The translation of accrual accounting and budgeting and the reconfiguration of public sector accountants' identities

Tobias Jagalla, Peter Skaerbaek and Sebastian D. Becker
Additional contact information
Tobias Jagalla: department of finance and accounting, WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
Peter Skaerbaek: Department of Accounting and Auditing - CBS - Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen]
Sebastian D. Becker: GREGH - Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC - HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Under the umbrella of New Public Management (NPM) and managerialism, the last three decades have seen a widespread transformation of public sector accounting and budgeting from a cash to an accrual basis. Much of the ensuing research, however, has focused more on technical evaluations of these programmes and less on informing our knowledge of the interaction between such programmes and accountants. As public sector accountants (PSAs) are central entities in such programmes, the purpose of this paper is to focus on the reconfiguration of their identities. Using the theoretical lens of Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) and its concept of translation, this study seeks to explain how PSAs' identities were transformed through the introduction of Accrual Output-Based Budgeting (AOBB) in two German states. Our analysis shows that the change of accounting regime was not a straightforward one, but rather involved that accountants faced particular challenges responding to several interessement devices that were used to enrol them into the new practices. We link this behaviour to a Weberian facet of the PSAs' identity, which prevented serious project stagnancy and 'strategies of total resistance', but also precluded many accountants from enrolling easily into AOBB, or even developing enthusiasm. The paper suggests that several groups of accountants, rather than one, experienced different challenges in aligning with AOBB and that each assumed their compromises and investments in developing with accrual accounting.

Keywords: New Public Management; Public sector; Identity; Accrual accounting and budgeting; Actor-Network-Theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published in Critical Perspectives On Accounting, 2014, 25 (4-5), pp.324-338. ⟨10.1016/j.cpa.2013.05.004⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01025960

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2013.05.004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().