Culture and drama: The role of financial control systems in the organisational process in three local government organisations

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of the interrelationship between organisational culture and financial control systems (FCS). A comparison is made between three local government organisations using an interpretive research methodology. Several researchers have advocated the adoption of an interpretive approach, among others, to accounting research. The first part of the paper discusses the relevant literature and outlines the research framework used to analyse the empirical data. This framework is based on the approach to studying organisational culture developed by Whipp et al. in 1989 which views culture in terms of a set of core beliefs and four modes of expression of these beliefs. Further, the framework acknowledges the dynamic nature of culture and uses the concept of social dramas to study the interrelationship between culture and the FCS. The second part describes the cultures and the financial control systems of the three organisations and discusses the interrelationship between them using the research framework. The final part summarises the findings, discusses a general model of the interrelationships and suggests some directions for more research in this area.

Citation

Goddard, A. (1999), "Culture and drama: The role of financial control systems in the organisational process in three local government organisations", International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 12 No. 6, pp. 516-532. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513559910301766