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THE COMMODIFICATION OF THE DANISH DEFENCE FORCES AND THE TROUBLED IDENTITIES OF ITS OFFICERS

2007; Wiley; Volume: 23; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1468-0408.2007.00428.x

1468-0408

Peter Skærbæk, Stefan Thorbjørnsen,

Management and Organizational Studies

The accounting literature has given much attention to the New Public Management and attempts at making the government's performances auditable while influencing the core working of the public sector. This paper contributes to this debate by demonstrating how particular accounting devices participate in the definition of the identities of the officers in the Danish Defence. It shows how the definition of the officers' identities is complex and dynamic and does not necessarily have outcomes of stability and closure. Applying Actor‐Network Theory we demonstrate how their identities are caught up in processes of continual or never ending reconfigurations. The major implication is that the occupational identity of the Danish officers is subject to attempts of being defined as ‘a manager’ in the period 1989‐2006. The paper demonstrates how accounting devices participated in defining a hybrid identity of the officers as ‘warrior’ and ‘manager’ and that officers in different spaces and times experienced problems with the hybrid identity.