Contrôle de gestion et gouvernance de l'université : la comptabilité comme ressource discursive de la performance

Increasing budgetary constraints of higher education caused by public financing compressions tends to put forward accounting as an indisputable mechanism of governance, while it is interpreted in various ways. Researchers in the combined management and accounting fields have shown how accounting through management control is being used as a lever of action for managers. University financing and governance oscillates actually between two poles, one related to research as a means for revenue generation, and another related to university as institutions dedicated to the democratisation of society. An intermediate (or hybrid) stand, closer to the idea of universities involved in research and professionalism, tends to emerge, positioning the professor-researcher as an actor involved in governance. In order to better understand the role of accounting in the conception of a new governance territory, we have looked at the complex relations between discursive elements, socio-materiality of mechanisms and actors play. Using excerpts of speeches of several actors, we analyze their meaning, their limits and risks of interpretation. The main result is to show that accounting is a discursive resource of a high symbolic value used often to promote managers own will (politically) and whose effective potential is still to be realised.