Enabling global accounting change: Epistemic communities and the creation of a ‘more business-like’ public sector

Abstract

This article provides an historical assessment of the workings of an epistemic community closely associated with the implementation of accrual accounting in the Australian public sector in order for it to become ‘more business-like’. Our story begins in the 1940s, a period characterized by seemingly disconnected debates emerging from the USA about how best to manage government operations. We show that over the ensuing six decades, a small but influential epistemic community was able to problematize public sector management and accounting practices and cultivate the perception that the public sector needed to be more ‘business-like’ and that in order to do so, the adoption of ‘better’, in thi..