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This study aims to explore the conflicting issues of carbon accounting and trading practices in China through the lens of agonistic democracy.

Based on a framework of three interrelated levels, this study explores emitting entity carbon accounting debates and discussions in mitigating climate change. Interview data were collected from 20 emitting entity participants and external auditors.

This study identifies irreconcilable conflicts between emitting entities and the government in carbon accounting and trading activities. Under the strong influence of government power, emitting entities portray themselves as “responsible” and “legitimate” state-owned enterprises. This study further identifies possible democratic spaces and reveals the potential for agonistic discourse and a fallacy of “consensus” and monologues in institutional space. If the emitting entity and government can overcome their participation challenges, this would significantly facilitate vibrant and agonistic discourse in carbon activities and pave the way for democratic spaces.

This study demonstrates the potential and limitations of applying agonistic democracy and the significance of participation in institutional spaces in government-led carbon accounting and trading issues. It enriches prior research on promoting democratic participation in carbon accounting from the agonistic democracy perspective.

This paper tries to shed light on the international progress regarding the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), to accentuate the benefits resulting from the application of IPSAS, and to highlight the main differences between IPSAS and IFRS.

A comprehensive literature review is conducted which focuses on issues concerning the factors that induce the adoption of IPSAS, the obstacles that must be overcome, the degree of IPSAS’ proliferation worldwide, the repercussions from adopting IPSAS, the benefits of IPSAS, and the differences between IPSAS and IFRS. The selection process of the cited articles focuses on journals with high rankings in the ABS list.

It is accentuated that IPSAS carry significant benefits regarding the improved quality of the financial information reported by the public sector, the enhancement of transparency and accountability, the upgrading of the decision-making process and the restored trust in public finances. However, there is more work that needs to be done toward the global proliferation of IPSAS.

This study provides insights regarding the implementation process of IPSAS, which should be useful to all the parties engaged in the reform of the public administration, such as national governments, local or international regulators, accounting standard setters and institutional organizations.

The current study clarifies whether the public sector should move from using the business focused IFRS, as it is frequently the case, to the adoption of IPSAS. In addition, this study comprehensive literature review can be used by academics and researchers as a basis for further research on the issue. More importantly, policymakers and other officials who need to make informed decisions about financial reporting issues at the government level and the public sector in general can benefit from this study.

In light of the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, electronic auditing otherwise known as computer-assisted audit tools and techniques (CAATTs) has become inevitable to automate the auditing process worldwide. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) factors on public sector adoption of CAATTs in developing countries such as Jordan under the COVID-19 pandemic conditions.

This study used 136 usable responses from the managers of internal audit (IA) of the Jordanian public sector entities. The data collected were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling. The TOE framework has been used in this study to consider a wide set of TOE factors. Then, this study suggests a CAATTs adoption model that incorporates the related technology factors of the diffusion of innovation theory to environmental and organizational factors. Further, this study contributes to the TOE framework by addressing government regulations, audit bodies’ support and audit task complexity as environmental factors affecting CAATTs adoption in the context of the public sector.

The results revealed that for technological factors, only the compatibility affects CAATTs adoption by the IA departments. For organizational factors, organizational readiness, top management support, auditors’ information technology competency and entity size were found to be significant factors. From the environmental factors, both government regulation and audit task complexity influence the CAATTs adoption. Besides, entity size moderates the influence of top management support on the CAATTs adoption in the public sector.

The findings could highlight the significance of the CAATTs adoption in the public sector institutions (by internal auditors) post-COVID-19, taking into consideration the TOE framework’s factors. Also, the findings are significant for the decision-makers and regulators in declaring new legislation for the electronic IA profession in the Jordanian public sector.

It turns out that the CAATTs adoption in the public sector can definitely enhance their ability to achieve the role of IA in preserving public funds and restricting corrupt practices within the public sector.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first studies that address the professional audit agency support and audit task complexity as environmental factors, as well as the entity size as an organizational factor, that affect CAATTs adoption in the IA department of the public sector.

New public management (NPM) has transformed the public sector auditing context, although in quite different ways. Further, investigations into NPM’s impact on public sector auditors and audit institutions have been largely unconnected, with the exception of the critical examination of performance audits. We investigate the question of how public sector auditors’ roles and activities have changed as a result of NPM and later reforms.

