Purpose The purpose of this article is to ascertain empirically to what extent we can quantify an occupational shift, where a new type of bureaucracy of organisational professionals is on the rise in tertiary educational institutions in New Zealand. Furthermore, the objective is also to present accountability as the prime factor behind the changes. Design/methodology/approach The analytical strategy of the study takes a point of departure in the distinction between occupational and organisational professionals in the public sector in general, and more specifically in tertiary education (TE). Based on these new categorisations, the authors have used various descriptive historical statistics (both national and institutional) to estimate changes over time. Findings The article finds, in line with some international research, that there has been a comparatively higher growth of organisational professionals in TE in New Zealand, and a significantly higher growth than in the private sector and in the overall public services. The authors hypothesise that this growth can be associated with accountability (both vertical and horizontal) as the dominant notion in TE. Originality/value This article takes a different approach than the existing literature on administrative intensity in TE by looking at occupational changes rather than changes in institutions budgets. This article also confirms some of the findings in the growing international literature on changes in professional roles.

One recurrent narrative in the discussion about managerial public sector reforms is the growth in organizational professionals as a response to new accountability regimes. New Zealand has experienced modest growth rates in the general public sector workforce. Less studied, though, is whether the composition of the public sector workforce has changed, with an increase in organizational functions supportive to management. Based on descriptive workforce data, followed by follow-up interviews, this article presents a multifaceted and complex picture of a growing new public bureaucracy with the main task of managing chains of accountability.

The aim of this article is to analyse how innovation policy is staged and legitimised through the dramatised social process of an event. The context is taken from an annual event, Skåne Innovation Week, which is arranged by the regional innovation system in Skåne, Sweden. Innovation systems often organise similar events internationally, which appear to play a key role in performing inter-organisational collaboration between actors from the public sector, industry and research, as well as manifesting belief in the globalised imaginaries of innovation systems. Through the analytical lens of the event as a social drama, the article examines how the event – and thus, innovation policy – is represented in commemorative films and website documents through which three meeting practices are identified: mingling and hanging out, scripted meeting models and spatial staging. The article argues that these meeting practices and their performed interactive social forms sustain the vagueness and ambiguity inherent in innovation policy, particularly between stability and change. The event can be viewed as a form of performative government that maintains a political order while simultaneously hailing its practices as transformative.

Voluntary environmental governance is a widely used policy approach that has been criticized for its lack of effectiveness. This raises fundamental questions about how to design processes that can advance voluntary programmes in a way that makes them more successful. In this paper, we analyse a government-initiated dialogue process to phase out hazardous chemicals through voluntary action by the Swedish textile industry. The analysis shows that information transfer primarily motivated business participation, while consumer pressure, regulatory threats and traditions of government–business cooperation played minor roles. The institutional design of the dialogue ensured close interaction within a homogeneous group, but collective actions were limited by disagreement about the problems to be addressed, prior unilateral environmental commitments by leading companies, and ambivalent engagement. This case provides valuable insights into the effect of institutional design on the actual interplay between business and government and its effects on voluntary governance.