Fabricating Budgets: A Study of the Production of Management Budgeting in the National Health Service

Posted: 24 May 2013 Last revised: 27 Jun 2013

See all articles by Alistair Preston

Alistair Preston

Boston University

David J. Cooper

University of Alberta - Department of Accounting, Operations & Information Systems

Rod Coombs

The University of Manchester

Date Written: May 1, 1991

Abstract

This paper examines the processes by which a form of responsibility accounting system emerges in an organizational context. The paper utilizes recent approaches to the understanding of how science and technology is created (Latour, Science in Action, Harvard University Press, 1987) to investigate the processes by which a management budgeting initiative in the U.K. hospital system takes hold (or not) in specific hospitals. The approach is critical of the notion that accounting systems are well-defined technologies which are designed and then implemented (or face resistance). Instead, the study shows that management budgeting is fabricated, put together in a changing and fragile manner. Emerging accounting systems are not fixed technologies with well-defined purposes which reflect patterns of responsibility but changing constructions. Management budgeting systems are initiated with loose characteristics, purposes and uses. In the process of their design and implementation, new possibilities for decision making and definitions of responsibility emerge. Through this study of accounting in action, the paper explores the processes by which accounting and budgeting systems bring economic logic into hospital management. It is also relevant to debates about the role of budgeting and accounting in health care organizations in many countries.

Suggested Citation

Preston, Alistair and Cooper, David J. and Coombs, Rod, Fabricating Budgets: A Study of the Production of Management Budgeting in the National Health Service (May 1, 1991). Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 17, No. 6, 1992, University of Alberta School of Business Research Paper No. 2013-122, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2269329

Alistair Preston

Boston University ( email )

595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
United States

David J. Cooper (Contact Author)

University of Alberta - Department of Accounting, Operations & Information Systems ( email )

Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6
Canada

Rod Coombs

The University of Manchester

Oxford Road
Manchester, N/A M13 9PL
United Kingdom

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