Public sector reform and accounting change in a cultural environment

Abstract

This paper presents a study of change in accounting systems within the Fijian Development Bank (FDB). The public sector reform, which was initially confined to OECD counties began to spread across different counties, including the developing counties. As the culture and tradition in developing countries are quite different compared to their counterpart in developed counties; different strategies were adopted to put the reform into practice. By using a case study approach, this study explores how public sector change was influenced by institutional factors within a socio-cultural environment in a South Pacific public sector organisation. The government of the Republic of Fiji has played a major role in economic development of the country, as the private sector initiative was not forthcoming mainly due to political uncertainties. In addition to infrastructure developments, successive governments, after the 1987 coups continued to be involved with the commercial activities through the establishment of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). However, the SOEs did not performed as expected (Nandan, 1999).