Implementing public sector accruals in OECD member states: Major issues and challenges

Abstract

Drawing on extended new institutional theory, this paper has striven to make heard the voices of accountants, budget officers, and policy makers involved in implementing public sector accruals in different OECD member states. Such voices of the organisational actors and the challenges that they are encountering in the process of implementing accrual accounting and budgeting in their specific settings are missing in the existing public sector accruals literature.The empirical findings of the study demonstrate that the political and technical ambiguities in implementing public sector accruals across countries are much broader than outlined in the academic work and presented in the reports and studies of the proponents. Such challenges, when cascaded down to the organisational level, have brought about vast uncertainty and confusion amongst most of the budget and treasury officers who deal with public sector accruals in their specific jurisdictions, threatening the legitimacy at the organisational level.More communication and collaboration amongst the actors at institutional, organisationalfield and organisational levels are therefore needed to build a coherent body of knowledge in facilitating public sector accruals reforms across countries.

“Does your walk match your talk?” Analyzing IPSASs diffusion in developing and developed countries

“…Cases where politicians and other users have actually utilised accrual information in decision-making are scarce (Ezzamel et al, 2014;Hepworth, 2015;Liguori and Steccolini, 2018). Developed countries are becoming increasingly convinced of the need for ACC.A, either as a means for demonstrating governments' long-term sustainability or for managing the consequences of fiscal and sovereign debt crises (Adhikari and Gårseth-Nesbakk, 2016). It has been argued that the recent financial crisis has made the adoption of ACC.A inevitable for public sector entities in Western countries (Ball and Pflugrath, 2012).…”

The Value of Public Sector Risk Management: An Empirical Assessment of Ghana

“…Based on these revelations, the study also recommends extensive research to confirm the relationship between corporate governance and risk management as it was fairly discussed Baumgartner and Rauter 2017). According to the COSO internal control framework, it is the sole responsibility of the board and top management to establish the risk culture, control environment, and demonstrate commitment to these sets of values as a positive example for the entire organization and for the purposes of compliance and other corporate objectives (Adhikari and Gårseth-Nesbakk 2016;Agyei-Mensah and Kwame 2016). This certainly constitutes a potential topic for further research.…”

“…However, public sector entities possess distinctive traits that distinguish them from their private counterparts such as the priority areas in risk management, stakeholder groups, profit orientation and the degree of resources including the human capital (Aziz et al 2015). Risk management, risk analysis and assessment are terms that are frequently used in the public sector and the business domain but the true meaning is often misconstrued in the public sector, which calls for the role of information and communication in conveying clear instructions of processed information across the length and breadth of the organization (Adhikari and Gårseth-Nesbakk 2016). Nonetheless, the real meanings of these concepts are often used interchangeably by means of mixed interpretations (Anna and Nikolay 2015).…”

“…This is in sharp contrast with the case of Ghana, where the public sector is strictly governed based on laws, administrative and legal instruments that are subject to amendment only through parliamentary procedures, making it extremely cumbersome to implement innovation flexibly in this fast-changing globalized world (Appiah et al 2016;Asante 2016;Barafort et al 2017). Whereas in the US, enterprise risk management in public sector administration is mostly guided by the COSO frameworks for risk and internal control systems, proposed by five private sector organizations committed to providing guidance through the development of frameworks to support corporate business and the public sector (Adhikari and Gårseth-Nesbakk 2016;King 2016;. The International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), which functions as an umbrella organization for the entire government audit community, and a couple audit firms such as KPMG, Deloitte, Ernest & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers have contributed immensely to risk management as far as internal control and public sector administration is concerned (Lim et al 2017).…”

Evaluating the Implementation of a Mandatory Dual Reporting System: The Case of Indonesian Local Government

“…In terms of methodological issues, beyond survey and documentary analysis, many researchers use a comparative approach and case studies to investigate the nature and implications of public sector accounting reforms across nations (Adhikari and Gårseth-Nesbakk 2016;Lapsley et al 2010). However, most of the sites previously investigated are in developed economies.…”