Building legitimacy for European public sector accounting standards (EPSAS)

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to look at the European public sector accounting standards (EPSAS) project development path to explore how governance and legitimacy issues intertwine when a new standard-setting system is developed. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative interpretative multimethod approach is adopted, which encompasses document analysis and participative observations. Findings The analysis shows the role of governance dimensions, including institutional participation and consensus, in the process for securing the legitimacy of accounting standards and the related setting processes, pointing to the critical issues emerging throughout the development of the EPSAS project. Originality/value The definition of public sector accounting standards poses significant challenges to the accounting profession and regulators alike. A paradigmatic case of such challenges is represented by the decisions to develop harmonised EPSAS. A key contribution of this paper is to connect legitimacy dimensions with network governance, offering a view of the input, output and procedural dimensions associated with decisions to legitimise EPSAS and how these may be affected by network governance.

IPSAS for European Union member states as starting points for EPSAS

“…Also, there is the danger of reform failure if the proposed changes do not take the different starting positions of EU member states into consideration. These issues, including the legitimacy of EPSAS (Dabbicco and Steccolini, forthcoming), need to be addressed by change agents.…”

Influências estrangeiras no desenvolvimento e inovações recentes em contabilidade e finanças do setor público na América Latina

“…Similarly, Baskerville and Grossi (2019) approached the translation of international public sector accounting standards (IPSAS) to New Zealand under the 'glocalization' research agenda, in which foreign influences would be locally assimilated not overwhelming the local characteristics of the accounting context. The subject was also recently covered by the epistemic communities' approach, in which professional groups play a relevant role in diffusing the reform (Christensen, Newberry, & Potter, 2019), or with a public governance focus, emphasizing the role of governance dimensions, including institutional participation and consensus, in the process of securing the legitimacy of public sector accounting standards and the related setting processes (Dabbicco & Steccolini, 2019). Finally, some authors applied the literature on normativity to explain whether a change is prone to be adopted depending on the legitimacy of the proponent (Brusca, Grossi, & Manes-Rossi, 2018;Aquino, Lino, Cardoso, & Grossi, 2018).…”

“…We are hopeful this special issue will encourage further scholarly reflections, along several lines. The first is to continue to explore the different types of actors involved at the influence process, and how they organize themselves, aggregating to the literature on epistemic communities (Christensen et al, 2019), public governance and legitimacy (Dabbicco & Steccolini, 2019), and normativity (Aquino et al, 2020;Brusca et al, 2018). A second avenue is to explore the dynamics of translation and circulation of accounting policies (Oliveira & Pal, 2018).…”

Overseas influences on the development and recent innovations on public sector accounting and finance in Latin America

“…Similarly, Baskerville and Grossi (2019) approached the translation of international public sector accounting standards (IPSAS) to New Zealand under the 'glocalization' research agenda, in which foreign influences would be locally assimilated not overwhelming the local characteristics of the accounting context. The subject was also recently covered by the epistemic communities' approach, in which professional groups play a relevant role in diffusing the reform (Christensen, Newberry, & Potter, 2019), or with a public governance focus, emphasizing the role of governance dimensions, including institutional participation and consensus, in the process of securing the legitimacy of public sector accounting standards and the related setting processes (Dabbicco & Steccolini, 2019). Finally, some authors applied the literature on normativity to explain whether a change is prone to be adopted depending on the legitimacy of the proponent (Brusca, Grossi, & Manes-Rossi, 2018;Aquino, Lino, Cardoso, & Grossi, 2018).…”

“…We are hopeful this special issue will encourage further scholarly reflections, along several lines. The first is to continue to explore the different types of actors involved at the influence process, and how they organize themselves, aggregating to the literature on epistemic communities (Christensen et al, 2019), public governance and legitimacy (Dabbicco & Steccolini, 2019), and normativity (Aquino et al, 2020;Brusca et al, 2018). A second avenue is to explore the dynamics of translation and circulation of accounting policies (Oliveira & Pal, 2018).…”