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The purpose of this paper is to report on two institutional change scenarios of performance measurement (PM) systems, namely, subversion and integration. Subversion represents insiders' use of existing institutional logic whereas integration represents insiders' use of imported institutional logic.

The scenarios are drawn from two case studies: BAE Systems (a large UK manufacturing company) and Alpha (a medium‐sized Sri Lankan manufacturing company). The data were collected through in‐depth interviews and documentary sources.

An internal “culture change programme” led to a business value scorecard (BVS) in BAE Systems, and an external knowledge diffusion programme gave rise to a balanced scorecard (BSC) in Alpha. The culture change programme was facilitated by a particular institutional logic resulting in a successful BVS practice. In contrast, at Alpha, the BSC project was externally imposed, although it was designed with the blessing of the owner‐manager. This triggered internal controversies and the workforce became unreceptive. Consequently, attention was diverted to other management fads such as total quality management, Six Sigma, and enterprise resource planning but these were also short lived.

While this paper provides evidence on practice variation and adds to neoinstitutional‐based management accounting research, the empirical materials, however, did not allow the authors to trace all four scenarios in the typology.

PM systems, such as the BSC, seem to be malleable and adaptable to local requirements subject to organisational and managerial flexibility and democratic possibilities.

This research highlights how the institutional environment is fragmented and contested, in different organisational and political conditions and spaces, resulting in variation in practices.

Drawing on the ideas of postcolonial hybridity and postcolonial feminism, the purpose of this paper is to explore a contextual variant of neoliberalism, which the authors call postcolonial neoliberalism. It unpacks the peculiarities of hybridised practices of management controls therein to reflect on its construction and consequences.

A seven-month ethnographic study was carried out in a Sri Lankan tea estate to understand both the nature and the practices of these controls.

Postcolonial neoliberalism has been animated by a hybrid form of management controls encompassing colonial action controls, postcolonial cultural controls and neoliberal results controls. This created an emancipatory space for female workers to engage in some confrontations to attain some compromises.

The message is that the hybridised controls are central to the construction of this form of postcolonial neoliberalism and to its reproduction. However, as these controls accompany a gendered form, female workers find a condition of possibility for some emancipatory potentials within the neoliberal development policy.