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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the claim that Western accounting reforms, in particular the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) would enhance transparency and accountability and reduce corruption in patronage-based developing countries such as Nigeria.

The paper utilises the patron/clientelism framework to examine the dynamics of Western accounting reforms in the Nigerian patronage-based society, in which the institutions of governance and regulatory structures are arguably weak. The paper utilises archival data and interviews conducted with representatives of state bodies (elected politicians and officials) and professional accounting associations.

Results from two major reforms (the sale of government-owned residential properties in Lagos and the monetisation of fringe benefits for public officials) are presented. Despite the claim of the adoption of Western accounting standards, and in particular IPSAS 17, which requires full accrual accounting and the utilisation of fair value in property valuation, historical cost accounting appeared to have been mobilised to massively corrupt the process for the benefit of politicians, other serving and retired public officials and family members.

This study contributes to the current literature by providing evidence of the relationship between patronage, corruption and accounting in wealth redistribution in the patronage-based Nigerian socio-political and economic context.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss developments in governance in Africa and the opportunities this offers to accounting, auditing and accountability researchers. The paper also provides an overview of the other contributions in this accounting, auditing and accountability special issue.

This paper provides a contemporary literature review on governance and accountability in Africa, identifying the key developments in public sector reform and the research gaps that still need to be filled. While the paper focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, the authors draw on examples from Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa – geographically representing east, west, and south of the continent.

The paper finds that governance has emerged as a crucial issue that has a significant effect on the economic development of African countries. This has been associated with a myriad of reforms which range from anti-corruption measures to public financial management reforms. The authors find that the implementation and effects of these reforms have not been adequately researched by accounting scholars.

This is a review of a limited literature. Empirical research and a more comprehensive review of the literature from public administration and other disciplines might provide other new insights for research on governance in Africa. A further limitation is that the study has focused on a review of the most recent reforms while earlier reforms should be of particular interest to accounting historians.

This paper and other contributions to this special issue of AAAJ provide a basis and an agenda for accounting scholars seeking to undertake interdisciplinary research on Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to examine public sector accounting reforms, mainly the adoption and implementation of the Cash Basis International Public Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS) in the Central Government of Bangladesh.

Drawing on the ideas of new institutionalism, the paper investigates the factors which have forced the country to accept the Cash Basis IPSAS but have delayed its implementation in practice.

Different approaches towards the Cash Basis IPSAS are now distinct in the Central Government of Bangladesh. Differences between Bangladesh and other emerging economies have been narrowed as the potency of institutional pressures has increased, and there is a risk, as experienced in other emerging economies, that the very adoption of the Cash Basis IPSAS may remain more a rhetoric than a reality in Bangladesh. The paper demonstrates that the extent to which professional accountants and their associations participate in reforms determines the public sector accounting reform trajectories in emerging economies.

The paper demonstrates that reforms driven by indigenous administrators can have the potential of becoming more instrumental in emerging economies than the externally propagated reforms, such as IPSASs and accrual accounting. What is important is to advance incrementally those public sector accounting reforms that local administrators have identified as important, that they could cope with their existing knowledge and capacity, and that they are interested in engaging with the reform process.

First, the study has contributed to extending neo-institutional theory by bringing out the responses of different stakeholders responsible for implementing public sector accounting reforms, mainly the Cash Basis IPSAS, in practice. Next, the paper has raised a question as to whether the Cash Basis IPSAS could be an appropriate reform measure for the central government of Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about Russian public sector accounting in times of change by exploring the emergence of a new way of accounting for Russian central government.

In this paper, accounting is viewed as a social and institutional practice. A frame of reference guided by three theoretical perspectives is elaborated on. This troika incorporates a system approach to accounting, an accountability approach, and an institutional approach. Document search represents the major method of collecting data for this paper.

This paper suggests that launching a nascent version of Russian central government accounting is better comprehended in terms of legitimacy rather than in terms of instrumentality.

This paper focuses on the appearance of up‐to‐date accounting provisions at macro‐level and does, therefore, have limitations with regard to scope. This makes it intellectually rewarding to link the central government initiatives with endeavours to implement them at different levels of government and in specific public sector organizations.

Bearing in mind, the lack of consistent research efforts on the topic in Western English‐language literature, this paper strives to bring rather “alien” Russian central government accounting into the international arena for the purposes of cross‐national comparisons and wide‐ranging discussions. It also contributes to the literature dealing with the role of international organizations in the reform of public sector accounting.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a global overview of the adoption status of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) in the different contexts of developed and developing countries on central government level, particularly delineating key reform issues and attempts to overcome these.

Drawing on an analytical framework that combines neo-institutional theory with diffusion theory, prior research and official documents were re-analysed.

There are substantial differences regarding whether countries acknowledge having experienced large implementation challenges and the extent to which the reform benefits have been achieved. The study sheds light on the (institutional) underpinnings of these differences.

First, the analysis could be extended to regional and local governments, as well as social funds. Both qualitative and quantitative strategies are suggested. Second, the implementation of the conceptual framework deserves further attention. Third, further research should more thoroughly scrutinise cost-benefit analyses used for justifying the (non)implementation of IPSASs, and in particular the assumptions that are being made in such analyses.

The paper informs policymakers and standard setters by delineating the areas and issues complicating the widespread adoption of IPSASs across countries, including pointing out directions to overcome these.

Substantial amounts of public money are invested internationally to converge accounting standards and translate them into native languages. A close(r) monitoring is needed to ensure that these efforts obtain sufficient value for money.