We examine and synthesise public sector audit research examining reforms since the year 2000. The research presented considers changes to external and internal public sector audits as well as the development of public sector audit institutions – known as supreme audit institutions (SAIs).

Considerable changes have occurred. Many were influenced by NPM, but others have evolved from the eco-system of accounting, auditing and public sector management. External auditors have responded to an increase in demand for accountability. Additional management and governance techniques have been introduced from the private sector, such as internal auditing and audit committees. NPM has also led to conflicting trends, particularly when governments introduced competition to public sector auditing by contracting out but then chose to centralise to improve accountability. There is also greater international influence now through bodies like the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) and similar regional bodies.

NPM reforms and the eco-system have impacted public sector auditing. Sustainability reporting is emerging as an area requiring more auditing attention; auditors also need to continue to develop better ways to communicate with citizens. Further, research into auditing in non-Western nations and emerging technologies is also required, especially where it provides learnings around more valuable audit practices. Empirical evidence is required of the strengths and weaknesses of SAIs’ structural variety.

Decentralised administrative arrangements and the active function of local government organisations are essential to tackle crisis effectively. Using Bangladesh as a case study, this paper examines the central and local government administrative arrangements during COVID-19 pandemic.

This study applies qualitative content analysis and interviews to explore the local government’s role in Bangladesh’s COVID-19 management by interviews of 18 participants including government officials, experts, non-government organisations (NGOs) representatives, and the general public. This paper also analysed academic papers, policy documents and other publicly available documents, including newspaper reports.

The Constitution of Bangladesh intensified the active participation of local government in each administrative unit through decentralised administrative management. This paper however reveals that the administrative arrangement during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh was primarily a centrally led system. The local government was not sufficiently involved, nor had it integrated into the planning and coordination process. This indicated the absence of active decentralised administration.

This study fills the research gap of the administrative pattern and local relations in COVID-19 management by exploring the local government’s role during the catastrophic situation and highlights the importance of decentralised administrative actions in managing the crisis.

Achieving tenure security is a global challenge impacting cities of the global south. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the role of technology-enabled solutions as an enabler for the tenure rights of slum dwellers.

In this paper, we adopted a case study approach to analyze the use cases for technologies aiding India’s securitization of land tenure. The flagship state mission of Odisha, named the Jaga Mission, and that of Punjab, named BASERA – the Chief Minister’s Slum Development Program – were used as cases for this paper.

It was found that technologies like drone imagery and digital surveys fast-tracked the data collection and helped in mapping the slums with accuracy, mitigating human errors arising during measurement – a necessary condition for ensuring de jure tenure security. The adoption of a technology-based solution, along with a suitable policy and legal framework, has helped in the distribution of secure land titles to the slum dwellers in these states.

Odisha’s and Punjab’s journey in using technology to enable tenure security for its urban poor residents can serve as a model for the cities of the global south, dealing with the challenges of providing secure tenure and property rights.

This study examines the bi-directional relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and ownership structure through a dynamic empirical framework in an emerging economy context.

Data over 10 years are used to investigate the response of disclosure to ownership structure variables and vice versa. Dynamic bi-directional relationships are hypothesised and empirically investigated using a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model. The ownership structure variables used are government ownership, block ownership and director ownership, while CSRD is constructed as a score through content analysis.

A bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership is found, revealing a preference for the state to invest in companies with opaque disclosure. CSRD is found to respond negatively to block ownership, albeit weakly. Results also show that directors prefer to own shares in the company they manage when there are low levels of CSRD.

The current empirical set-up of using a small emerging economy may not carry to the context of larger emerging economies where the institutional context may differ. Thus, future research could use this dynamic empirical approach to re-examine the questions raised in this paper using data from other emerging economies. The use of a longer time series makes it feasible to explore further analysis what was not possible in this study, such as an impulse response analysis examining the reaction of the variables of interest, CSRD and ownership variables for a specific time horizon to particular changes or shocks associated with one of the endogenous variables in the PVAR.

A major implication is that expecting disclosure practices to improve due to government and director initiatives would be less likely in emerging economies. State and director shareholders prefer to invest in opaque companies because they may purposely choose to keep the minimum disclosure levels. The paper calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

The study investigates the bi-directional relationship between ownership structure and CSRD in contrast to the existing literature's presupposed one-way relationship between these variables by demonstrating that bi-directionality does matter. This paper also contributes to the CSRD literature in the emerging economy context. The bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership calls for a transparent selection process of board members as representatives of the state in those companies where the government has an ownership stake. It also calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

To assess which partnerships were most critical during the recovery planning process following Hurricanes Maria and Irma. We discuss the roles and impact of different types of partners, barriers and facilitators to partnerships and lessons in collaboration during the development of the economic and disaster recovery plan for Puerto Rico.

The Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) was tasked with assisting the Puerto Rican government with an assessment of damages from Hurricanes Maria and Irma and the development of the Recovery Plan. During the process, a small team compiled and coded a database of meetings with non-HSOAC partners. The team was divided into sector teams that mirrored FEMA’s Recovery Support Functions. Each sector completed two surveys identifying high impact partners and their roles and contributions, as well as barriers and facilitators to partnerships.

A total of 1,382 engagements were recorded across all sectors over seven months. The most frequently identified high impact partners were federal and Puerto Rican governmental organizations partners. NGOs and nonprofits were noted as key partners in obtaining community perspective. Sector teams cited a lack of trust and difficulty identifying partners as barriers to partner engagement. Given the expedited nature of disaster response, establishing partnerships before disasters occur may help facilitate community input. Early networking, increased transparency and defining roles and responsibilities may increase trust and effectiveness among partnerships.

To our knowledge, this is one of the few studies that quantifies and illustrates the partnerships formed and their contributions during recovery planning, and lessons learned.

This study asks whether external auditors enable the transfer of policies to the United Nations organizations that they audit and, if so, what types of policies are transferred.

The empirical research is based on a content analysis of 512 external auditor recommendations from 28 pre- and post-accrual reports of 14 UN bodies.

We find that external auditors do enable policy transfer and that such involvements may, at times, veer into non-neutral policy spaces.

We did not analyze all UN organizations with accruals-based accounting. We also did not engage in a longer longitudinal study.

Our findings raise new questions about international organization accountability, the technocratic and policy-specific influences of external auditors, and open a debate about whether attempted policy transfers can be neutral.

The world’s largest group of international organizations is affiliated with the UN. External auditors help ensure that member-state monies are appropriately utilized. Our study is the first to compare pre- and post-accrual external auditor recommendations for 14 UN bodies. It is also the first to notate and study the attempted policy transfers from external auditors to the audited UN bodies.

The sustainable development goal (SDG 17) is to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development. Partnership is a key strategy for acquiring skills, information and private finance for developing critical infrastructure projects. Existing studies have mostly concentrated on identifying critical success factors (CSFs) for successfully delivering public–private partnerships (PPPs) projects, but the interrelationships among CSFs expected from stakeholders have garnered less attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the interconnections among CSFs of PPP projects while keeping the public in mind, as well as the influencing routes that contribute to success in the PPP implementation process.

The study uses a mixed-method approach that involves both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. The data for the study were collected through a well-structured questionnaire from the respondents who are directly or indirectly associated with the PPP project implementation process. The CSF’s framework was built using a literature study and expert interviews; nine hypotheses were developed and evaluated using structural equation modelling. Random and purposive sampling techniques were used for the respondents who were directly or indirectly associated with the PPP project implementation process.

The findings of this study reveal that the relationship between public and private partners is more adherent than collaborative, with unequal responsibilities, powers and resources distributed among the parties involved. The relevance of state rules, the PPP directive and policies in PPP implementation is supported by the positive connection between favourable environments (Fav_Env) and government attributes (Gov_Atr; the path coefficient is 0.405). Moreover, government attributes have a favourable influence on private company attributes (Pvt_Atr; the path coefficient is 0.198), showing that the state plays a substantial role in the private sector’s decision-making process in PPP. The long-term sustainability and success of a PPP project are dependent on the established interrelationships between CSFs.

The established interrelationships between CSFs will contribute to the long-term viability and success of a PPP project. Since PPP is still in its infancy in India, the study of CSFs in PPPs and their interrelationships will help policymakers and other stakeholders better understand the major individual factors impacting the success or failure of PPP initiatives.

Because PPP is still in its infancy in India, the study of CSFs in PPPs and their interrelationships will help policymakers and other stakeholders to better understand the major individual factors impacting the success or failure of PPP initiatives. A key implication of the study borders on providing a better understanding of the relationships between CSFs and public engagement. This is also critical for the long-term viability of PPPs and the enhancement of public service quality.