Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence about the influence of the size of local government, the quality of local government financial statements, the level of local government response to the disclosure of financial information and the local political environment on the transparency of local government in Indonesia.

The study sample consisted of 34 regional governments (provinces) in Indonesia in 2016, using purposive sampling and multiple regression analysis.

The results showed that the quality of financial reporting through the audit opinion and political environment have a significant positive effect on the transparency of local government in Indonesia. On the other hand, the size of the local government and local government response rate on the regulation do not affect the transparency of local government in Indonesia.

The agency, legitimacy and institutional theory have an important role in the underlying local government transparency practices in Indonesia. The results of this study should be used as the basis of thought and study to determine the factors that affect the performance of local governments from the financial and non-financial aspects.

This study aims to fill the research gap regarding the usability of group reporting information in the central government. It answers the question of how the consolidated information should be formed to benefit the real needs of governmental information users.

The empirical research is based on a survey and interviews among key internal preparers and users in the central government sector in the case country, Finland.

Results show that the private sector approach regarding consolidation is not appropriately transferable to the central government sector. The key stakeholders identified several economic and financial reporting needs that exceed what formal Consolidated Financial Statement (CFS) can offer. Consolidation is needed but not according to the extensive full control approach, but rather following the budgetary approach consolidating units of the legal person of the government, and further using the partial control approach for consolidating by discretion essential special purpose SOEs.

Respondents and interviewees represented governmental internal organisations, free experts, auditors and financial managers from the group entities. Politicians and citizens were not directly represented.

Research gives applicable insights into central governments planning and developing group reporting for information needs in a favourable cost-benefit ratio. Findings benefit the development of EU's EPSAS (European Public Sector Accounting Standards) project which is still incomplete.

Research recommends governments to make a thorough analysis before deciding on a new financial reporting system. A critical analysis prevents governments to waste money and resources on a reporting system not fulfilling the real needs of information users.

The value of this research is that the private sector approach in consolidation was not taken as granted. This study investigated critically and empirically the real need for consolidated information serving steering and overseeing purposes of the government's group entities.

The aim of the study is to review the extant literature on International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) adoption in emerging economies (EEs) and low-income countries (LICs) (“what do we know?”), and to propose an agenda for future research (“what do we need to know?”).

An analytical framework that builds on diffusion theory is developed. The authors follow the “PRISMA Flow Diagram” to reduce a total of 427 articles from four databases to a final sample of 41 articles. These studies are examined, aided by the analytical framework.

The authors find that IPSASs are a relevant issue for EEs/LICs. Overall, existing research is often explorative. The authors discover that the majority of articles rely on secondary data collection. While two-thirds of the studies perform a content analysis of pre-existing material, about one-fifth of the articles each collect primary data through means of interviews and questionnaires. The findings offer a holistic understanding of where and at what stages IPSAS reforms stand in EEs/LICs, and what factors influence the progression of reforms to the next stage of diffusion.

The authors outline a number of avenues for further research after discussing the dominating trends and structuring the literature based on our analytical framework. These stem from looking at the blank spots and an identified need to contextualise IPSASs adoption in EEs/LICs.

This study analyses to what extent politicians use public sector entities' financial statements along with the politicians' perceptions of the usefulness of such statements in the politicians' decision-making. The authors analyze financial statements' use and usefulness when the statements are prepared on a modified accrual basis and in the setting where there is the intention of full accrual accounting adoption. In addition, this study provides information about the use of the individual components of financial statements and investigates the reasons why the statements may not be used.

This study was conducted using a questionnaire. The authors surveyed politicians that are members of Croatian public sector bodies. To conduct this research, the politicians were contacted by telephone over the period from February to April 2022.

The findings of this study are of potential interest to researchers, regulators and policy makers. The findings show that most politicians use financial statements, but the politicians' perception of the statements' usefulness when the statements are prepared on a modified accrual accounting basis is greater than the politicians' actual use of the statements. The findings also show that in the process of making decisions, politicians use the selected financial statements that contain information of interest to the politicians; that the politicians tend to gravitate to the use of reports on revenue, expenses, receipts and expenditure prepared on modified accrual bases which are closer to budgetary reporting; that the politicians use the information that supports the politicians' sphere of responsibility as enforced by legislation.

This study provides insights into the use and usefulness of financial statements in public sector setting where modified accrual accounting is used to prepare the statements and reports. This study provides additional evidence on the significance of legal setting to the financial reporting in public sector.

This paper aims to contribute to the debate over the desirability of introducing an accrual-based accounting system in the public sector by examining whether accrual-based accounting information is superior to cash-based information in the context of public sector entities.

This paper applies a quantitative research method to assess the degree of smoothness and relevance of the accrual components of income recorded by 302 entities of the Italian National Health Service (INHS) over the period 2014–2020.

The analysis reveals that net income is smoother than cash flows as a summary measure of economic results and that accounting for accruals improves the predictability of future cash flows. However, the authors' novel disaggregation of accrual accounts reveals that those accounts that contribute the most to making income smoother than cash flows – noncurrent assets and liabilities – are also those that contribute the least to predicting future cash flows.

The disaggregation of accrual accounts allows to identify the sources of the informational benefits of accrual accounting, and to document the existence of an informational “trade-off” between smoothness and relevance in the context of public sector entities.

