Responsibility budgeting at the Air Force Materiel Command

Abstract

The case study reported here challenges conventional wisdom about the feasibility of implementing responsibility budgeting and accounting practices in U.S. government. A variant of this practice took root and operated effectively in a large federal agency—the Air Force Materiel Command—during the period of study. Contrary to conventional wisdom, implementing a meaningful form of responsibility budgeting and accounting does not require changes in public management policies or systemic institutional reform. However, the evidence shows that instituting practices of responsibility budgeting and accounting may require considerable administrative ingenuity in adapting the generic practice to the situation at hand