Achieving radical change: a comparative study of public-sector accounting in Westminster and Scotland

Purpose The paper focuses on strategies and ‘spoken discourses’ used to construct legitimation around change at the individual level. Comparing changes in financial accounting, budgeting and performance management at two government levels (Westminster and Scotland), it explores the use of legitimation strategies in the implementation of accounting change and its perceived outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on semi-structured interviews, six legitimation/delegitimation strategies are used to code the transcribed data. Patterns with the perceived outcomes of change are explored. Findings Changes introduced to enhance ‘rational’ decision making are often received as pushed by some source of authority. Regardless of the interviewees’ background and level, the results suggest that for radical accounting change to embed, it is necessary for it to be perceived as rational, rather than merely driven by authorisation-based pressures. Conversely, incremental change is associated with modest legitimation ...