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In his 2022 paper, in the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management, Sven Modell reviews and reflects on the public sector's institutional research dealing with performance measurement and management (PMM) over the past decade. Modell suggests potential extensions of this body of research. This paper seeks to contribute to the path that Modell initiated. It offers directions in which institutional theory might contribute further to research on agentic aspects of PMM in the public sector.

The paper is a rejoinder emphasizing how institutional theory could further nurture reflection on PMM research in the public sector. The authors draw upon Modell's article and ongoing research in the institutional theory field.

Modell insists that institutional research on PMM in the public sector should explore the constitutive effects of PMM practices while conceiving such practices as institutionally embedded phenomena. The authors seek to extend this approach by considering the role of agency in institutional processes. To do this, the authors build on recent institutional research on agency, discussing how those new conceptualizations could nurture and develop the understanding of PMM practices in the public sector. The authors further discuss implications for coupling and decoupling as sites of agency. Such literature is relevant for examining emerging themes in public-sector accounting because it allows the authors to better conceptualize the underlying mechanisms of agency in the context of public service provision characterized by institutional complexity.

This paper details several implications of the current developments in new institutional theory in examining agency in the relationship between institutions and PMM, pointing at the case of decoupling. In so doing, the authors seek to stimulate a constructive exchange between public-sector accounting and a broader institutionalist body of research and suggest ways of extending the PMM research agenda.

The purpose is to assess the impact of clinical costing approaches on the quality of cost information in seven countries (Denmark, England, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Portugal).

Costing practices in seven countries were analysed via questionnaires, interviews and relevant published material.

Although clinical costing is intended to support a similar range of purposes, countries display considerable diversity in their approaches to costing in terms of the level of detail contained in regulatory guidance and the percentage of providers subject to such guidance for tariff setting. Guidance in all countries involves a mix of costing methods.

The authors propose a two-dimensional Materiality and Quality Score (2D MAQS) of costing systems that can support the complex trade-offs in managing the quality of cost information at both policy and provider level, and between financial and clinical concerns.

The authors explore the trade-offs between different dimensions of the quality (accuracy, decision relevance and standardization) and the cost of collecting and analysing cost information for disparate purposes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the organizational construction of profit at the responsibility-centre level, how underlying cost calculations are challenged, and the role of accountants therein.

This paper analyses profit calculation in a public social housing organization that experienced New Public Management (NPM). Participant observations, archives and interviews inform the study over three years, enabling access to day-to-day practices.

This study examines a trial of strength that revisited long-existing profitability and cost calculations. Accountants held competing views of how to treat labour costs. Some were anti-programme during a trial of incompatibility, while others were programme defenders. The authors also provide evidence of the stability of an established network and its resistance to the claims of an adversary spokesperson in a trial of strength. The concept of trial of incompatibility proved helpful in showing how the actor networks within OMEGA played out the tension between profit orientation and the social mission of offering affordable dwellings.

The paper provides rare qualitative data on the significant and complex role of calculative costing choices in determining intra-organizational profitability and its interference with the inherent social mission of the organization.

The authors suggest that profitability calculations are influenced not only by economic context but also by different views of organizational actors regarding how to calculate profit. These calculations would benefit from a more detailed and explicit documentation of reasons for choices made, given the potential for different and, in principle, equally valid approaches. The authors provide further evidence of the complexity of the public social housing sector.

This research points to a departure from the mission of public social housing in the face of NPM reforms and further questions the compatibility of a profit orientation with the provision of affordable dwellings.

The findings show intra-accounting variation regarding a specific element of profit calculation (labour costs) relating to the organization’s wider mission and status.

The purpose of this paper is to study how representation is conceptualized in Jewish culture, and how this relates to management. More specifically, it seeks to discuss the banning of images and what can be learned from this in the field of management.

The paper explores the meaning of the prohibition of images in the sacred texts. This serves as a starting point to discuss representation of the world and different forms of thought in the management field.

A major element in the banning of images deals with the involvement of the manager in decision making. The authors argue that organisational images such as accounting numbers are oriented towards economising our attention and thereby allowing the relative absence of the decision maker. The authors suggest that the banning of images reminds us of the importance of the manager's presence and of active participation in decision making and organisational transformation.

