Guest editorial: Public sector accounting in emerging economies in the evolving post-COVID-19 era

Adhikari, Pawan; Nkundabanyanga, Stephen Korutaro; Soobaroyen, Teerooven; Jayasinghe, Kelum

doi:10.1108/jpbafm-06-2023-203

JPBAFM

2023

DOI: 10.1108/jpbafm-06-2023-203

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Guest editorial: Public sector accounting in emerging economies in the evolving post-COVID-19 era

Pawan Adhikari,

Stephen Korutaro Nkundabanyanga,

Teerooven Soobaroyen

et al.

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Cited by 2 publications

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Reflections on public sector accrual accounting and reporting: a post-operative transplant view

Christensen,

Cohen,

Ellwood

et al. 2024

JPBAFM

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PurposeThis paper aims to identify thematic issues in public sector accrual accounting and financial reporting that learn from the past and provide lessons for the future by reflecting on the warnings in Olson et al.’s seminal 1998 book Global Warning.Design/methodology/approachMethodologically, this paper takes insights developed by an experienced pool of public sector accounting scholars and refines them via frames of thinking such as accountability, democracy, decision-making and governance. The discussion follows a medical analogy of an organ transplant in which the public sector was diagnosed as an ailing patient and a for-profit accounting system (business accrual accounting and reporting) has been transplanted to it as a cure. We discuss the relation of accrual accounting as a tool of neoliberal policies in the health sector (diagnosis ailment and organ transplant), technical issues regarding accrual accounting and those implementing it (technology of the transplanted organ) and the effects of that accounting on the public sector (the progress of the patient after the transplant).FindingsFrom the topics and examples addressed, we conclude that the transplantation of business accounting and reporting to the public sector carries wider implications for large-scale accounting change and requires vigilance. Transplanting to new fields of accounting technology that is itself undergoing constant change may be more problematic and challenging than previously recognized.Originality/valueCritical challenge and assessment of whether Global Warning’s concerns are still valid today and whether the public sector faces new “warnings” regarding its accounting and reporting.

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Reflections on public sector accrual accounting and reporting: a post-operative transplant view

Christensen,

Cohen,

Ellwood

et al. 2024

JPBAFM

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Reproduction of efficiency through management accounting practices: Socio‐economic, environmental, and human consequences of NPM reforms

Barrios‐Álvarez,

Adhikari,

Salifu

et al. 2023

Financ Acc Manag

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Using Giddens (1984) structuration theory (ST), in this paper we illustrate how the efficiency‐driven approaches adopted by a large stated‐owned public company in Latin America (Latin American Multiutility Conglomerate [LAMC]) implicitly resulted in triggering a dam disaster with far‐reaching socio‐economic, environmental, and human consequences. Data for the study were derived through document analysis and conducting unstructured, semi‐structured, and email interviews. Our findings show that the internalization of efficiency as a corporate value at LAMC was further rationalized through the adoption of new public management (NPM)‐based management accounting practices (MAPs) embedded within the market‐led development approach. These MAPs connected agencies and structures in a dialectic way and continued reproducing efficiency through day‐to‐day operations and by enabling the company to champion itself as a successful NPM adopter. However, throughout this process, the socio‐environmental and human costs relating to “the dam project” were overlooked, making the disaster inevitable. The paper questions the market‐led development approach, and NPM‐based MAPs, and calls for further empirical work delineating how MAPs can be implicated in public value creation and promoting publicness in emerging economies. Such work is of paramount importance not only to prevent the “unexpected and unwanted effects of public sector accounting” under NPM and market‐led development but also to save the lives and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable community members in emerging economies.

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Guest editorial: Public sector accounting in emerging economies in the evolving post-COVID-19 era

Cited by 2 publications

References 53 publications

Reflections on public sector accrual accounting and reporting: a post-operative transplant view

Reflections on public sector accrual accounting and reporting: a post-operative transplant view

Reproduction of efficiency through management accounting practices: Socio‐economic, environmental, and human consequences of NPM reforms

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