Over the 1980s, there was a move in a number of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries towards the New Public Management (NPM). Central to this change in modes of public management was a shift towards "accountingzation" (a term coined by Power & Laughlin, 1992, p.133). The development can be claimed to be part of a broader shift in received doctrines of public accountability and public administration. At the same time, accounting change formed an important part of the assault on the progressive-era models of public accountability (cf. Halligan & Wettenhall, 1990).