PurposeThe study explores the role of accounting technologies of government (ATGs) associated with UK Tax Credits and their impact on claimants' motivations, behaviour and identities. The aim of this study is to deepen empirical and conceptual understandings of how ATGs of tax authorities transform claimants into “entrepreneurs of the self”.Design/methodology/approachThe authors approach Tax Credits (TC) as a case study to examine how ATGs articulate and operationalise neoliberal ideology through a complex network of inscription devices, expertise and locales. They adopt an ethnographic approach based on interviews, archival data and field notes to gain a deep understanding of citizens' lived experiences of ATGs when claiming Tax Credits.FindingsThe authors find that ATGs play a key role in transforming TC claimants into self-disciplined “citizen-subjects” whose decisions are informed by market logic. When claiming TC, citizens interact with ATGs and are transformed into “entrepreneurs of the self” who internalise neoliberal ideology and associated beliefs and assumptions of poverty, work and the welfare state. In this process of subjectification, ATGs (re)construct their identities from welfare recipients to “responsible” and “accountable” hardworking individuals and families. However, ATGs perversely disempower claimants who lack the required human capital for becoming responsible for their own welfare, and thus ultimately maintain socio-economic inequality.Research limitations/implicationsParticipants were drawn from a relatively narrow geographic area.Practical implicationsThe authors reveal how accounting as a technology of government (dis)empowers individuals vis-à-vis the state and spurs inequality dependent on personal circumstances and calculative skills.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the accounting literature by showing how neoliberal ideology is articulated, operationalised and reinforced by dynamic and repetitive interactions with ATGs of the UK TC scheme. The study helps deepen the understanding of the processes through which socially and economically disadvantaged individuals are transformed into self-governing economic agents responsible for their own welfare.

PurposeThe authors aim to contribute to conceptual and empirical understanding of publicness in public sector accounting research by analysing how accounting technologies facilitated the transformation of public values of the UK tax authority.Design/methodology/approachThe authors develop a conceptual framework for analysing public values in terms of relational power. Combining governmentality and actor–network theory, the authors focus on the complex relationships through which human and non-human actors interact and the public values that emerge from these evolving socio-material networks. Based on a critical-interpretivist ethnographic study of interviews, documents and secondary survey data, the authors identify the emergent properties of accounting technologies in their case study.FindingsThe authors explain how accounting technologies facilitated the transformation of public values in the tax authority by reshaping relational power. Traditional public values were eroded and replaced by neoliberal values through a gradual change process (“frog in the pan”) of (1) disconnecting workers and citizens both spatially and socially; (2) losing touch with the embodied nature of tax administration; and (3) yielding to a dehumanising performance management system. Neoliberal accounting technologies transformed the texture of relationships in such a way that workers and citizens became disempowered from effective, accountable and humane tax administration.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research is needed that gains wider access to tax authority workers, extends the scope of the empirical data and provides comparisons with other tax authorities and public sector organisations.Social implicationsThe authors show that a relational approach to public values enables identification of what is “valuable” and how public sector organisations can become “value-able”.Originality/valueThe authors offer an interdisciplinary conceptualisation of publicness based on public administration literature, develop a relational conceptualisation of public values and provide original empirical evidence about the changing publicness of the UK tax authority.