theory

JEL Classification: M40