This paper documents the growing dependence of Australian governments on the use of private funding to provide infrastructure and related services to the public. Using a Habermasian framework proposed by Broadbent and Laughlin in 1999 the paper examines their second research question: “what is...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical account of the discourse‐practice nexus relating to an accounting for intellectual capital (IC) at an Australian public sector organisation (LandsNSW). Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a case study. Data collection...

Public accounts committees (PACs) in Australia as elsewhere are usually discussed and assessed in terms of their contributions to realizing the accountability of ministers and their departments to Parliament. Analysis of the history of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts (JCPA) of the...

Seeks to provide an overview of the direction of change and to assess the “success” of performance auditing in Australia in the last decade. Identifies the tension between the concepts of “administrative effectiveness” and “policy”. Reviews the recent Australian National Audit Office...

Pressures and demands for accountability and efficiency in the public sector in Australia have given rise to changes and reforms in government administration at both federal and state levels. Developments and experimentation with “techniques” such as programme budgeting, new forms of...

Purpose – It has long been recognised that social institutions, including business organisations, must obtain social approval for their continued operations. Recently, economic performance and social and environmental (SE) performance have become increasingly important issues of interest to...

Purpose – New public management changes in both the Australian and Italian government sectors have affected their modus operandi . This research aims to illustrate how the balanced scorecard (BSC) has been used in both Italian and Australian local government organisations (LGO), focusing on...

This study reports the results of an empirical examination of Australian annual reporting of intellectual capital. The findings suggest that the development of a model for reporting intangibles is piecemeal and not widely spread. The outcomes of our exploratory investigation are threefold....

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to trace the techniques and consulting methods developed and deployed by an Australian project team during an investigation of a client organisation's intellectual capital management, measurement and reporting (ICMMR) practices. The article aims to...