Jerky Change Processes

Accounting is a central technique through which organisations track, value, report, and remember time, while simultaneously imposing a temporal stratification that makes some time horizons appear more important than others. This chapter examines how accounting participates in organisational change processes shaped by tensions between long-term and short-term temporal orientations. It reports a study of the implementation of a social investment programme in a large Swedish region, where social investments were promoted as long-term, preventative, and collaborative interventions evaluated through cost-benefit calculations and organised as projects. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2018, the study adopts an abductive, Actor-Network Theory–inspired approach. The analysis is structured around four trials of time, illustrating how social investments encountered established yearly budgeting principles and management accounting routines. Across these trials, calculative technologies initially intended to support long-term perspectives were gradually adapted to fit prevailing short-term control practices focused on reporting activities and costs. The findings show that organisational change unfolded as a non-linear process characterised by resistance, adaptation, and rapid implementation. The chapter proposes the notion of jerky change processes to capture how accounting both structures organisational change and is reshaped through it, contributing to understanding the role of calculative practices in negotiating temporal orientations in public-sector governance