Japanese cost management meets Sri Lankan politics: state regulation and management controls in a privatised utility

Western accounting research has been preoccupied with the transferability of Japanese management accounting practices to western contexts. However, little is known about Japanese management accounting practices in less developed countries. In Sri Lanka, policy makers tend to believe that the establishment of Japanese systems will be solution to lethargic development. In particular, some of recently privatised public enterprises have now been facilitated by new management systems in the name of Japanese management. The paper brings such a recently privatised public utility with a view to critically reviewing the problems of applying management controls in Sri Lanka. Drawing on the critical development literature, we develop a theoretical framework that allows us to look at complex relations between the firm, Japanese managerial behaviour, the state, and cultural tradition of the employees firm. The analysis is qualitative, processual, and sociological bringing forward a dynamic analysis of management control in action. The paper concludes that the Japanese management accounting and control plays a rhetorical role to undermine the daily struggle at the point of control