Methodological reflections on historical case study and interpretive accounting research

Commenting on our study "Accountability and ideology: The case of a German university under the Nazi regime", published in 2020 in Accounting History, Rilbier recently outlined a research agenda on the manifold ways in which the Nazi doctrine affected institutions of higher education, going beyond the scope of our original article. With this reply, we seek to reflect on research considerations emanating from such an agenda, relating to (i) conducting historical case-based research, (ii) questions of ontology and epistemology in interpretive accounting research, and (iii) the notion of what constitutes accounting in a specific research context. We hope that our reply, along with Rilbier's commentary, inspires further research on accounting's role in totalitarian regimes.