Public Management Reform in the U.S. and Italy: Accounting, Measurement and Financial

This article focuses primarily on efforts to improve management control systems and processes, including budgeting, accounting and reporting, within the context of a responsibility framework in the United States and Italy. In public management theory, management control is assumed to be a process for motivating and inspiring people to perform more effectively in the context of working in complex organizations (Jones and Thompson, 1999: 130). From this perspective, management control attempts to motivate public managers to serve the policies and purposes of the organizations to which they belong, and to meet the demands and preferences of the citizens and customers they serve. Additionally, management control is a means for correcting performance problems and including inefficient use of resources. Among the initiatives taken to implement management control systems and to control costs is the design of new or reconfigured budgeting, accounting and reporting systems. One approach to redesign is responsibility budgeting and accounting, now widely practiced internationally