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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.

The study aims to examine the validity of the gender affinity effect on social media throughout election campaigns.

This paper examines the role of gender in political discourse, using citizens' conversations on Facebook in the days leading up to Israel's 2021 elections as its case study. The analysis measured the engagement generated by male and female politicians in citizens' publicly open Facebook discussions (N = 1875) using a trend-tracking software. The analysis uses t-tests to examine differences in engagement between conversations about male versus female politicians and between posts written by male versus female authors. In addition, a two-way ANOVA analysis was conducted in an attempt to understand the shared impact of both the politicians' gender and posts authors' gender on the posts' engagement.

The study reveals that although more posts discuss male politicians, posts dealing with female politicians expressed significantly more support towards those politicians. The analysis also highlights that women tend to write more supportive posts and that most of their posts deal with female politicians. Furthermore, interaction effect analysis revealed that women's posts about female politicians generate more engagement in terms of likes, comments and number of participants than posts written by women that deal with male politicians.

The findings should encourage women politicians to run their campaigns via social media.

The study presents the first social media analysis for gender affinity effect and highlights the importance of the effect in online political communication studies.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-04-2022-0199

To examine how personality dispositions of Nigerian politicians predict their attitude to the wellbeing of citizens.

A survey research was embarked that engaged 185 political aspirants to various electoral positions in the 2003 Nigerian elections. Respondents were administered a standardized psychological instrument that measures four personality attributes – needs for achievement, affiliation, dominance, and autonomy. They also responded to another standardized instrument that measures attitude to wellbeing of people.

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses conducted showed that gender and age are significant predictors of politicians' attitudes to wellbeing of the people. Male and younger politicians are more favorably disposed to people's wellbeing than female and older politicians. Among the personality attributes only need for achievement significantly accounted for variations in attitude to people's wellbeing. Specifically, the lower politicians are in need of achievement the more favorably disposed they are to people's wellbeing.

The research participants are not completely representative of politicians in Nigeria because the sample was drawn from the Southwest only. In addition, the personality attributes examined are not exhaustive as there are other possible attributes that could predict politicians' attitudes to citizens' wellbeing. There is also a limit to which results on attitude can be used to predict actual behavior of politicians to people's wellbeing.

The study demonstrates the need for psychological tests in Nigeria's electoral process. It demonstrates that personality attributes of politicians could be assessed and used to predict their concern for citizens' wellbeing. It is opined that, where politicians are more concerned with the citizens' wellbeing, it could enhance the sustainability of democracy in Nigeria.

The paper demonstrates a dimension of psychological testing in Nigeria's electoral process.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the value of corporate political connections resulting from the revolving door of employment between political office and the for-profit corporation. The authors test whether there is value to firms from political connections provided by the appointment of former politicians to corporate boards or management teams. The authors also test to see if passage through the door in the other direction, from the corporate world to public office, generates value for firms. Do firms whose former employees gain public office earn excess returns following their appointment or election to these positions?

The methodology used in this study focusses on an empirical analysis of the political connections of US firms over the sample period 1996-2011. The analysis emphasizes the wealth effects associated with the announcement of hiring former politicians to corporate boards or the gaining of political office by former corporate employees.

The authors find that politicians becoming corporate directors is 2.5 times more common than corporate executives gaining public office. The authors determine that industries with extensive government regulation most often hire former politicians. The authors find that the office held by former politicians matters. The authors find that longevity in a cabinet position is important while formal Congressional or Senate leadership positions are not. Surprisingly, the authors determine the longer politicians are out of office, the more value they are able to provide to the firm. Finally, the authors discover that firms which hire former politicians have significantly positive long-term abnormal returns, but firms whose managers enter politics do not.

This study is highly original in its examination of political connections resulting from door swing in both directions. Further, the analysis of longevity, time out of office, and position held adds to the contributions made by this study.

This study examines the impact of gender on Facebook campaign strategies and the reception of these strategies during the 2018 Israeli municipal elections.

The authors analyzed all the messages posted on 48 politicians' official Facebook pages during the week leading up to the elections. They analyzed messages posted by 152 candidates running for the position of head of a municipality, 68 of whom were women (48 had an active Facebook account), examining the amount of engagement they had created. The authors also analyzed the candidates' use of rhetoric and use of negative campaigning and the engagement it created.

Analysis of the overall engagement of Facebook users in respect to men versus women politicians showed that men politicians' posts were significantly more engaging in terms of the number of likes and shares they generated, although the multilevel analysis found no significant differences between engagement in the posts of men and women politicians. The Aristotelian rhetoric analysis revealed no significant differences between women and men contenders; however, in line with the role incongruity theory, the engagement analysis found that male candidates' logic-based posts attracted significantly more shares. The negative campaigning analysis found that, contrary to the study’s hypothesis, female candidates posted twice as many messages, attacking their opponents as their men counterparts. However, in line with the hypothesis based on the role incongruity theory, these posts gained significantly less engagement than those of their men counterparts.

The study highlights that female candidates do not conform to their perceived gender role as soft, emotional, and gentle in their social media campaigning. However, in line with role incongruity theory, they were not rewarded for this “unwomanly” behavior because they gained significantly less engagement with their logic-based posts and their attacks against other candidates than their men counterparts. Despite the fact that prior studies have indicated the potential of social networks service (SNS) to empower women leaders, the findings of the study highlight the continued gender discrimination and the validity of role incongruity theory during social media campaigning, particularly at the municipal elections level.

