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International Accounting Standards Rule 37 (IAS 37) for Contingent Liabilities and Assets were designed to make analysis of exposures facing a corporate entity easier to understand, but the rules may be insufficiently prescriptive making provisions inadequate predictors of potential outlays. The purpose of this research is to redress this problem. We apply financial option theory to objectively mark-to-market the appropriateness of provisions replacing subjective inputs with market derived calculations.

This study applies financial option theory to determine whether provisions are appropriate according to market data. This research supports inferences regarding the probability of a provision being used while evidencing scope for earnings management.

In addition to showing how IAS 37 provisions may be calibrated against market data, from the large sample of UK-listed companies, the proposition that over-provisioning is common and related to share price volatility, is supported, supporting the view that IAS 37 rules may facilitate earnings management.

The financial and reporting community have struggled in interpreting the appropriateness of IAS 37 provisions. Are they too large or too small? What is the probability they will be used? Using option theory and market data, various subjective judgements may now be validated. This research should have tangible value to analysts, auditors, investors and other stakeholders concerned in the accurate valuation of potential liabilities.

Replacing subjective judgement and insufficiently prescriptive guidance, this study shows that financial option theory and share price data may be used to objectively calibrate the size of IAS 37 provisions.

This paper aims to improve understanding of how management control systems (MCS) are influenced by local contexts in outsourcing relationships, drawing on a multi‐layer analysis of embeddedness.

Data were gathered through a field study of 15 Egyptian firms that outsourced various forms of accounting services to third party suppliers.

The findings indicate that managers make their control choices based on the nature of their “embedded relationships” with suppliers. The embeddedness analysis demonstrates the influence of context on MCS implementation.

There is a paucity of studies focussing on how context affects control in outsourcing relationships. The paper provides a detailed framework and a rich empirically‐based explanation of the findings.

The findings have implications for the practice of accounting outsourcing and provide a conceptual framework of relevance to management practice.

A conceptual framework for understanding embeddedness is presented, which is illustrated with empirical evidence from multiple case analyses to illustrate how the implementation of MCS is influenced by context.

The aim of this paper is to assess and explain the role of grounded theory (GT) in interpretive management accounting research (IMAR) and seeks to answer the question: can interpretive researchers use GT? And if so, how?

This is a theoretical paper that attempts to investigate how researchers can use GT in relation to their ontological stance, methodological position and research methods.

The paper suggests that GT offers a balance between the expediency of the research findings, thereby allowing researchers freedom to interpret management accounting practices, and the development of rigorous theory from IMAR.

The paper provides an analysis of GT from an interpretive perspective and, clearly, there are other research perspectives which could have been discussed.

GT can be a powerful tool that researchers could use to collect and analyse empirical data. However, researchers need to align GT with the broader paradigm they adopt when researching social phenomena. The paper provides some general guidelines for IMARs who want to use GT in their research.

This paper shows that GT can offer interpretive researchers a way of balancing the need to develop theory, which is grounded in everyday practices, and the recognition that the research process is inherently subjective. However, it is argued that in interpretive research GT cannot provide a simple “recipe book” which, if followed rigorously, will result in a high‐quality research (i.e. valid, reliable and unbiased). Nevertheless, the guidelines provide a way for IMARs, who use GT to improve the quality of their research findings.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the motivation for this special issue and its contributions.

This paper is a conceptual editorial piece which discusses current methodological tendencies in qualitative accounting research.

The paper argues that qualitative research involves some balancing acts between, on the one hand, pragmatic and aesthetic aspects and, on the other, the necessary steps for establishing trust in a particular piece of research. The authors explicate how this is manifest in the contributions to this special issue.

This paper highlights the need for greater attention to the many pragmatic aspects associated with qualitative accounting research rarely accounted for in previous texts on the topic.