Abstract:Governments are becoming digital; however, a shift toward digital transformation may not always occur voluntarily. For example, despite their willingness or skills, local government accountants are usually forced to adopt a digital innovation to comply with requirements from top-down public financial management reforms-a typical case of compulsory digital transformation. We observe local government accountants' attitudes toward compulsory digital transformation and their effects on the comprehensiveness of the… Show more
“…On the one hand, whenever new data are collected, the Courts might invest in new CAATT modules to analyze the enlarged dataset. On the other hand, local governments’ FMIS are continuously changing to cope with the requirement to upload their data following the data entry masks of the data collection system (Lino et al., 2022).…”
Section: The Collective‐action Frame Of Remote Compliance Auditing In...mentioning
As public sector organizations are undergoing a digital transformation, public auditing is increasingly relying on technology to enable it to collect and analyze large amounts of data. We analyze how the introduction and development of digital artifacts in a governmental audit setting end up affording audit practices. Focusing on the introduction of computer‐assisted audit tools and techniques (CAATTs) developed by Courts of Accounts in Brazil, our findings indicate that the digital infrastructure maintained by each Court in Brazil is the material center of a dominant frame of remote compliance audit practice. Besides CAATTs’ interface, scripts and algorithms in the infrastructure's backstage also add to the affordance of the digital devices used by auditors—that is, auditors’ action possibilities molded by technology. Through interviews with governmental auditors, we provide evidence on how CAATTs afford their practices while showing that auditors are not fully aware of how their skepticism and autonomy are being affected by the introduction of such devices and by the reinforcement of remote audit practice.
“…On the one hand, whenever new data are collected, the Courts might invest in new CAATT modules to analyze the enlarged dataset. On the other hand, local governments’ FMIS are continuously changing to cope with the requirement to upload their data following the data entry masks of the data collection system (Lino et al., 2022).…”
Section: The Collective‐action Frame Of Remote Compliance Auditing In...mentioning
As public sector organizations are undergoing a digital transformation, public auditing is increasingly relying on technology to enable it to collect and analyze large amounts of data. We analyze how the introduction and development of digital artifacts in a governmental audit setting end up affording audit practices. Focusing on the introduction of computer‐assisted audit tools and techniques (CAATTs) developed by Courts of Accounts in Brazil, our findings indicate that the digital infrastructure maintained by each Court in Brazil is the material center of a dominant frame of remote compliance audit practice. Besides CAATTs’ interface, scripts and algorithms in the infrastructure's backstage also add to the affordance of the digital devices used by auditors—that is, auditors’ action possibilities molded by technology. Through interviews with governmental auditors, we provide evidence on how CAATTs afford their practices while showing that auditors are not fully aware of how their skepticism and autonomy are being affected by the introduction of such devices and by the reinforcement of remote audit practice.
“…Lino et al. (2022) bring to our attention the challenges that the digital transformation conveys to the accountability process in public‐sector organizations, especially during the information generation phase. Looking at the local government's accountability process in Brazil, as a typical example of a context in which multiple accountability forums increased demands for data due to digitization, the paper addressed how the digital demands in the accountability information phase affect accountants, in particular, and the accountability process as a whole.…”
Section: The Papers In This Special Issuementioning
confidence: 99%
“…If this relationship is missing, innovation attempts may be endangered. The empirical evidence provided by two papers in this special issue help us to understand the role of open and transparent communication between government and citizens, and to consider the different values of the actual/potential audiences of a service (Lino et al., 2022; Arnaboldi & Diaz Lema, 2022).…”
Section: Concluding Thoughtsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Central management accountants valued more predefined/standardized high-quality information, while local management accountants preferred more customized information for their local needs. Counter-intuitively, the results show that cloud technology may make accounting and control processes unduly inflexible and cumbersome at the local level Lino et al (2022). bring to our attention the challenges that the digital transformation conveys to the accountability process in public-sector organizations, especially during the information generation phase.…”
mentioning
confidence: 96%
“…; Diaz Lema, M. Explore how social media strategy is shaped and enacted through their day-to-day business and activityStrategy-as-practice (SaP)Multiple case studyDigital transformation not only affects accounting and accountability but also the accountants involved in the process(Schmitz & Leoni, 2019). Two papers in this special issue address the way accountants accommodate, leverage, and/or oppose digital transformation(Carlsson-Wall et al, 2022;Lino et al 2022) Carlsson-Wall et al (2022). explore the extent to which a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (CERP) system affects the role of public-sector management accountants.…”
This paper introduces the special issue on accounting and accountability for the digital transformation of public services. Papers in special issues offer different perspectives on how digital technologies affect performance management, considering the challenges and opportunities that arise when digital data are collected and translated into a set of measures, the complexity of relying on these digital data to enhance transparency and accountability, and the organizational implications of digital data when used to support public-sector decision makers in a variety of activities, such as auditing or benchmarking.
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