This study examines the importance of different agents of change in the adoption of public sector accrual accounting. For this purpose, an accounting index is used and applied on a large sample of Flemish local governments to analyse the level of adoption of the altered accounting requirements. The impact of a number of prominent agents is empirically tested on the level of adoption in a cross-sectional way. The study draws on institutional theory to build a framework for analysis and uses additional interviews to interpret the findings. The research shows that the de facto implementation of the new accounting requirements is limited and strongly influenced by local management's interest and the involvement of professional consultants. In the absence of a sound guidance and monitoring process, the skilful action of dedicated agents of change has become important to implement some far-reaching changes in the organisations' accounting system.
During the past few years, the financial industry has been characterised by an ongoing cross-sector and cross-border consolidation of financial institutions spanning banking, securities, and insurance institutions and the blurring demarcation of their respective products and instruments. Against the backdrop of these changes, the creation of a level playing field for financial services has become a key challenge for policy makers, regulators, and market participants alike. At different national and international levels, regulators, and supervisors have been responding to this challenge with a plethora of measures. This paper presents a number of initiatives at different supervisory levels in view of recent financial sector developments and discusses how the challenge of a level playing field is being tackled. Keywords: level playing field; globalisation; supervisory challenges; integrated supervision; cooperation Financial sector supervision in an era of changeThe ongoing cross-sector and cross-border consolidation of financial institutions including new financial conglomerates has led to a blurring of distinctions between financial sectors and national financial markets. 1 Against the backdrop of these changes, the creation of a level playing field for financial services has become a key challenge and a central point of attention for policy makers, regulators and market participants alike. A plethora of measures have been launched by many countries and organisations around the world in the desire to offer higher levels of competition, transparency, equal access and greater financial stability. The most notable example is the establishment of the European single market in financial services with the possibility to offer identical arrangements across the EU. To this end, the European Commission has launched a financial services policy, which clearly focuses on an integrated, open, inclusive and competitive financial market. 2 At a national level, many countries have been considering the institutional structures of financial regulation in order to safeguard a level playing field between financial institutions. For many years, the architecture of financial supervision reflected a traditional approach, with separate agencies for banking, securities and
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