e-journal

Rethinking impact and redefining responsibility

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Purpose – The starting point for the paper is an assessment of the impact of a 1993 special issue of
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, which provided an interdisciplinary analysis of the
pursuit of accountable management reforms in the UK public sector. From this assessment, the paper
offers a set of reflections on the development over the last two decades of “new” public management
practice and research, and also indicates some of the obligations and responsibilities of academic
researchers and managers alike in the context of a continuing appetite for such reforms.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is written in a reflective fashion, including
assessments of: our role as guest editors of the special issue; the continuing pertinence of key
messages emanating from the special issue; and broader considerations drawn from our own working
experience in managerial roles in universities and personal reflections on the state of the public
management literature.
Findings – The paper highlights the long-standing litany of failure attached to such public
management reform movements, as well as the limited degree of cross-disciplinary learning within the
field. The paper emphasises that we need to rethink the parameters of “public sector” (accounting)
research, and avoid the partitioning of (accounting) research into ever smaller and self-referential
sub-areas. We need more cross-national studies. We need to know more about which management
practices travel readily, and which travel less easily, and what happens when implementation is
problematic. We need also to reinforce the importance of historical analyses, if we are to derive the
most benefit from studies of the interrelations among accounting and public management reforms and
wider transformations in ways of governing economic and social life. Finally, we need to retain or
reinstate curiosity at the heart of our concerns, in order to dispel the self-evidence or
taken-for-grantedness of so much of our present.
Research limitations/implications – Personal reflections, while being beneficially close to the
subject under consideration, inevitably suffer from claims of bias and a lack of independence. We have
sought to control for such risks by drawing on a variety of sources of information with respect to
impact, including (albeit ironically) citation counts and an analysis of the writings of individual
authors contributing to the special issue.
Originality/value – The paper is novel in that it seeks to combine an analysis of the literature on
public sector accounting and management reforms over several decades with our own, multi-faceted,
engagement with public management research and practice.

Keywords United Kingdom, Public administration, Public sector reform, Accountability, Government,
New public management, Research impact, Academic management

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Ketersediaan

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Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

No. Panggil

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Penerbit

: Emerald Group., 2012

Deskripsi Fisik

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Vol. 25 No. 2, 2012 pp. 295-327

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

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Klasifikasi

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Tipe Isi

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Tipe Media

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Tipe Pembawa

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Edisi

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Subjek

AKUNTANSI

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

Asmawati/Syahrial

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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