Public sector accounting reforms: a discourse analysis perspective. Bringing the Gattopardo back to life?

Public sector reforms have been said to be particularly influenced by specific national traditions and political cultures. An increasing number of studies deal with the phenomenon of homogeneity and convergence of reforms (for example, Brunsson, 1989; Pollitt, 2001, 2006; Knill, 2001; Page, 2003; Christensen and Lægreid, 2001, 2003, 2007; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004; Schnapp, 2004, Kickert, 2005; Olsen 2006; Bouckaert, 2007; Gualmini, 2008). Such studies draw attention to a variety of contextual factors that structure the way in which countries organize their administrations (Meyer and Hammerschmid, 2010). Reforms are not isolated events, but they are embedded in and shaped by more general discourses of modernisation put through by the institutional pressures present in a certain field, such as the public sector (Scott, 1995; Friedland and Alford, 1991; Lounsbury, 2008; Meyer and Hammerschmid, 2006). Public sector accounting reforms can also be studied, then, in terms of the underlying discourses and arguments put forth in order to implement the change. Our paper aims to better understand how public sector accounting reforms developed and shaped over the last decades. In particular, we focus on how the different discourses and their related arguments were put forth in order to support or hamper the proposal and the implementation of accounting change. Moreover, we investigate the extent of the coexistence of multiple discourses in the field at the same time. In order to do so, we take into consideration the case of the Italian Central Government to investigate the accounting reforms that took place from the Eighties, when the major changes started. The following Section presents a first literature review on the theme, followed by the discussion on the methods and the presentation of the preliminary results of the analysis. Finally, the last Section draws some conclusions and proposes further research steps.