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The purpose of this paper is to examine the change from cash accounting to accrual accounting, identifying and assessing the institutional and organisational barriers that may affect this process. A specific focus on knowledge gaps is provided.

The study employs a mixed method design, combining action research activities, a survey, and in-depth qualitative interviews in the setting of Italian public universities.

The findings highlight a low degree of compliance with the accrual accounting system and budgeting system, which is the result of the lack of an accrual accounting culture in the Italian public sector.

The analysis confirms some barriers to the transition highlighted by previous literature and also adds further explanations of such limitations in terms of the lack of skills and accounting knowledge of the universities’ administrative staff possesses.

This paper aims to identify the possible sources of organizational decoupling and their effects in public universities, as they transition from cash to accrual accounting, by assessing the phases of the innovation assimilation process.

To assess the transition, the authors develop a framework that integrates the possible sources of decoupling with the phases of the innovation process. This framework is then applied to the analysis of six Italian public universities moving from cash to accrual accounting.

The results point to regulation gaps and adverse organizational conditions as the main culprits of decoupling behaviours in the production and use of information. Delays in the characterization of the legal framework and ambiguities in the definition of accounting standards by the regulator are the first barriers to an effective transition. The organizational barriers, instead, depend on lack of adequate skills, over-bureaucratization, limitations of the IT systems and organizational complexity. Such limitations generate hybrid accounting systems that jeopardize the informative function of financial reporting.

From a theoretical viewpoint, this paper contributes to a conceptualization of accounting innovations and reforms as processes whose impact depends on dynamics that arise and interact differently across phases. From a practitioner’s point of view, it highlights the factors that may produce adverse effects during the implementation process: these may be taken into account during planning, so as to develop the appropriate remedial actions.