En tant que nouveau dispositif de contrôle au sein des universités, l’audit légal pose la question de sa légitimité pour les parties prenantes et donc de la réussite de sa mise en place au sein d’un système de gouvernance existant. Dans cette recherche nous proposons d’examiner plus particulièrement la question des facteurs d’appropriation de ce nouveau dispositif à partir de l’analyse des formes de légitimité (pragmatique, morale et cognitive) telles que définie par Suchman (1995). Quatorze entretiens semi-directifs ont été menés au sein de deux universités. Les résultats de ces deux études de cas montrent les différents niveaux de légitimité de ce nouveau mécanisme de gouvernance universitaire et ouvrent quelques pistes de réflexion sur l’apport de l’audit légal pour les parties prenantes et par conséquent pour l’efficacité de la gouvernance des universités.

The adoption of the Law relative to the Liberties and Responsibilities of Universities (LRU) in 2007 has sought to “modernize” the governance system of French universities. Article 18 of this Law stipulated “the accounts of the university are subject to an annual audit by a legal auditor” (Law no. 2007–1199 of 10 August 2007). This paper explores management teams’ perceptions of the role of legal audit in the governance system of French universities and its impact on the managerial latitude of university managers. Based on twenty-five interviews carried out with members of the management teams in three universities, the results of this study are threefold. Firstly, legal audit plays a disciplinary role by reducing the information asymmetry and cognitive conflicts between university managers and the stakeholders involved in governance particularly the financial supervisory authorities and the accounting agency. Secondly, the audit report is used by university managers to reinforce the legitimacy and the objectivity of their decisions, in the face of internal and external political pressure coming mainly from the university council, faculties, and the supervisory authorities. Thirdly, legal audit plays a complementary role to the governance system in place, including the controls of the accounting agency, the Council, and the Rectorate. Therefore, the results of this research are part of an integrated governance approach (Wirtz, 2006) which is characterized by the complementarity between the disciplinary and cognitive dimensions (Williamson, 1991; Charreaux, 1997)

This article presents the results of research conducted on the diffusion and appropriation of cost accounting at a French university (Hatchuel & Weil, 1992). Following the reforms put in place after the adoption of the LRU (Liberties and Responsibilities of Universities — Law on Universities) in 2007, this university adopted the SIFAC (Système d’Information Financier Analytique et Comptable — Analytical and Accounting Financial Information System) management tool, whose objective was to deeply modify the accounting and budgetary practices and allow the implementation of a cost accounting system (DiMaggio & Powel, 1983). But concretely, nine years after the implementation of the SIFAC tool, we noticed that, if technically, the accounting and budgetary practices have improved, the adoption of this tool did not lead to the implementation of a real cost accounting system. The findings showed that this situation could be explained by three factors: factors related to the tool itself, factors related to the specificity of the host organization, and factors related to the priorities of the actors within this university