Managerialism, information technology and health reform in New Zealand

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2.For a more detailed exposition of the New Zealand health reforms see [3‐7].

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8.Rees, S. and Rodley, G. (Eds), The Human Costs of Managerialism: Advocating the Recovery of Humanity, Pluto Press, Liechhardt, NSW, 1995.

9.Managerialism has been defined by Duncan[10, p. 159] as“ the reform process by which public policy adopts marketing and business management concepts and techniques. Typically, it is associated with neo‐liberal, individualist economic reforms”. Rees[11, p. 15] suggests that it is an ideology with two distinct claims: “efficient management can solve almost any problem…[and] practices which are appropriate for the conduct of private sector enterprises can also be applied to public sector services”.

10.Duncan, G., “New Mandarins New Zealand style”, in Rees, S. and Rodley, G. (Eds), The Human Costs of Managerialism: Advocating the Recovery of Humanity, Pluto Press, Liechhardt, NSW, 1995, pp. 159‐68.

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12.Lawrence, S., Alam, M., Northcott, D. and Lowe, T., “Accounting systems and systems of accountability in the New Zealand health sector”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, forthcoming.

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21.“Institutionalization involves the processes by which social processes, obligations, or actualities come to take on a rulelike status in social thought and action”[20, p. 341].

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28.Bloomfield, B.P. and Coombs, R., “Information technology, control and power: the centralization and decentralization debate revisited”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 29 No. 4, 1992, pp. 459‐84.

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31.Gibbs, A., Fraser, D. and Scott, J., Unshackling the Hospitals, Government Printer, Wellington, 1988.

32.Bloomfield, B.P., Coombs, R. and Owen, J., “The social construction of information systems: the implications for management control”, in Mansell, R. (Ed.), The Management of Information and Communication Technologies: Emerging Patterns of Control, Aslib, London, 1994, pp. 143‐57.

33.Foucault, M., Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, (trans. Sheridan, A.), Penguin, London, 1977.

34.Easton, B., “The rise of the generic manager”, in Rees, S. and Rodley, G. (Eds), The Human Costs of Managerialism: Advocating the Recovery of Humanity, Pluto Press, Liechhardt, NSW, 1995, pp. 39‐48.

35.Orlikowski, W.J. and Gash, D.C., “Technological frames: making sense of information technology in organizations”, ACM Transactions on Information Systems, Vol. 12 No. 2, 1994, pp. 174‐207.

36.Mohan, L., Holstein, W.K. and Adams, R.B., “EIS: it can work in the public sector”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 14 No. 4, 1990, pp. 435‐48.

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41.McVitty, A., “Staying afloat”, Computerworld New Zealand, 6 June 1994, pp. 33‐5.

42.“Drill down” implies user access to the supporting detail underlying summarized data[39, 43].

43.Shoebridge, A., “Drilling down for information”, Management Accounting, Vol. 68 No. 3, 1990, pp. 30‐1.

44.Some participants were interviewed more than once.

45.Hirschheim, R. and Newman, M., “Symbolism and information systems development: myth, metaphor and magic”, Information Systems Research, Vol. 2 No. 1, 1991, pp. 29‐62.

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48.However, the specific strategy advocated by Glaser and Strauss[49] was not followed.

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54.Van Maanen, J., “The fact of fiction in organizational ethnography”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 24 No. 4, 1979, pp. 539‐50.

55RHAs are the purchaser side of the purchaser/provider split central to the New Zealand health reforms.

56.Keen, L., “Market and quasi‐market operations within local government: opportunities and constraints from the middle management perspective”, paper presented at the International Research Symposium on Public Services Management, Aston Business School, Birmingham, 25‐26 March 1996..