New public management and budgeting practices in Tanzanian central government: "struggling for conformance"

Abstract

This paper investigates the budgeting practices in the Tanzanian central government following its adoption of systems of performance budgeting, cash budgeting, and a Medium Term Expenditure Framework. These systems were introduced following exhortations from the bodies such as the UN, the World Bank and the IMF and reflect the New Public Management practices being exhorted worldwide. A grounded theory methodology was used. This methodology is inductive, allowing phenomena to emerge from the participants rather than from prior theory. This ensures both relevance and depth of understanding. The principal research findings from the data concern the central phenomenon of ‘Struggling for Conformance’. Tanzanian central government adopted innovations in order to ensure donor funding by demonstrating its ability to implement imposed budgetary changes. Organisational actors were committed to these reforms through necessity and struggled to implement them, rather than more overtly resisting them. The resulting ‘Struggling for Conformance’ led to the establishment of rhetorical rules and regulations; manipulation of the measurement of performance and the playing of budgeting games. The grounded theory also provided evidence of the coexistence of ceremonial and instrumental use of accounting in organizations and of a strategic deterioration role in the organization

More information

Identifiers

Catalogue record

Export record

Altmetrics