Accounting, innovation and public-sector change. Translating reforms into change?

This Special Issue of Critical Perspectives on Accounting aims to contribute to this area of research at a peculiar juncture in history, by offering insightful evidence and analysis in a period that has been described by some as a Post-NPM Era ( Hood and Peters, 2004 and Dunleavy et al., 2006). It is possible that we are currently at a crossroads, after a period where public organizations have been experimenting with managerial and NPM-like reforms for about thirty years, and where both practical experience and academic research have pointed out the potential pitfalls of determinism and of an excessive trust in global trends and recipes. Many have started speculating whether NPM is actually rooted in our everyday lives, if it has ever existed or if we are in a post-NPM world ( Dunleavy and Hood, 1994, Lapsley, 1999, Lapsley, 2009, Hood and Peters, 2004 and Dunleavy et al., 2006). In addition, the recent financial and fiscal crises that have profoundly affected numerous countries have raised new questions and doubts, which go beyond this debate and highlight the importance of organizational capacities to react and re-adjust in response to shocks and changing environments. As a consequence of the failure of one-fits-all approaches and explanations, new conceptual and methodological lenses are required to face the challenge posed by current events. The five contributions to the Special Issue represent a possible trait d’union between the past and the future, by looking at the former to suggest new paths for the latter.