The paper contributes to the literature on the roles of managerial representation, notably accounting figures, and supports the idea that accountability should not be limited to reporting (be it numbers or qualitative elements). This paper argues for developing the density of the account, for instance by using narratives. This research echoes recent practice turn in management, as the authors’ findings can inform management teaching by providing students with dense case‐studies of management as actually practised, analysed using sociological or psychological theories. Such dense case‐studies do not aim to give students parsimonious models for analysis, or expose them to best practices: rather they seek to help them develop practical wisdom through a better understanding of management. This paper calls then for an increased presence rather than representation in management teaching classes, which is the main limitation of e‐learning.

Rather than exploring the mechanism of accounting figures in the behaviour of organizational actors or taking a political perspective, this paper focuses on a deep representation of the organization often rooted in magical thought. Relying on the practical wisdom of the Hebraic biblical banning of images, this paper aims to deconstruct organizational thought so as to highlight its contradictions.

The purpose of this paper is to study how people use competing accounting numbers to make sense of and legitimize actions in a complex environment in times of crisis.

This paper analyzes the implementation of a standardized budget model at a USA intergovernmental organization, by relying on a triangulation of data sources, including face-to-face interviews, direct observations, and archival documents. The organization faces one of the greatest crises it has ever experienced. An accounting team and a human resources team make sense differently the same reality–staffing. The sensemaking perspective framework is utilized to provide a theoretical structure for the analysis.

The understudied organization undergoes constant evolution during the budgetary crisis; data reveal different forms of cues, which activate the sensemaking process, such as fading and compressed cues. Although compressed cues subsequently emerge, they play a more crucial role in managers' enactment than pre-existing fading cues. Artificializing accounting numbers refer to the social process of constructing compressed cues or artificial artifacts that are neither wrong nor right, neither soft nor hard and not useful for peoples' sensemaking but used to legitimize managers' strategic decisions.

This artificializing process explains the people's resistance to policy implementation. Furthermore, the multiplicity of cues provides useful information for regulators and managers to understand uncertainty during a crisis.

This study presents a rare case of an international third sector organization amid a budgetary crisis. Among few studies referring to numbers as sensemaking resources, this study focuses on the importance of systematic power and corporate power relative to the process of sensemaking.

This paper aims to better understand why neoliberal governance is so resilient to the crises that frequently affect all or part of the economy.

The argument of this paper relies on a macroanalysis of discourses surrounding the Global Financial Crisis.

Drawing on Girard and Foucault’s work, this paper argues that the resilience of neoliberalism partly ensues from the proclivity of this mode of governing to foster, for reasons that this paper seeks to highlight, spontaneous and widespread processes of scapegoating in times of turmoil. As a consequence of these processes, crises often are collectively construed as resulting from frauds: the blame is focused on specific actors whose lack of morality is denounced, and this individualizing line of interpretation protects the regime from systemic questioning.

Particular actors, rather than the system itself, are made accountable when things go wrong. Consequences are paramount. Today’s political economy is characterized with a proclivity toward social reproduction. While substantive change is possible in theory, considerable challenges are involved in practice in overcoming the dominance of neoliberalism in society.

Although Girard’s work has exerted significant influence over a number of disciplines in the social sciences, his ideas have not yet been widely used in governance and accountability-related research. Anthropological theorizations – such as those proposed by Girard – are valuable in providing us with a sense of how power develops in the economy.

The purpose of this issue is to provide an overview of the special issue on practical wisdom for management from the Jewish traditions.

The guest editorial introduces the papers in this special issue, focusing in practical wisdom for management from the Jewish traditions.

The question on the relationship between the Jewish tradition and practical wisdom for management is answered in two different ways: first, providing a particular Jewish answer to managerial problems and second, presenting how Judaism can be a field of reflection learning for managerial praxis at both organizational and individual level.

The paper shows that the special issue offers insights into the value of practical wisdom of the Jewish traditions, from two particular points of view, as a guide for action and as an ethical approach to management.