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This paper aims to present an understanding of what it means to infuse teaching with qualitative research and to introduce the papers in the special issue.

This is an introductory essay that provides a brief overview and analysis of the ideas to be found in the issue.

The special issue contributes to the understanding of the integration of teaching and research by showing how the authors as actors, as teacher-researchers, bring not just the findings but also reflexivity into the classroom and take knowledge out into both research and teaching. The papers in this issue all consider the agency of teachers in bringing an epistemology into the classroom, and in developing that epistemology.

The papers in this issue go beyond concepts of research-led teaching and the research-teaching nexus towards reflective pieces that develop understanding of epistemology rather than more conventional reports of classroom interventions.

The relationship between research and teaching – sometimes referred to as the research–teaching nexus – is an important issue in education literature. However, although it is acknowledged that this question is specific to each discipline, it is rarely addressed in the management accounting (MA) literature. Outside MA, the literature focuses on the influence of research on teaching but rarely touches on the influence of teaching on research. This paper has two aims: to enhance the understanding of the research–teaching link in MA and to analyse the link from teaching into research.

The paper is based on a reflexive analysis of a case in which the content of a management control course progressively changed over a period of 15 years. The authors structure their description of the case using Dewey’s concept of inquiry.

This paper first shows that designing the content of this course was a form of research and it produced knowledge. This analysis also suggests that the influence of research on teaching can take other forms than introducing research results or methods into teaching; designing teaching content is nurtured by not only scientific considerations but also pedagogical considerations and lecturers’ values; and linking research and teaching raises different issues dependent on the stance adopted by MA scholars in their research.

The academic community should seriously consider that knowledge can be produced in a teaching context, through the design of a teaching content.

This paper contributes to an inquiry process by documenting how course content is actually designed, which has not yet been done in the MA literature.

Lean-inspired approaches and performance management systems are being implemented in public healthcare organisations internationally. However, the literature is inconclusive regarding the benefits of these management tools and there is a lack of knowledge regarding processes for large-scale implementation of these tools. This article aims to describe the implementation process and to better understand how this process influences the mandated performance management system.

This research is based on a comparative case study of three healthcare organisations in Canada. Data consist documents, non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews with key actors (n = 30). Analysis is based on a sociotechnical approach to management tools that considers organisational context, and the tool's technical substrate, theory of action and managerial philosophy.

Results show that despite a standardised national mandate, the tool as implemented varied between organisations in terms of technical substrate and managerial philosophy. These variations are explained by the flexibility of the technical substrate, the lack of clarity of the managerial philosophy, and some contextual elements. Successful implementation may rest upon high hybridization of the tool on these different dimensions. A precise and prescribed technical substrate is not sufficient to guarantee implementation of a managerial philosophy.

Mandated implementation of management tools may be more successful if it is explicit on the managerial philosophy, the technical substrate and the link between the two, and if it provides some leeway to adapt both to the organisational context.

This is one of the few studies to describe and analyse the process involved in mandated large-scale implementation of performance management systems in public healthcare organisations.

While new institutionalism‐inspired accounting literature has opened up new perspectives for the study of micro‐processes of change in accounting practices, little is still known about how individuals subjectively experience these processes. In this paper, the authors propose to study the role of subjectivities in the institutionalization of new accounting practices.

Based on an extension of Hasselbladh and Kallinikos' framework, the authors analyze the implementation of a new performance management and measurement system in the division of a large French public sector firm. The authors' research is based on the company's internal archives, samples of the new performance scorecard, interviews and non‐participant observation.

The system as a technique of control and related discourses and ideals formed a coherent “rationalized package” which actors had actually internalized. Still, they collectively used the new system in a very ceremonial mode and the authors' analysis identified discrepancies between actors' explicit understanding and practical experience of the system.

The authors' research suggests that studies of accounting change should further explore the complex and sometimes paradoxical nature of subjectivities at work in the adoption of new systems. Studies should combine the analysis of actors' behaviours and representations and their development over time, even though the latter longitudinal perspective is missing in the present research.

Experience encompasses more than understanding and cognitive agreement. Deliberate acceptance of systems may co‐exist with non‐deliberate reluctant behaviour.

Accounting transformation projects should reckon the role that actors' subjectivities can play in the institutionalization of new systems and practices.

The authors' research illustrates how subjectivity influences micro‐processes of accounting change. It highlights its experiential and non‐deliberate dimensions, thus complementing existing institutional research that has hitherto emphasized actors' deliberate actions and representations.

Teacher-researchers carry out two singular, demanding and time-consuming, activities: research and teaching. Some, convinced of the cross-fertilization of these two activities, try to introduce elements of their research into their courses. This intention becomes a major challenge for interpretive and critical teacher-researchers in accounting who cannot rely on textbooks, mostly oriented for the mainstream. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how those teacher-researchers proceed to infuse their research into their courses.

This paper is an exploratory qualitative study based on interviews.

The results show three typical profiles that correspond to three ways of infusing research into courses, and how these profiles can evolve and combine.

The identification of teacher-researcher profiles allows categorization of how they infuse their research into their teaching. By listing the constraints imposed on teacher-researchers intending to infuse research, proposals for ways to overcome the identified constraints that hinder the cross-fertilization of research and teaching are suggested. The paper also reexamines the status of teachers-researchers in accounting who address a critical approach in their teaching.

The paper aims to investigate how far the pragmatist concept of inquiry (Dewey, 1916, 1938) makes it possible to develop a processual and relational approach to accountability, moving the focus away from a representational conception of truth and subjectivist/individualist views on meaning-making, toward collective exploration and understanding of an issue by stakeholders with the aim of transforming social practices. The paper studies an accountability process in action, namely nuclear incident reporting, and its role in the construction of a community of inquiry investigating nuclear safety.

This research opts for a case study methodology including 36 in-depth interviews, field observation and document analyses. The data are drawn from a three-year field study of a “Local Information Commission”, a body set up to represent the public living near a nuclear site.

The object of accountability needs to be constructed through a joint exploratory inquiry by accountors and accountees into reports of incidents as originally presented, to advance their understanding and capacity for action.

It will be important to test this processual and relational approach to accountability in other types of situation, involving different governance issues than nuclear safety.

To turn theoretical stakeholders such as the public into real stakeholders (e.g. in the studied case, active participants in safety inquiries), specific social and managerial conditions must be fulfilled (concerning time, resources, commitment to open, taboo-free dialogue and legitimacy).

The paper argues that Dewey's concept of inquiry makes a valuable contribution to the processual and dialogical view of accountability.