PAT has not been tested, however, on governmental organizations, except by Zimmerman
(1977). The other main theory, IT, is more frequently found in this empirical area (Mezias,
1990). IT explains accounting choice through organizational actors being subject to institutional
pressure, be it normative, coercive, or mimetic pressure. Studies using IT tend to
be ideographic in orientation, using case studies, often from governmental organizations (e.g., Carpenter and Feroz, 2001; Puxty, 1997; Granlund and Lukka, 1998), but there are
exceptions (e.g., Mezias and Scarselletta, 1994; cf. Carruthers, 1995). IT appears to be a
viable theory for municipal corporations because of the presumably multiple institutional
pressures that puts the corporations in an institutional twilight area.