This study is original as it applies an analytical framework that combines neo-institutional theory and diffusion theory to examine public sector accounting convergence issues internationally. Such an approach explicitly puts a focus on decoupling between reform “talk” (decision) and “walk” (implementation) and helps to analyse the reasons for this decoupling.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that have resulted in the effective implementation of accrual accounting reforms in the Central Government of Tanzania.

The paper relies on the ideas of institutional theory and some aspects of decision-usefulness so as to delineate the external pressures enforcing the Government of Tanzania to embrace accrual accounting and the factors complicating its implementation at organisational level (within government entities). The authors draw on quantitative techniques and the explanatory and cross-sectional survey research strategies and methods for data analysis.

Our findings suggest that the coercive pressures from donors and auditors along with the normative pressures surfaced by the training of employees generate a significant impact on designing the effective administrative model of accrual accounting. In a lesser extent, pressures from the National Board of Accountants and Auditors and cultural factors are positively correlated to the implementation of accrual accounting in the Tanzanian context. Of the factors the authors examined, the management changes are proved to be least effective. Unawareness of the key stakeholders has caused weak political and regulatory commitments. Accrual accounting implementation is further exacerbated by inadequate technical and personnel competence. Ultimately, the implementation of the accrual accounting has increased significant managerial accountability though a major segment of such behaviour is unexplained by the factors the authors employed in the study.

The effective implementation of accrual accounting relies on improvements in cultural and human-related issues. What is important to understand is that accrual accounting is more of a management reform incorporating changes in broader aspects of institutional and accountability mechanisms, rather than just an adoption of particular accounting technologies. Without such broader changes, accrual accounting reforms can be detrimental providing the technocrats and government officials with a space for manipulating financial information, Tanzania serving as an example.

The study highlights the case of an emerging economy in which accrual accounting is actually in effect and has impacted on managerial accountability, but is struggling to engender intended results and outcomes at organisational level.

A review of papers on public sector accounting in emerging economies, as published in the Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies' (JAEE) first decade.

A reflection on the issues covered and achievements made in the reviewed papers in the context of extant knowledge in this domain.

A majority of the research in JAEE is dominated by accounting reforms inspired by New Public Management (NPM). Performance management, budgeting and accrual accounting are the main topics in the reviewed research. NPM claims, which can range from usability and use of a new accounting repertoire to desirable impacts on efficiency and service delivery, are often not fulfilled. Many papers attempt to explain failing accounting innovations by the local context in which they are embedded, including political instability, poor governance and a lack of capabilities.

The paper reviews research in a niche journal, but the findings are related to wider public sector accounting literature.

Public sector practitioners, but also researchers, need to move away from a focus on public sector reforms due to contextual circumstances leading to built-in failures and concentrate instead on understanding how the accounting repertoire works in practice, including routes for improvements therein.

An original framework for analysing public sector accounting research in emerging economies is proposed, which, among others, distinguishes between various ambition levels for achieving NPM reforms.

Drawing on the semantic field theory, the paper aims to uncover the challenges of importing and translating a management accounting concept into the Russian language and the semantic nature of resistance towards the imported management accounting concept.

The paper draws on the extensive literature review of the histories of accounting in the Soviet Union and the United States in the first part of the twentieth century and 17 interviews conducted with the Russian accounting academics.

We demonstrate the case of resistance in adopting the imported Anglo-Saxon management accounting concept. We also discuss historical underpinning and origins of this resistance in light of semantic field theory.

The paper calls for more research in the non-Anglo-Saxon contexts problematizing conventional assumptions and beliefs about objectivity and universality of accounting language.

The study demonstrates the importance of understanding historical and cross-cultural developments of accounting language for accounting educators and practitioners. Critical awareness of the differences in semantic fields of accounting can help accounting researchers and educators to develop contextualized research projects and context-relevant teaching practices.

The study contributes to the literature on translations of accounting concepts by demonstrating that accounting concepts are not understood in isolation, instead, they are interpreted in relation to each other. The present study demonstrates that the relationship between the management accounting concept (the signifier) and its meanings (signifieds) is fluid, culturally and historically contingent. To understand this relationship, we should attend to the historical development of semantic fields and associative relations between concepts.

The World Bank-sponsored public financial management reforms attempt to instil fiscal discipline through techno-managerial packages. Taking Ghana's integrated financial management information system (IFMIS) as a case, this paper explores how and why local actors engaged in counter-conduct against these reforms.

Interviews, observations and documentary analyses on the operationalisation of IFMIS constitute this paper's empirical basis. Theoretically, the paper draws on Foucauldian notions of governmentality and counter-conduct.

Empirics demonstrate how and why politicians and bureaucrats enacted ways of escaping, evading and subverting IFMIS's disciplinary regime. Politicians found the new accounting regime too constraining to their electoral and patronage politics and, therefore, enacted counter-conduct around the notion of political exigencies, creating expansionary fiscal conditions which the World Bank tried to mitigate through IFMIS. Perceiving the new regime as subverting their bureaucratic identity and influence, bureaucrats counter-conducted reforms through questioning, critiquing and rhetorical venting. Notably, the patronage politics of appropriating wealth and power underpins both these political and bureaucratic counter-conducts.

This study contributes to the critical accounting understanding of global public financial management reform failures by offering new empirical and theoretical insights as to how and why politicians and bureaucrats who are supposed to own and implement them nullify the global governmentality intentions of fiscal disciplining through subdued forms of resistance.

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.