Purpose – This paper analyses public sector accounting and organization reforms, focusing on the departments in charge of defence, military procurement and war between 1850 and 2000 in Britain. Over this period, three parliamentary acts, resulting from a power struggle between the Treasury and Parliament, produced the shift between two institutional logics: probity (spending properly) and performance (spending well). The purpose of this paper is to describe how the acts produced a shift between two institutional logics. Design/methodology/approach – We adopt Quattrone’s (2015) procedural notion of institutional logics and the consequent concept of ‘unfolding rationality’. Using documents from the National Archives, we analyse three reforms: The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1866 (towards probity), The Exchequer and Audit Departments Act 1921 (towards performance), and the National Audit Office Act of 1983 (towards performance and probity). Findings – For a long time, the actors narrated in this story argued and acted as if probity and performance were incompatible. The two are now treated as compatible and equally important. Before that, the ‘incompatibility’ was a rhetorical, or ‘procedural’, device. We argue that a procedural rather than substantive notion of institutional logics is more suitable to explain the trajectory that was the result of constant negotiation among actors. Originality/value – The originality of this paper stands in highlighting the link between the institutional logic of public-administration accounting and military history. This link emerges also thanks to a very long time-horizon. Additionally, from a theoretical viewpoint, we have put Quattrone’s approach to the test in a context very different from the original one (the Jesuit order). Practical implications – Our study might contribute to understanding of the increase in national defence-spending at continental level and the call for a common EU military procurement strategy that followed the invasion of Ukraine. The war could produce changes in what is a traditional tension between two logics: sovereignty or efficiency.
Bernardi, Andrea Hilton, Brian J.
Oxford Brookes Business School
Year of publication: 2023Date of RADAR deposit: 2023-02-03