PhD Defense: Thomas Holde Skinnerup

In order to obtain the PhD degree, Thomas Holde Skinnerup has submitted his thesis entitled:

The Role of Accounting in Governing Public Organizations: The Case of the Danish University Sector

Accounting is ubiquitous in the governing and control of public organizations. This thesis explores the design, implementation and use of accounting in governing public organizations, investigating it across organizational boundaries. The first article follows the introduction of a new common chart of accounts for the Danish universities, aiming to measure the productivity of the institutions. It details the conflicts and trials between an economic-based and accounting-based approached to calculating unit costs, showing the performative effects of public sector productivity on the design of accounting systems. The second article is about the role of organizational budgets in implementing a new performance funding system for Danish university programs. The findings show how the organization budget is crucial to implementing performance funding, as it can reject, modify and reintroduce the incentive of the funding system into the organization’s allocation of resources. The final article develops the concept of accounting opacities broadening our understanding of how accounting can create a blurred form of visibility through an investigation of the use of accounting by university managers. The thesis shows how accounting creates and permeates organizational boundaries, and the interconnection between the organizational accounting technologies and the accounting technologies used to govern universities.

The thesis will be available from research.cbs.dk

Primary Supervisor:
Professor Peter Skærbæk
Department of Accounting
Copenhagen Business School

Secondary Supervisor:
Professor Kjell Tryggestad
Department of Business and Social Science
Inland Norway University of Applied Science

Assessment Committee:
Associate Professor Morten Holm (Chair)
Department of Accounting
Copenhagen Business School

Associate Professor Andrea Mennicken
Department of Accounting
London School of Economics

Reader Ann-Christine Frandsen
Department of Accounting
University of Birmingham

Date: 19 August 2024
Time: 13:00-15:00
Online: Teams

Location: Solbjerg Plads
Room: SPs03 North Consulting
Reception: FUHU, 3rd floor above the canteen

*The CBS PhD School will host a reception, which will take place immediately after the defence.