Public library issues are often described as being of low political priority. Yet circumstances differ for different communities; public library issues may receive varying political attention. The purpose of this paper is to study how Swedish public library managers describe local politicians’ attention to public library issues and to identify which municipal circumstances, such as political organization, population, and finances, seem to matter for how local politicians’ attention is described.

The empirical data were collected through a web-based questionnaire sent to all public library managers in Sweden. To identify the described political attention, a content analysis was done. A multinominal logistic regression analysis was performed to analyze the municipal circumstances that seem to matter for how political attention is described.

A small majority of public library managers described the local political attention as strong or quite strong. Three factors seem to matter for how the attention is described: political organization, existence of a library plan, and population size. In the discussion personal factors, such as the politicians’ personal interest and public library managers’ experience, are brought up as possibly being of considerable importance.

Several studies have been conducted on how politicians perceive public libraries; in these studies, the politicians are mainly treated as a unified group. This paper shows that the political approach to public library issues is described as different in different municipal circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that the fundamental difference between private and public procurement, that of politicians, has been largely overlooked in public procurement strategy and management research. It then aims to argue that existing public procurement research could be improved if greater attention were given to in research design to validity and the interface with politicians.

The research is based on a critical literature review of public procurement strategy and management literature, examining the methodologies used and roles of politicians.

The findings suggest there is an in‐built bias through over reliance on procurement managers as the key respondents, tendency to focus on private sector procurement research attributes and questions, and a tendency to focus on operational as opposed to strategic public procurement decision making.

The research suggests a need for greater understanding of politicians' engagement in public procurement strategy and management and the need for greater triangulation in public procurement research.

The paper highlights how public procurement strategy and management research can be improved to increase its validity. It explores the neglected area of the role of politicians in public procurement.

The aim of this study is to describe the view of age‐related prioritisation in health care among physicians and healthcare politicians and to compare their views regarding gender and age.

Swedish physicians (n=390) and politicians (n=310), mean age 52 years, answered an electronic questionnaire concerning age‐related priority setting in healthcare. The questionnaire had fixed response alternatives with possibility of adding comments.

A majority of the participants thought that age should not influence prioritisation, although more physicians than politicians thought that younger patients should be prioritised. There were also significant differences concerning their views on lifestyle‐related diseases and on who should make decisions concerning both vertical and horizontal prioritisation. The comments indicated that the politicians referred to ethical principles as a basis for their standpoints while the physicians often referred to the importance of biological rather than chronological age.

Web‐based surveys as a method has its limitations as biased samples and biased returns could cause major problems, such as limited control over the drop‐outs. The sample in this study was, however, judged to be representative.

The results indicate that supplementary guiding principles concerning prioritisation in healthcare are needed in order to facilitate decision‐making concerning resource allocation on a local level.

This paper adds important knowledge about decision makers' views on age‐related priorities in healthcare, thus contributing to scientific base for prioritisation in healthcare and the ongoing debate in society.

The democratic political product is complex and untangible. An underlying assumption of a democratic system is the involvement of voters, or consumers, but with contemporary political apathy this aspect is relatively unacknowledged. This paper aims to explore the role of the consumer in political branding.

Two contrasting case studies compare the balance between the corporate brand of the political party and the brand image of two different kinds of local politician. Aaker's “Brand Equity Ten” is adapted to provide a suitable conceptual framework for the case study comparison.

Investigating the interaction between the community and politicians drew out important implications for the political brand. The paper concludes that managing the political brand entails a recognition of the inherent duality that resides in the political product. In an environment of reduced differentiation of political offerings to the electoral marketplace it is important for politicians and the political party to make early decisions about which aspect of this brand duality best serves individual careers and the party. Key to this decision is the opinion‐leading role of politically aware consumers.

This research shows that an individual politician's brand can compete with or enhance the corporate political party brand, which implies that political branding must take into account the communication role of the highly involved consumer.

This paper examines the under‐researched area of consumer contribution to political branding. The role of highly involved political consumers in constituency politics is clearly shown to affect the politician's brand equity. This leads to a re‐conceptualisation of the politician's brand vis‐à‐vis the political party brand.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of politicians’ facial attractiveness on their online popularity as reflected in audience engagement with their Facebook posts during the 2015 Israeli election campaign.

Using Israel’s 2015 election campaign as the case study, the authors analyzed all messages posted (n=501) on 33 politicians’ official Facebook pages during the week leading to Election Day.

The results demonstrate that audiences do engage more with posts of the more facially attractive politicians. These posts generated more shares, more comments and more participants in their discussions – but not more likes – relative to posts of less attractive politicians. These effects became even stronger when the posts were accompanied by one or more visual image, and remained significant even after controlling for other engagement predictors, such as a politician’s gender, seniority or the timing of a post’s publication.

The findings emphasize the importance of attractive looks for politicians. The findings highlight that attractive politicians’ posts attract more attention, allowing them to better spread their ideas. Thus, politicians should aim to post aesthetic images and visuals to promote better engagement with their ideas on social media.

The study expands our understanding of online presentations of politicians, focusing on the effect of politicians’ facial attractiveness on their online popularity. Recent studies have demonstrated that physically attractive politicians enjoy more and better media attention on television news, but not in non-visual media such as radio and newspapers. This effect has not been examined in the social media environment, a central arena for today’s political debates and one that involves many visual messages.