Probity or performance? 150 years of public expenditure reform, UK Defence 1850-2000
Journal: Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management
Year: 2023

Purpose This paper analyses public sector accounting and organisation reforms, focusing on the departments in charge of defence, military procurement and war between 1850 and 2000 in Britain. Over this period, three parliamentary acts, resulting from a power struggle between the Treasury and Parliament, produced the shift between two institutional logics: probity (spending properly) and performance (spending well). The purpose of this paper is to describe how the acts produced a shift between tw