ACCOUNTING AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES 359
A cultural system incorporates, among other things, knowledge about envi-
ronments, and strategies for extracting subsistence from them. This knowledge is
quite different in the two cultures. In the railway culture it revolved around the
public service idea, later coupled to notions of thrift. Essentially, the knowledge
was this: if the organization provided the nation with a transport infrastructure
(without undue waste), then sustenance would be forthcoming from government.
This knowledge is not unique to the railway culture. The expectation that low-cost,
generally available services will be rewarded by the state is common to many pub-
lic service organizations in Europe, for example the health and education services.
Given this knowledge, accounting was incidental in the railway culture: it was
necessary to ensure that revenues were accounted for and suppliers paid, and
perhaps to contain waste, but that was the limit of its significance in the structures
of meaning. The purpose of the railway was to run trains; operating the railway
would be rewarded by government. In this knowledge, the train, therefore, was
endowed with a special significance.
The business culture, revolving around the ‘‘bottom line’’, incorporates a
quite different knowledge. Rather obviously, in view of events in ER, the bot-
tom line constructs the notion of the railway as a profit-seeking enterprise. This
is not just a matter of ‘‘cost efficiency’’, however, although that is important.
More importantly, in ER it constructs the idea of looking to product markets,
rather than to government, for sustenance. There is nothing somehow uniquely
‘‘public service’’ about the railway network in this construction. Rail transport
is a product (or service), to be bought and sold like any other; in fact it is
a series of products: intercity travel, freight, suburban commuting, etc. Rev-
enues from these products, rather than government support, must cover costs;
and, critically, revenues are earned in the market place. Survival depends on
extracting resources from these markets, perhaps in competition with other firms.
Hence the new-found concern for competition with other means of transport
(road, air, buses), expressed by railway managers early in the account above, a
concern which in the railway culture would have been probably inconsequen-
tial.^22 Given this knowledge, accounting activities become hugely significant. The
search for profit opportunities, and the elimination of non-profit-making activ-
ities, is a quest for survival. It is now the customer, not the train, which has
special importance.
No culture is completely coherent, of course. Each has ambiguities and
contradictions. In ER, residues of the past create tensions. One is the partial
incompatibility of the business culture with the restrictions placed on it by state
ownership. ER is not allowed to borrow in financial markets to fund investment,
for example, and as government funds are tight, this means investments necessary
for competitive purposes cannot always be made. It also has statutory obligations
to keep certain branch lines open, even if they are unprofitable. Here it still
(^22) A Business Manager’s comment on market research is also interesting in this respect: ‘‘The
single most important question we ask is: ‘Are you more likely or less likely to travel on the
railway as a result of your most recent journey?’ ’’ This question would have been substantially
irrelevant in the railway culture.