Accounting and Control in Health Care: Behavioural, Organisational, Sociological and Critical Perspectives

Abstract

This chapter synthesises literature exploring complex technical, social, political and institutional influences on the inception and operation of accounting in health care contexts and its diverse effects. The review is organised according to two key methodological positions adopted by researchers-behavioural/organisational and critical/sociological. The review demonstrates that although behavioural/organisational studies focus on technical economic imperatives associated with the design and use of accounting and control systems in health care organisations these cannot be disentangled or decoupled from the historical, institutional and socio-political contexts of health care accounting. To ..