The expertise of finance and accountancy: An interdisciplinary study

We present the story of a research exercise which encompassed the disciplines of finance, accountancy, marketing, organizational behaviour and strategy. The research developed through phases of multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary enquiry and our intention is to contribute to an understanding of these by telling the story of our difficulties and achievements. The subject of our enquiry, the expertise of finance and accountancy, came to be explained in a number of different ways, including finance and accountancy as multi-disciplinary analysis and finance and accountancy as research. We therefore wish to encourage broader views of finance and accountancy than those sometimes proposed and discussed. The research exercise took protocol analysis as its starting point and we wish to encourage interpretative approaches to the transcripts which result from protocol analysis exercises. In reflecting back on our experiences, we suggest that the biggest challenge of multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary enquiry is the challenge of convergence in the face of diversity.