The role of consultant-researchers in the design and implementation process of a programme budget in a local government organization

This paper deals with our role as consultant-researchers in the improvement trajectory of a programme budget used in a Dutch province. For the 2009s programme budget the newly designed budget format was used in two pilot programmes. One year later we participated in the implementation of this format in all programmes of the 2010 budget. This paper discusses our activities in these different stages. Our aim is to show how consultant-researchers can contribute to the development of management accounting innovations in the public sector and how institutional theory can play a role here. Our interventions were directed at increasing the coherence between the logics underlying NPM-like innovations and the management accounting techniques adopted in actual practice.

Research highlights▶ As consultant-researchers we contributed to developing a management accounting innovation. ▶ We advised the province of Groningen on the format of its outcome-oriented programme budget. ▶ Based on institutional theory we focussed on the coherence between logics and templates. ▶ We found that technical changes played a role in making the new budget format successful. ▶ However, changes in the ways of thinking and in the use of the budget were even more important.