Many attempts to reform the Greek public administration have failed. This paper examines not the outcomes but the process of Greek State Budgeting reform from Incremental to Performance Budgeting. Based on a processual framework of management accounting change, effort is made to introduce the interplay of factors that shape the process of institutionalization. Particularly, three institutional levels are analyzed: political - economic level, organizational field level and organizational level. A theoretical triangulation schema (Alsharari et. al., 2015) unfolds, based on Old Institutional Economics for internal factors, New Institutional Sociology for external pressures and power & politics mobilization for examining intra organizational level. The research offers empirical evidence from Greece, highlighting the robustness and adequacy of the model. Using the theoretical triangulation of three approaches reveals how Greek administrative structure and dynamics shape and change the tension between institutionalized beliefs and values.

KEYWORDS: organizational change, accounting change, change process, institutionalization, inter – intra institutional level

Jel Classification Codes: H61, M48, P41