Transformação digital e agency dos contadores no setor público

Abstract

Digital transformation is reshaping public management by converting technologies into mediators of the institutionalization of accounting and budgetary practices. In this process, technological tools mold professional practice, insofar as they define certain behaviors as habitual actions. This thesis analyzed the unexpected effects of digital transformation on accounting and budgetary practices in Brazilian municipal governments, adopting a qualitative interpretative approach with data collection through semi-structured interviews. Twenty-seven actors who operate, directly or indirectly, the accounting systems in the municipalities were interviewed. The research findings reveal that the accountant's autonomy is affected from the software acquisition stage, in which political influence overrides the technical needs of the accounting professional, imposing systems that ignore the specific demands of the main user. A transfer of agency from accountants to extra-organizational actors is observed, delegating parameterization and normative logic to external agents, in a context where the accountant begins to perform the function of a validator, abstaining from their capacity for professional judgment. Under pressure from scenarios of over-accountability and performance indicators, the professional judgment, critical thinking, and reflexivity of accountants are replaced by an automatic compliance with regulations, focused on formal validation and the absence of system inconsistencies, instead of an analysis of the economic substance of the event. In system customization, the professional's agency is affected according to the software contracting model; municipalities with commercial systems have less capacity for action due to the use of a generic system that is difficult to modify. It is concluded that the accountant's capacity for action is affected, in different ways, throughout the entire technological management cycle, from contracting to reporting. Furthermore, although it promotes efficiency, digital transformation leads to a reduction in critical thinking and a technological dependence that weakens institutional compliance work, reducing the accounting professional's role to procedural compliance mediated by software.