Mark Christensen

Bio: Mark Christensen is an academic researcher from ESSEC Business School. The author has contributed to research in topics: Public sector & Accrual. The author has an hindex of 12, co-authored 30 publications receiving 760 citations. Previous affiliations of Mark Christensen include University of South Australia & Southern Cross University.

Framing and overflowing of public sector accountability innovations: A comparative study of reporting practices

Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to explain why public sector performance reporting that emphasises external accountability may turn out differently from the official stated aims.Design/methodology/approach – Using a comparative case method, two different accountability innovations are examined using framing and overflowing ideas.Findings – The accountability reports became bureaucratic communications between the reporting and central agencies. The reports were transformed because the performance reporting produced a number of overflows and reduced the importance of broad audiences (e.g. citizens). These overflows resulted from the central agency reformers' preoccupation with cost cutting opportunities and the reporting agencies' presumption of the reformers' real purpose. In the resulting interactions, the accountability purpose ended up being mostly reduced to disclosure of traditional input and output measures and some insignificant stories designed to avoid public criticism of the accountability reform but a...

Accrual accounting in the public sector: the case of the New South Wales government:

Abstract: Accounting technologies have dominated public sector management reforms and accrual based financial reporting has been significant amongst these technologies. This paper examines the process of cha...

Consultancy Outputs and the Purification of Accounting Technologies

Abstract: Consultancy is a phenomenon frequently referred to in the accounting literature. However, few studies have more intensively dealt with what consultancy activities and reports may mean in terms of stabilising accounting systems. In this article we provide detailed processual descriptions and characterizations of how consultancy outputs participate in the co-production of larger accounting systems in the public sector. From two case studies we demonstrate how consultancy companies become hired by change proponents to purify, i.e. how consultants can work to provide ‘faith’ to accounting systems and to settle controversies with sceptical and resisting groups that threaten to destabilize the innovations. By using Actor-Network Theory we demonstrate how consultancy outputs like consultancy project reports, seminars, briefings and the like are part of practices to cultivate social conflict. The article explains the forms of purification, their conditions and consequences and how they can be successful to stabilize accounting technologies.

The ‘third hand’: Private sector consultants in public sector accounting change

Abstract: This paper explores the role of large private sector consulting firms in the promotion and implementation of public sector accrual accounting. By focusing on an early adopter of accrual accounting for its entire public sector, this research presents an analysis of the activities of large consulting firms in the process of a significant public sector accounting change. The role of consultants in the change is presented by analysing primary data extracted from archival sources and oral histories provided by a number of prominent actors classified as users of information (politicians), producers of information (bureaucrats) or accounting consultants. The role and impact of the consulting firms' actions can be better understood by applying concepts of non-coercive isomorphism and the interplay between self-interest and perceived public interest. The consulting firms are shown to have used phantom images to promote the case for accounting change. This was done with a zealous belief that bringing publi...

Using ideas to advance professions: public sector accrual accounting

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.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

Experts, networks and inscriptions in the fabrication of accounting images: A story of the

Abstract: Abstract This ethnography of three Australian hospitals seeks to understand how and why new accounting systems are “experimented” with in organizations. Latour's sociology of translation is adapted to argue that accounting change emerged not because there was certain knowledge of positive economic outcomes but because an uncertain faith, fostered by expert-generated inscriptions and rhetorical strategies, was able to tie together shifting interests in an actor network. The paper also highlights how accounting may ironically be both real and a simulation.

The Management of Change in Public Organisations: A Literature Review

Abstract: This article presents a review of the recent literature on change management in public organisations and sets out to explore the extent to which this literature has responded to earlier critiques regarding the lack of (public) contextual factors. The review includes 133 articles published on this topic in the period from 2000 to 2010. The articles are analyzed based on the themes of the context, content, process, outcome and leadership of change. We identified whether the articles referred to different orders of change, as well as their employed methods and theory. Our findings concentrate on the lack of detail on change processes and outcomes and the gap between the common theories used to study change. We propose an agenda for the study of change management in public organisations that focuses on its complex nature by building theoretical bridges and performing more in-depth empirical and comparative studies on change processes.

The management of change in public organizations: a literature review

Abstract: This article presents a review of the recent literature on change management in public organizations and sets out to explore the extent to which this literature has responded to earlier critiques regarding the lack of (public) contextual factors. The review includes 133 articles published on this topic in the period from 2000 to 2010. The articles are analysed based on the themes of the context, content, process, outcome, and leadership of change. We identified whether the articles referred to different orders of change, as well as their methods and theory employed. Our findings concentrate on the lack of detail on change processes and outcomes and the gap between the common theories used to study change. We propose an agenda for the study of change management in public organizations that focuses on its complex nature by building theoretical bridges and performing more in-depth empirical and comparative studies on change processes.