How hybrid managers act as “canny customers” to accelerate policy reform

Abstract

(2015) 'How hybrid managers act as canny customers to accelerate policy reform : a case study of regulator-regulatee relationships in the UK's tax agency.', Accounting, auditing and accountability journal., 28 (8). pp. 1291-1309. Further information on publisher's website:https://doi.org/10.1108/ AAAJ-12-2014AAAJ-12- -1889 Publisher's copyright statement:This article is c Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here http://dro.dur.ac.uk/21891. Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Findings: Our findings support established accounts of the effect of NPM reform to public professions, as these professionals are co-opted into hybrid management roles. Some hybrid managers resist, others embrace the demands of the new role. Linked to a hitherto neglected aspect of analysis (the extent to which hybrid managers embrace a greater customer orientation) our findings also show a more novel third response: some hybrid managers leave the national tax agency for opportunities in the private sector. These public-to-private professionals we call 'canny customers.' Canny customers are ideally placed to exploit aspects of NPM reform, and thereby accelerate changes in the governance of public agencies, but in a way that might undermine the function of the tax agency and tax professions. Practical implications:In regulatory settings, policy reform to co-opt professionals into hybrid managerial roles may have mixed effects. In settings where a focal dynamic is the regulator-regulatee relationship, effective governance will require understanding of the labour market to temper excess influence by those hybrid managers who become canny customers, Otherwise, in settings where it is easy for individuals to move from regulator to regulatee, the pace and consequences of reform will be harder to govern. This runs the danger of eroding professional values. Our specific case of tax professionals reflects themes in the literature examining hybridisation for accountants, and provides novel insight into the dynamics of professionalism that extend to the case of accountants.Originality/value: Our contribution is to extend the literature on role transition of professionals. We focus on hybrid managers in the context of a regulatory agency: the UK national tax agency. Policy reforms associated with hybridisati...

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Transfer pricing: changing views in changing times

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