Measuring Nothing
The Case of the Greek National Health System
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5778617 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Apostolos Ballas (0000-0001-9375-7421, Athens University of Economics and Business), Apostolos A Ballas (Department of Accounting and Finance of the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece), Haridimos Tsoukas (University of Warwick) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 661-690 |
| Publication date | 2004-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-7267 • E-ISSN: 1741-282X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0018726704044951 |
| OpenAlex | W2127757325 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 35 |
Several critical studies in accounting have approached the introduction of accounting systems in the public sector in terms of enforcing and sustaining competition-based resource allocation mechanisms. In this study, we reverse the question and ask: why has accounting not been used in certain public bureaucracies as much as it might? We investigate the extent to which accounting systems have been used in the management of the Greek National Health System (ESY) and find that accounting has played a marginal role in its development. Attempting to explain this puzzling feature we first note and then contrast the main underlying features of accounting systems with those of the Greek political system in general, and ESY in particular. Briefly, our explanation is that the historically high politicization that has characterized the Greek political system has tended to over-shadow the economic-cum-managerial dimension of running public bureaucracies, favouring overtly political evaluation criteria of organizational and individual performance. In such an institutional environment, accounting has low symbolic significance and its use does not contribute to enhancing organizational legitimacy - hence its marginal role
Bureaucracy · New public management · Nothing · Political system · Accounting and Organizational Management · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Public Policy and Administration Research
The Depoliticisation of Greece’s Public Revenue Administration
The political economy of health promotion
Kafkaesque power and bureaucracy
Crisis, confidence and collectivity
Imbrications of institutional logics
Policy styles and political trust in Europe’s national responses to the Covid-19 crisis
Governance and the Public Good
Living on a knife's edge
The emergence of probability
The New Public Management in Action
Representing and Intervening
The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic Order
Politics in the Semi-Periphery
The Social Production of Indifference
Powers of Freedom
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Reforming the reform
Participation in the Management of Public Enterprises
The State, the Law, and Human Rights in Modern Greece
Sociological Perspectives on Modern Accountancy
The tyranny of light
Representing and intervening
The Visibility of Social Systems
Operational Research and the Social Sciences
Accounting for Rationality
Governing economic life
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,47 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2023 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |