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The significance of cloud services in information technology (IT) is increasing as a means of achieving enhanced productivity, efficiency and cost reduction. Through cloud-based service, the reliability and scalability of an organization’s systems can be enhanced since organizations such as local governments are able to concentrate on their main business strategies. This research seeks to identify critical factors that may have an impact on the acceptance of cloud-based services, where the organizational context is based on local governments in Australia.

To formulate a more comprehensive IT innovation adoption model for cloud technology, factors from the technology-organizational-environment framework, desires framework and diffusion of innovation model were integrated. Data was obtained from 480 IT staff working in 47 local government organizations.

The research results show that the factors which had a statistically significant and positive impact on the adoption of cloud-based services in local governments were compatibility, complexity, cost, security concerns, expected benefits and organization size. It is likely that the outcomes from this research will provide insights to any organization seeking to make investment decisions on the adoption of cloud-based services.

Limitations include generalizability of the findings since the data is restricted to local government areas in Queensland, Australia. Further, the sample mostly included individuals with managerial positions and may not completely capture the cloud adoption factors relevant for front line IT employees. Another limitation is the possible omission of factors that may be relevant but not considered due to the selected theories. Lastly, this research did not differentiate between different types of cloud adoption such as private, public, community and hybrid models that are possible in this context.

The paper provides a combination framework of cloud-based service adoption based on a literature review on cloud adoption from an IS perspective. It adapts integrated model to establish a more comprehensive innovation adoption framework for cloud technology.

This article details a qualitative descriptive case study of affective factors of effective decision-making of one local government organization in the United States of America. The specific problem was that many elected American local government representatives lack effective decision-making strategies. This research focus indicated a lack of qualitative research on the real-world experience of factors that were taken into consideration during decision-making within American local government organizations.

Using a local government organization in southwest Illinois, elected representatives were interviewed and observed. The interviews and observations surfaced how the representatives made decisions. Data were analyzed using manual coding and theming to determine themes and patterns.

The results produced six themes about factors, including emotional intelligence, which impacted decision-making. They are: (1) remembering the past, (2) communication and respect, (3) spurring economic growth and development, (4) fairness, (5) recognizing and removing emotions and bias and (6) accountability.

Being a single case study, this research is limited in generalization. The research was limited to the identification of current, real-world experience of elected local government representatives.

The findings of this research can be used to create more effective decision-making practices for local government organizations of similar size.

This is the first study to review, in-depth, the decision-making and emotional intelligence factors of local government organizations in the United States of America. The conceptual background, discussion, implications to local government organizations, limitations and recommendations for future studies are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the state of research into knowledge management within local government in developing countries, to identify themes that have been studied and to identify important gaps in the literature that can inform a research agenda going forward.

A structured literature review method was used in this study. The authors reviewed academic literature published between 2009 and 2019. A total of 15 articles were identified and reviewed.

The findings reveal that, few authors have contributed to knowledge management within local government in developing countries and there is little international collaboration between authors. The authors found limited methodological and theoretical diversity and rigor in the reviewed work. The review identified themes that have been researched but evidenced a lack of guidelines and frameworks developed to promote knowledge management initiatives within local governments in developing countries. Overall, it was evident that this area was still little explored. As a result, there are many possibilities for future research.

This study provides a comprehensive systematic literature review of papers published on knowledge management in local governments in developing countries, identifying themes that have been studied and gaps for further research.

This paper examines accounting practices and legitimacy in Tanzanian Local Government Authorities (LGAs).

It uses data from multiple sources, including interviews, observations and documents, to provide theoretical and practical understanding on how accounting has been practiced and the conditions which sustain its undertaking. It applies a grounded theory method to develop a theory systematically from the raw data.

The principal research findings from the data concern the central phenomenon of ‘manipulating legitimacy’. This involved the purposeful and deliberate use of accounting techniques to influence and control (and sometimes even to falsify) the perceived reasonableness of the Councils’ operations. The paper revealed that the effective operations of the Tanzanian LGAs were highly constrained by their context. This had forced the LGAs’ officials to use important accounting practices such as budgeting, financial reporting, auditing and performance measurement, to manipulate the organisational legitimacy, a process which ensured the availability of resources to both LGAs and the individual officials.

