Accounting innovations: A contingent view on italian local governments

Abstract

Accounting innovations, and especially the introduction of accruals accounting, are often portrayed as fundamental aspects of publicsector reforms. An increasing body of literature has been studying the experiences of different countries and levels of government, often referring to Lueder's (1992) "contingency model" and its subsequent developments. This model highlights a number of social, political, and administrative variables that are likely to affect government accounting innovations. It applies at a country-wide level and is mainly intended to describe and compare the environments within which accounting reforms take place, as well as the technical features of such reforms. Our paper, on the contrary, tries to expand the contingency model by applying it to individual organisations and by testing its explanatory power.

The Recent Reform of Spanish Local Governmental Accounting: A Critical Perspective from Local Governmental Accountants As Internal Users Of Budgeting And Financial Accounting Information.

“…As Anessi-Pessina et al (2010) pointed out, subnational governments' liquidity and solvency have two key determinants with do not show up in the balances sheet and operating statement: the ability to raise additional taxes and the likelihood of a bailout from upper tier of government. According to them, perhaps the existing accruals-based reports have not been adequately designed to capture the peculiarities of financial position in public sector organizations.…”

The Application of the Contingency Model and Soft Systems Methodology to Reconstruct the Intergovernmental Transfer System: Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Accrual-Based Accounting in Indonesia

“…The governmental accounting innovations can be explained using the contingency model 1 . This model has been applied by many researchers 4,7,8,[13][14][15] .…”

“…The implementation of accrual-based accounting can be defined as innovation in governmental accounting 1,7,8 . The best example of implementing accrual-based accounting is in accounting for non-exchange transactions; this is because the concept of comparing cost against revenue cannot be applied to that type of transaction 4,9,10 .…”

Development of Estonian local government accounting: the stages of evolution during the years 1991–2013

“…According to Debrin et al (1981) the overall goal of accounting and financial reporting for a governmental unit is to provide financial information useful for making economic, political and social decisions, demonstrating accountability and stewardship and to provide information useful for evaluating managerial and organizational performance. Accounting innovations, and especially the introduction of accruals accounting, are often portrayed as fundamental aspects of public sector reforms (Anessi-Pessina et al, 2010;Hood, 1991;Lüder, 1992;Lapsley and Pallott, 2000). As Anessi-Pessina et al (2010) point out, accrual accounting is often used as an umbrella term designating a wide range of solutions, replacing traditional budgetary accounting in some countries and levels of government and coexisting with it in others.…”

“…Accounting innovations, and especially the introduction of accruals accounting, are often portrayed as fundamental aspects of public sector reforms (Anessi-Pessina et al, 2010;Hood, 1991;Lüder, 1992;Lapsley and Pallott, 2000). As Anessi-Pessina et al (2010) point out, accrual accounting is often used as an umbrella term designating a wide range of solutions, replacing traditional budgetary accounting in some countries and levels of government and coexisting with it in others. Therefore accrual accounting should not be considered in isolation (Ellwood and Wynne, 2005) but as part of a package of wider public sector financial management reforms.…”