An interpretive inquiry into accounting practices in public universities in Sudan

This research uses an inductive theoretical development process based upon the 'paradigm model' developed by Strauss and Corbin (1990). Accounting practice, in both organisations, has been observed as a routine process with a limited function in managerial decision making. The grounded theory shows the change in perceptions of organisational members towards their organisational reality, with particular respect to accounting, as the central phenomenon. In Khartoum University, this represented a change in perceptions from a planning system to a poverty/crisis management system. On the other hand, the focal concept found in Sudan University of Science and Technology personifies a change in perceptions from a poverty/crisis management system to a decentralised budget planning system.The conditioning context that influences the central phenomenon relates to three aspects, namely the higher education revolution ( which involved changes in the broader culture and the broader power structure of higher education), the financial crisis and the organisational response. Three interactional strategies, namely changes in accounting practices, changes in the organisational culture and change in the organisational power structure are representative of the major processes involved in managing and responding to the central phenomenon. The outcome of these interactional strategies is represented by a change in organisational processes/activities. Furthermore, the findings of this study lend further support to existing arguments that accounting is both a reflective and a constitutive practice. In addition, this field study represents an extension to previous studies which have explicated a mode of theorising linkages between accounting and culture. This study also offers an extended explanation of the role of accounting in a crisis situation through the use of a more empirically grounded approach.