This paper brings to light informal norms that surround the production of interview-based research in the accounting domain – specifically regarding the number of interviews, the notion of saturation, length of articles, length of dedicated method section, reference to data coding, and number of block quotations per article. Our premise is that while the formal methodological literature in qualitative research provides guiding principles, the guidance tends to be general, and at times contradictory and ambiguous, thereby rendering its implementation a thorny exercise. This formal guidance thus needs significant translation in the context of specific research projects. We conceive of methodological translation as a socially constituted endeavour, which is influenced (not deterministically however) by social norms that informally surround the undertaking of research projects. To carry out the investigation we tabulate 639 interview-based research articles in major accounting journals published in the 15-year period 2000–2014 and examine patterns in the way that interview data is drawn upon to support research claims. Across this period, we find that the median number of interviews in published articles in leading accounting journals is 26, with variation across journal outlet and time period. We note that only a minority of papers mention the notion of saturation. Further, when being mentioned, saturation is often articulated in a hazy way. We also find several other trends across the period including a decrease in the number of interviews in published articles, an escalation in article length, a marked increase in the length of method sections, a significant augmentation in reference to data coding procedures, and an increase in the number of block quotations.

本文揭示了围绕会计领域基于访谈的研究进行的非正式规范，特别是关于访谈的数量，饱和度的概念，文章的长度，专用方法部分的长度，对数据编码的引用以及数量每篇文章的大宗报价。我们的前提是，尽管定性研究中的形式方法学文献提供了指导原则，但指导往往趋于笼统，有时相互矛盾和模棱两可，从而使其执行工作棘手。因此，此正式指南需要在特定研究项目的背景下进行大量翻译。我们认为方法翻译是一种社会努力，这受到非正式地围绕研究项目进行的社会规范的影响（但不是确定性的）。为了开展调查，我们将2000年至2014年这15年间在主要会计期刊中发表的639篇基于访谈的研究表进行了列表，并研究了利用访谈数据来支持研究主张的方式。在此期间，我们发现领先的会计期刊中已发表文章的采访中位数为26，且期刊出刊时间和时间段之间存在差异。我们注意到，只有少数论文提到了饱和的概念。此外，当提到饱和时，饱和度通常以朦胧的方式表达。在此期间，我们还发现了其他一些趋势，包括已发表文章的采访数量减少，