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This paper reviews and reflects on institutional research on performance measurement and management (PMM) in the public sector emerging over the past decade and discusses potential extensions of this body of research.

The paper takes the form of a reflective review with an emphasis on how institutional theory has been used in PMM research in the public sector.

Although institutional research on PMM in the public sector has continued to grow over the past decade, much of this research still pays relatively one-sided attention to the influence of pre-existing institutions on PMM practices and has left the constitutive effects of such practices under-researched. In order to address this shortcoming and nurture research that pays more equal attention to the institutional effects on and of PMM practices, a research agenda based on dialogue with the sociology of valuation and valuation studies is outlined. Such research is arguably well-suited for examining emerging themes in the public sector accounting and management literatures centred on the publicness of public service provision and notions of organisational hybridity.

The paper offers a starting point for research that can provide a more holistic and dynamic perspective on how PMM practices are implicated in the shaping of institutional fields over time.

The paper continues to advance an established research agenda in the public sector accounting and management literatures whilst suggesting ways of extending this research agenda.

This is a reply to the commentaries by Baxter and Chua (2020) and Andrew and Baker (2020) on a paper previously published in this journal.

This is a conceptual discussion that further clarifies the differences between critical realism (CR), actor–network theory (ANT) and traditional Marxist thought as a basis for critical accounting research.

The relative merits of CR as a basis for critical accounting research are further elucidated in the light of the criticisms raised in the commentaries. In particular, the discussion of its role as a counterweight to the legacy of empiricism that hampers the possibilities of advancing radical social critique and emancipation is further developed.

The paper clarifies what CR can and cannot do for the critical accounting project and how it may be further developed as a vehicle for emancipation.

The paper extends the debate about what critical accounting research is and could be.

This paper examines the influence of the normal science tradition, epitomized by the notion that “theory is king”, on contemporary accounting research and the epistemological tensions that may emerge as this idea is applied to particular ways of studying accounting. For illustrative purposes, the authors focus on research informed by actor-network theory (ANT) which can be seen as an “extreme case” in the sense that it is, in principle, difficult to reconcile with the normal science aspirations.

The paper offers an analysis based on a close reading of how accounting scholars, using ANT, theorize, and if they do engage in explicit theorizing, how they deal with the tensions that might emerge from the need to reconcile its epistemological underpinnings with those of the normal science tradition.

The findings of this paper show that the tensions between normal science thinking and the epistemological principles of ANT have, in a few cases, been avoided, as researchers stay relatively faithful to ANT and largely refrain from further theory development. However, in most cases, the tensions have ostensibly been ignored as researchers blend the epistemology of ANT and that of normal science without reflecting on the implications of doing so.

The paper contributes to emerging debates on the role of the normal science tradition in contemporary accounting research, and also extends recent discussions on the role of theory in accounting research inspired by ANT. The paper proposes three reasons for the observed blending of epistemologies: unawareness of tensions, epistemological eclecticism and various political considerations.

The purpose of this paper is to advance a critical realist perspective on performativity and use it to examine how novel conceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have performative effects.

To illustrate how the authors’ critical realist understanding of performativity can play out, the authors offer a field study of an Australian packaging company and engage in retroductive and retrodictive theorising.

In contrast to most prior accounting research, the authors advance a structuralist understanding of performativity that pays more systematic attention to the causal relationships that underpin performative tendencies. The authors explain how such tendencies are conditioned by pre-existing, social structures, conceptualised in terms of multiple, intersecting norm circles. The authors illustrate their argument empirically by showing how specific conceptions of CSR, centred on the notion of “shared value”, were cemented by the interplay between the causal powers embedded in such norm circles and how this suppressed alternative conceptions of this phenomenon.

The findings draw attention to the structural boundary conditions under which particular conceptions of CSR can be expected to become performative. Greater attention to such boundary conditions, denoting the social structures that reinforce and counteract performative tendencies, is required to further cumulative, yet context-sensitive, theory development on this topic.

The paper is the first to adopt a critical realist perspective on performativity in the accounting literature. This perspective strikes a middle path between the highly constructivist ontology, adopted in most accounting research concerned with performativity and realist criticisms of this ontological position for de-emphasising the influence of pre-existing, objective realities on performativity.

The purpose of this paper is to contrast actor-network theory (ANT) and critical realism (CR) as two contemporary approaches to critical accounting research and advance a critique centred on the neglect of social structures in the former perspective.

