Accounting systems and systems of accountability in the New Zealand health sector

Abstract

Studies the transformation of social systems in health organizations in New Zealand and the way in which accounting systems are an integral part of the challenge to extant structures of signification, legitimation and domination. By categorizing various modes or types of social change, and providing analytical means of clarifying social systems, Giddens’s structuration theory is enabling of empirical study. Accounting systems contribute to the binding of time and space in some circumstances, yet can play a part in major discontinuities and disruptions to institutionalized procedures and practices in other circumstances.