Accountability and responsibility are two notions that are deeply connected and intertwined.The prevailing notion is that personnel should be held accountable foractions made that are connected to the area which they are responsible for. However,contemporary research has tried to understand the underlying assumptions ofwhat accountability is. In this sense accountability becomes the alignment betweenoverall societal norms and individual actions. But whereas previous research hasbeen content with either an actor- or structure approach this paper tries to bridgethese standpoints by engaging Giddens (1984) Structuration theory. Viewing accountabilityas a social system, this paper focuses on extending our knowledge ofhow this is produced and reproduced during organisational change within theSwedish public sector. The case used in this paper derives from in-depth interviews,participatory observations and documental studies of the Swedish social insuranceagency. The analysis is conducted though a separation and identification ofstructures of signification, domination and legitimation. This paper concludes thatthe diverging modes of managerial- and bureaucratic discourses, derived fromchanges in surrounding societal norms and organisational control systems, supportsand reinforces the reproduction of accountability as a social system.