This is a conceptual paper based on a critical reading of ANT inspired by CR.

Although the author does not question the ability of ANT to be imbued with critical intent per se, the author is critical of its tendency to downplay the significance of pre-existing, social structures and the concomitant neglect of enduring and ubiquitous states of structural stability as an ontological possibility. This may lead to an overly optimistic view that naively valorises agency as a largely unfettered engine of emancipation. By contrast, CR offers a deeper and more nuanced ontological conception of how social structures constrain as well as enable emancipation. In contrast to the highly empiricist epistemology of ANT, it also provides an epistemological rationale for going beyond empirical descriptions of how social structures work to advance theoretically informed, explanatory critiques that are better suited for realising less easily observable opportunities for emancipation.

The paper advances the debate about how social structures should be examined in critical accounting research and the relative merits of doing so in advancing emancipatory projects.

The paper is an attempt to contrast ANT and CR as two distinct approaches to critical accounting research and thus extends the debate about what such research is and could be.

This paper reflects on Sven Modell's (2022) study discussing uses of institutional theorising for studying performance measurement and management (PMM) in the public sector context. The paper provides arguments for critically analysing the assumptions and characteristics of PMM research.

First, the paper addresses PMM as a field of research linking scientific disciplines, schools of thought and academic scholars. Second, the paper discusses the role of institutional theorising in PMM research. Third, the paper analyses and reviews Modell's ideas on the future prospects of PMM research. The paper also elaborates on the ideas presented in Modell's paper.

Modell's paper suggests sociology of valuation and the discussion on hybrid governance as future developments for PMM research. This paper provides a conceptual perspective to link these areas together. Furthermore, the paper contributes to understanding PMM as a multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary research area.

This paper contributes to the conceptualizations of values, valuation and hybridity in PMM research from the viewpoint of institutional theory.

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 paper is to understand how the financial system is influenced by macroeconomic shocks and how the financial stance, in turn, feeds back into the macroeconomic environment is key for policy makers. The most recent financial crisis has demonstrated the need for a deeper understanding of these interdependencies. The purpose of this paper is to analyze what macroeconomic shocks affect the soundness of the German banking system.

The paper draws on a micro‐macro stress‐testing framework for the German banking system in which macroeconomic and bank‐specific data are used to identify the effects of various shocks in a structural vector autoregressive model, which includes main macroeconomic variables and an indicator of stress in the banking system. To this end, the sign‐restriction approach is applied.

First, it is found that there is a close link between macroeconomic developments and the stance of the banking sector. Second, monetary policy shocks are the most influential shocks for distress in the banking sector. Third, fiscal policy shocks and real estate price shocks have a significant impact on the distress indicator, while evidence is mixed for the exchange rate. Fourth, for the identification of most shocks it is essential to work in the integrated model that combines the micro‐ and the macro‐sphere.

The paper analyzes various shock scenarios in an integrated micro‐macro framework that takes the mutual relationship between the financial stance and the macroeconomic environment into account.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the motivation for this special issue and its contributions.

This paper is a conceptual editorial piece which discusses current methodological tendencies in qualitative accounting research.

The paper argues that qualitative research involves some balancing acts between, on the one hand, pragmatic and aesthetic aspects and, on the other, the necessary steps for establishing trust in a particular piece of research. The authors explicate how this is manifest in the contributions to this special issue.

This paper highlights the need for greater attention to the many pragmatic aspects associated with qualitative accounting research rarely accounted for in previous texts on the topic.

The purpose of the paper is to examine how organisational experimenting with total quality management (TQM) and the balanced scorecard affects the bundling of design characteristics associated with these innovations in a Swedish central government agency.

The paper adopts an exploratory, longitudinal case study approach which builds on and extends the management fad and fashion literature.

While both innovations encountered considerable implementation problems, they continued to exercise a lingering influence on the “new” performance management system emerging in the focal organisation. The original adoption of the two innovations can be explained from a traditional management fashion perspective. However, the subsequent development of performance management features a more complex mix of explanatory factors and highlights how the bundling phenomenon is entangled with managerial learning processes. This resulted in a less linear trajectory of change than that predicted by prior research on the notion of bundling.

The paper contributes to the literature on management fads and fashions by refining its conception of the role of managers of adopting organisations and organisational adoption, implementation and rejection of innovations.

The paper constitutes a first attempt to examine in greater detail how organisational experimenting with contemporary management control innovations affects the process of bundling in an individual organisation.