USING IDEAS TO ADVANCE PROFESSIONS: PUBLIC SECTOR ACCRUAL ACCOUNTING |
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| Authors: | Mark Christensen Lee Parker |
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| Institution: | 1. Southern Cross University and the University of South Australia;2. The authors are respectively from Southern Cross University and the University of South Australia. They gratefully acknowledge the participation and generous donation of time by each of the interviewees involved in this research. This paper has also benefited from advice and comments proffered by participants in its presentation at the 5th Asia Pacific Interdisciplinary Research on Accounting Conference, Auckland, July 2007 and the 5th International Conference on Accounting, Auditing & Management in Public Sector Reforms, Amsterdam, September 2008. |
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| Abstract: | This study investigates a contest of ideas that took place between public sector accrual accounting (PSAA) and Government Finance Statistics (GFS) in the Australian state of New South Wales. The debate, its context and its course is historically analysed from a neo‐institutional theory perspective, employing both documentary and oral history sources. Important in PSAA's win over GFS were: phantom images of PSAA success; a dominant politician; discourse control directing attention to the balance sheet; and, normative isomorphism from professionally qualified public sector accountants. Understanding public sector accounting change requires analysis beyond technical change; in this case the actors and their motives overwhelmed the technical. |
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| Keywords: | accrual accounting public sector New South Wales profession isomorphism |
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