The main limitation of the research is that the data was collected from a limited number of local authorities in just one developing country. It is hoped that future research in other developing countries will be undertaken to broaden and deepen our understanding.

The paper identifies the importance of manipulating legitimacy in understanding accounting practices in local government.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of the Great Recession on the capital assets being depreciated and the capital assets condition ratio for the governmental activities of the government-wide financial statements, while identifying possible socioeconomic and financial variables that help explain capital investment behavior in local government.

Based on capital spending from fiscal year 2005–2006 (FY06) to fiscal year 2012–2013 (FY13) for the governmental activities of 471 North Carolina municipalities as reported on their government-wide financial statements, the authors use a fixed effects model to test our two hypotheses.

The authors find that most municipalities consistently invested in capital assets before, during, and after the Great Recession but were not able to maintain pace with depreciation. The authors also find that the capital assets being depreciated is affected by numerous socioeconomic and financial variables, while the capital assets condition ratio is not.

The study continues to build on previous research, demonstrating that different results are produced when the analysis is based on local data rather than sub-national data.

An implication from our study that expands across research and practice is that capital investment and capital value are two different dimensions of capital management in local government, which drives research in terms of how this multidimensional concept is specified and drives practices in terms of how this multidimensional concept is approached within annual capital budgets and capital improvement programs.

The study represents one of the first studies that focuses on capital spending in local government based on data from the government-wide financial statements.

This paper aims to investigate the extent of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) through websites and social media in Spanish local government (SLG) and analyze the factors that explain their disclosure.

The study applies content analysis and regression techniques. The ICD is analyzed for Spanish municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants and provincial capitals over a period from January 2018 to February 2020.

Findings emphasize that the quantity of disclosed information on intellectual capital (IC) is in the low level, particularly with regard to human capital (HC). Furthermore, the results show that the information provided via social media mainly concerns the relational capital (RC). On the other hand, results obtained indicate that larger municipalities, with lower financial autonomy and whose citizens have a high income level use the online media (both websites and social media) more actively to disclose information about IC. Finally, municipalities led by women and with high level of citizens' education exert a positive influence in the ICD only on websites.

This paper makes a number of key contributions to the existing body of knowledge, focusing on ICD, a neglected area in the public sector accounting literature. It explores and identifies the supply-side and demand-side determinants of information affecting the ICD in local governments. The results of this research could be useful for policymakers, regulators and governments' managers to improve the online information addressing ICD issues.

This paper adopts an innovative perspective by investigating the use of alternative tools for ICD in local government context (websites and social media). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on investigating the determinants of online ICD in local governments.

Public entrepreneurs are an under-researched group in local government. The purpose of this paper is to explore the contextual complexities of public entrepreneurs who pursue more creative ways of “doing more with less” to cope with dynamic financial and societal anxieties of Greek local government fiscal austerity policy reforms. Precisely, this study aims to the understanding of how specific contextual influences impact, first, on the nature of public entrepreneurship and, second, on manifested outcomes. A systematic approach marks the authors attempt to assess the broader impact pointing out the implications for research, policy and practice.

A case study of Greek local government draws on 26 in-depth semi-structured interviews with public entrepreneurs across top, middle and front-line levels of management, field notes, documentary and archival evidence.

The findings demonstrate unique Greek contextual complexities such as contradictory tensions between triggered decentralisation of control and responsibilities of the local government and attempts of external reinvention rather than internal renewal. These complexities influence public entrepreneurs’ systemic entrepreneurship behaviours in Greek local government since the implementation of fiscal austerity policy reforms in 2010. Their representation is manifest in policy, administrative and technological outcomes with public value consequences.

