Governmental Financial Reporting Reforms and Relationship Marketing: An Analysis of International Public Sector Accounting Standards Implementation

This study aims to investigate the effect of the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) on corruption. This study utilizes a primary data approach based on survey design. The study uses a sample of 255 accountants and auditors in the Nigerian public sector. Multivariate regression analysis r is performed on data gathered from the field of study. The study finds that the implementation of IPSASs significantly affects transparency and accountability favorably at .05 level of significance. The analysis of the result based on the doctrine of Oli–eclectic paradigm, agency and culture theories indicates that improved transparency and accountability in the public sector will enhance relationship marketing.     

The quality of governance and momentum profits: International evidence

This paper examines the presence of momentum (sell past losers and buy past winners) and proposes accountability, level of corruption, and governance effectiveness as a novel explanation for return continuation phenomena in an international setting. In essence, we test the possibility of beating the international stock markets and producing abnormal profits from momentum investing. We found that both accountability and level of corruption are significantly correlated with government effectiveness. Countries and institutional environments with better scores on the accountability and control of corruption indices maintain better levels of governance effectiveness. In addition, through an analysis of the international momentum strategies, the paper shows that the quality of governance as captured by accountability, government effectiveness, and control of corruption, significantly affect the international momentum profits. Overall, the findings explain the presence of momentum and add a fresh dimension to the literature that the quality of governance influences the stability of financial markets, which is of significant importance in understanding pricing effects and stock market anomalies. Our findings are robust, having been subjected to a range of robustness checks.     

Tweaking public sector reporting with integrated reporting (IR) concepts

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the annual departmental reports prepared by Maltese government departments and highlights the gap between current practices and integrated reporting (IR). The authors suggest that principles and elements of IR could be gradually introduced in an effort to enhance transparency and accountability. The internalization of integrated thinking could also lead to enhanced value creation, and overcome the silo mentality that characterizes the Maltese public sector. Detailed guidelines for preparing ADRs urgently need to be developed in Malta—preparers should not expect to find them in the IIRC Framework, because they are not there.     

Institutionalising multiple accountability logics in public services: Insights from Australia

This paper reports on a field study of how a range of inter-institutional and inter-organisational forces shape the evolving rhetoric and practice of multiple accountabilities in public services. Drawing on the institutional logics perspective, we carried out a qualitative field study in the Australian Commonwealth Public Service involving semi-structured interviews, two focus group discussions, and the examination of internal accounting, management reports, and government archival records. The findings suggest that emphasis on conventional instrumental mechanisms and reporting tools, such as budgeting and accrual-based reporting, support managerial (instrumental) accountability through compliance logics. We conclude that an emphasis on public (relational) accountability through public dialogue is central to the public sector accountability debate, and that more attention needs to be paid to the question of how to balance the dual logics (instrumental and relational) in public services. The findings provide practical insights for public sector managers, policymakers and governments responsible for designing and implementing reforms, accounting tools, and accountability practices.     

New accounts: Towards a reframing of social accounting

This paper is a speculative and exploratory essay on the emerging field of social accounting. In essence, the paper explores whether the fact that most social accounting has, traditionally at any rate, being promulgated by accountants might be a partial explanation for its self-disciplining limitations and, arguably, its weak inroads into discourse and practice. Through the lens of Erik Olin Wright's work, the paper reconsiders the potential of the social accounting project(s) and argues for the importance of accounts as a means of interstitial transformation as a complement to the traditional privileging of accounts directed towards symbiotic transformations.     

Mapping tax compliance: Assemblages,distributed action and practices: A new way of doing tax research

Tax compliance denotes the act of reporting and paying taxes in accordance with the tax laws. Current social science scholarship on tax compliance can almost entirely be divided into behavioural psychology analyses and critical tax studies. This article, which presents two cases of how tax compliance is constructed, challenges the explanatory reaches of today's social science approaches, arguing that an alternative approach to understanding tax compliance is worthwhile exploring. This other choice of approach, inspired by actor–network theory (ANT), adopts a more practice-oriented focus that studies tax compliance where it takes place as well as what it is made of. Consequently, this article argues that tax compliance is a socio-material assemblage and that complying is a distributed action. The article concludes by highlighting how an ANT approach contributes to the further theoretical development of social science studies of taxation.     

A ‘panoptical’ or ‘synoptical’ approach to monitoring performance? Local public services in England and the widening accountability gap

This article highlights how recent reforms to the auditing and assessment of local public services in England suggest there will be a shift from panoptical to ‘synoptical’ monitoring approaches. This is because the UK Government has abolished its centralised monitoring regime and instead required local authorities to publish a range of financial and performance datasets online, ostensibly so that citizens can hold organisations to account directly. However, the complexity and raw nature of these data, along with the sidelining of professional auditors, will result in most citizens being either unable or unwilling to undertake this task. As such, the proposed ‘synoptical’ approach will not materialise. Indeed, other legislative changes will mean that outsourcing firms effectively become the new, unaccountable observers of local public sector bodies within an enduring panoptical system. In many cases these companies will then assume responsibility for delivering the same services that they have assessed.     

Political competition,tax salience and accountability. Theory and evidence from Italy

This paper argues that electoral competition may hinder rather than foster political accountability, especially when elected officers can choose among a number of tax instruments. We develop a political agency model showing that politicians in more competitive jurisdictions use less salient tax instruments more intensely. Defining salience as visibility or, analogously, as voters' awareness of the costs associated with specific government revenue sources, we argue that voters are less likely to hold politicians to account for the associated tax burden of a less salient instrument. This in turn implies that strategic politicians will more heavily rely on less salient revenue sources when electoral competition is stronger. Using data on Italian municipal elections and taxes over a 10-year period, we determine the degree of salience of various tax instruments, including property taxes (high salience) and government fees for official documents (low salience). We then show that mayors facing stronger competition for re-election use less salient tax instruments more intensely.     

Novel approaches to the regulatory control of financial services providers: The importance of cultural context

This study investigates the effectiveness of a public sector financial management initiative. Specifically, the powers awarded to the Irish Financial Services Ombudsman (FSO) in 2013 to name and shame malfeasance by financial service providers (FSPs) in its annual reports. As the first country to award such powers to its public sector financial ombudsman, Ireland represents a novel setting in which to test the impact of regulatory disclosure as a way to promote accountability and transparency. Our results show that the number of complaints lodged against malfeasants dropped in the immediate aftermath of this and, following a one-year lag, so did the percentage of complaints lodged that proceeded to a full investigation and legally binding finding. Despite the failure of such strategies in some jurisdictions, the Irish experience indicates that regulatory disclosure can, in line with Neo-Durkheimian institutional theory and consistent with the accounting and accountability literature, have considerable impact where and when contextual preconditions are met. These findings have important implications for the operationalisation of regulatory disclosure as an accountability enhancing measure in other jurisdictions.     

Organizational management in New Zealand’s public service

This paper explores the extent to which New Zealand’s central government organizations are effectively reporting on, and arguably therefore focusing on, the management of their organizations, as well as their operations. There is widespread concern that new public management reforms have resulted in an over-emphasis on the former at the expense of the latter. A solution to this problem requires a clear and consistent framework for how organizational management should be reported.