Foreign exchange losess bear some pressures for numerous companies in Indonesia particularly for those having liabilities denominated in foreign currencies. This occurs when Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) current exchange rate has weakened against foreign currencies. Related to those phenomenon, this study aims to investigate model earnings management actions using foreign exchange losses (FEL) which provides a method for the detection of earnings management. By employing a quantitative approach, this study used secondary data of financial statements. The data were collected from 50 companies with the largest market capitalisation, 50 of the most active companies based on trading volume, 50 of the most active companies based on the value of trade and 50 of the most active companies by frequency trading. Totally, 200 public companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange were gained as the data based on IDX statistical report 2013. The results identify that FEL model is capable to detect earnings management from a transaction in foreign exchange losses. However, the model cannot capture the phenomenon of earnings management if the company does not own or reported long-term debt and profit/loss on foreign exchange. To prove whether the manager will perform earnings management from FEL, it is suggested to conduct further research using the hypothesis of positive accounting theory (PAT).

The purpose of this polyphonic paper is to report on interdisciplinary discussions on the state-of-the-art and future of public sector accounting research (PSAR). The authors hope to enliven the debates of the past and future developments in terms of context, themes, theories, methods and impacts in the field of PSAR by the exchanges they include here.

This polyphonic paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach. It brings into conversation ideas, views and approaches of several scholars on the actual and future developments of PSAR in various contexts, and explores potential implications.

This paper has brought together scholars from a plurality of disciplines, research methods and geographical areas, showing at the same time several points of convergence on important future themes (such as accounting as a mean for public, accounting, hybridity and value pluralism) and enabling conditions (accounting capabilities, profession and digitalisation) for PSA scholarship and practice, and the richness of looking at them from a plurality of perspectives.

Exploring these past and future developments opens up the potential for interesting theoretical insights. A much greater theoretical and practical reconsideration of PSAR will be fostered by the exchanges included here.

In setting out a future research agenda, this paper fosters theoretical and methodological pluralism in the interdisciplinary research community interested in PSAR in various contexts. The discussion perspectives presented in this paper constitute not only a basis for further research in this relevant accounting area on the role, status and developments of PSAR but also creative potential for practitioners to be more reflective on their practices and also intended and united outcomes of such practices.

Since the 1980s, governments worldwide have been implementing the move from cash to accrual accounting. Scholars initially considered the appropriateness of this accounting reform to be self-evident, but later they have expressed critical views. This paper systematises the existing literature intending to reflect on the adverse effects of adopting accrual accounting in the public sector and identify implications for future research.

The present study builds on a systematic literature review of 106 academic articles published between 1980 and 2021. It is based on the “preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses” (PRISMA) method. Synthesising research through a transparent, rigorous and replicable process makes it possible to identify and discuss the adverse effects of adopting public sector accrual accounting.

Significant issues are linked to organisational impacts and accountability. Resistance to change is the main negative consequence and is more likely in countries that have chosen to adopt accrual accounting without maintaining cash accounting. The new accounting rules make accounting information more complex and arbitrary for citizens and politicians. How these criticalities should be addressed deserves further investigation.

This paper offers a comprehensive literature review on the drawbacks of adopting accrual accounting in the public sector. It could provide a general lesson to be applied to policymakers of other jurisdictions currently considering this transition to prevent the adverse effects and act proactively.

Within the stream of research on public sector accounting standards, heritage asset accounting represents a difficult and challenging issue. This paper intends to join the debate on heritage reporting by carrying out a critical review of the Consultation Paper (CP) “Financial Reporting for Heritage in the Public Sector” issued by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) in order to highlight its strengths and weaknesses and to make recommendations.

To this end, the current study adopts document analysis as a qualitative research method by referring to Italy as a typical and critical case study. Moreover, the authors actively took part in the Italian working group on heritage assets reporting, so they are well-informed people about the Italian point of view as well as the broad discussion underpinning the Italian response.

Evidence demonstrates that, although the proposals included in the CP represent a new step towards an organic regulation of heritage asset reporting, if these preliminary views are confronted with the reality of an emblematic context, as in the Italian case, much room for improvement remains regarding the definition, recognition, measurement and disclosure of such assets.

The originality of the paper lies in its contribution to overcoming the current controversial aspects of heritage assets reporting and the issuing of an accounting standard. In doing so, the authors also attempt to answer the call made by Anessi-Pessina et al. (2019) to investigate in detail an individual country experience to better understand the state of the art in national and international accounting standards on heritage assets.

Local Government in Indonesia annually publishes Local Government Financial Statements (LGFS) for helping their stakeholders in making decisions. Audit Opinion of the LGFS for counties and cities in East Java Province during the last 8 years (2006-2013) showed a quite astonishing result. From all of 301 financial statements, only 45 LGFS (14.95%) obtained Unqualified Opinion, other financial statements (256 or 85.05%) received Non-Unqualified Opinion. This study aims to analyze the accounts and problems in the accounts which cause LGFS obtain Non-Unqualified Opinion. Using content analysis with NVIVO10 applications, this study analyzed 256 audit opinions of the LGFS of counties and cities in East Java during 2006-2013 that obtained Non-Unqualified Opinion to identify the accounts and problems in the accounts which cause LGFS obtain Non-Unqualified Opinion. The results showed that the most frequent accounts as an exception in the audit opinion are the accounts on Budget Realization Report (BR) with the frequency of occurrence as much as 6628 times. The Balance Sheet (BS) accounts was at the second place with the total frequency of occurrence 4206 times. And last, there was a Cash Flow Statement (CF) account with the frequency of occurrence as much as 693 times. In BR, the most frequent account which appears as an exception is spending account (as much as 4198 times), while the assets are the most frequent accounts as an exception in the Balance Sheet (as much as 4206 times). The problem with the accounts that often appear as an exception was mainly due to the weakness of the Internal Control System (ICS), followed by non-compliance with the provisions of law and the last problem is in-economies, inefficiency and ineffectiveness.