This research contributes to a deeper understanding of public entrepreneurship in context. Greek local government public entrepreneurs bring original insights on the contextual influences of their systemic enactment and manifested outcomes, with implications for research, policy and practice.

Adopting a public-management perspective, this study aims to conduct a meta-ethnography to discern local government’s role in city hospitality in terms of promoting the welcome the city gives its guests, filling a gap in research into the subject.

The authors used the seven-step iterative approach of Noblit and Hare’s meta-ethnography. By conducting a systematic search in the major bibliographic databases, ten qualitative studies on city hospitality were identified that met the criteria to be included. Concepts alluding to a local government’s role in city hospitality were coded in NVivo 11 software, translated and interpreted through the lens of public management. A total of 14 semi-structured interviews with experts were also conducted to further validate the meta-ethnography findings.

Six interrelated, third-order constructs were developed and conceptualized into an articulated model describing local government’s role in city hospitality from a public-management perspective: advocating, co-creating, strategizing, planning and implementing city hospitality, and promoting it into a sustainable tourism development. The model, also substantiated by expert feedback, describes local government actions to promote city hospitality and achieve sustainable tourism. It highlights a responsive, proactive and collaborative role for local government as a key actor responsible for the strategic management and co-creation of city hospitality.

The study introduces public governance cues into a city hospitality context, with theoretical and practical implications for hospitality and tourism researchers, businesses, politicians, public managers, city officials and destination marketing/management practitioners.

The study proposes an original conceptual model that serves as an overarching framework and operative tool for understanding and practicing city hospitality in a contemporary public-management perspective. This lays the foundations for the development of a broadened notion of hospitality management, extended from the traditional context of the hospitality industry to that of the city or place. The study also showcases how meta-ethnography can be an effective methodology in business, management and accounting research, within which it is still a novelty.

There is a a great deal of literature on performance measurement and accountability in government. Governments around the world have invested large amounts to develop performance measurement systems, the results of which are mediocre at best. There is also a growing recognition that financial performance measures alone measure only limited aspects of an organisation’s performance. To improve performance measurement systems and accountability to different stakeholders, non‐financial indicators have been developed for the for‐profit sector. Prior research in the local government sector in the state of Victoria, Australia, showed low levels of accountability and very little performance measurement taking place. However, significant changes have been imposed on the sector, enhancing local and central accountability, making it more business‐like, and focussing on the need to measure performance. This research studied the extent to which performance measurement systems are currently being used in practice in Victorian local government, the factors which lead to the use of performance measurement and the extent of non‐financial indicators. The results revealed a substantial increase in the level of use of performance measurement in the sector, related to increased emphasis on accountability and organisational changes imposed on the sector by the state government. The performance of both people and programs is now being measured. Although there is an emphasis on financial and budgetary measures for financial accountability, the use of non‐financial measures in determining outcome accountability is increasing. Customer service and quality are two of the areas in which non‐financial performance measures are being developed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine European citizen engagement for enhancing emergency management and, more specifically, in the context of the terrorist attacks which occurred in Paris, France on November 15, 2015. To do so, two main research questions are raised. First, are there differences in the levels of citizen engagement between the country affected, France, and other European countries? Second, what factors foster a high level of citizen engagement in France?

First, a comparative content analysis of the Facebook pages of local governments in France and other capital cities of the European Union (EU) was carried. Second, a multivariate regression analysis was performed.

Although the level of online citizen engagement was greater in France than in the other EU cities analyzed, similarities were detected in the messages sent, responses and moment of participation. Moreover, there are certain types of online social behavior that encourage interactive conversations among citizens as well as between citizens and their local governments.

This research enables local governments to understand the similarities and differences between citizens and local governments from the affected country and those from outside it when using social media to engage in emergency management. It also provides further insight for managers of local governments in the country affected with regards to the need to be aware of the influence of online collective behavior that emerges from the information they publish. As a result, the attainment of a high level of citizens’ participation in their social media can differ.

This paper advances in the scarce knowledge of high levels of online engagement (conversational interactions) in emergency situations.