Accounting Reform in Greek Universities: A Slow Moving Process

Abstract

Reforms in the public sector have traditionally been faced by resistance and problems. Pettigrew justifies this attitude on theoretical grounds as the exercise of power from individuals and groups threatened by a change in strategy. The paper analyses this case by referring to the attempts of introducing accrual and management accounting practices in Greek Public Universities. Via a detailed examination of the context within which this reform took place and the phases it went through, we endeavour to explain, by using Pettigrew's theory regarding strategy and decision‐making, why it has not yet seriously progressed even though it was initiated in 1996.

Thai public universities: modernisation of accounting practices

“…Other highly ranked factors were not having enough full-time staff (mean ¼ 3.77), lack of expertise in information systems (mean ¼ 3.74) and lack of internal staff to monitor the change process (mean ¼ 3.74). These finding support Mimba et al (2007) and are similar to the problems identified by Venieris and Cohen (2004). Other barriers identified include a difficulty in designing a new financial system (mean ¼ 3.79), lack of understanding and knowledge of data requirements (mean ¼ 3.71), current technology not being able to cope with the new reporting requirements (mean ¼ 3.68), the lack of an external consultant (mean ¼ 3.65) and accounting staff shortage (mean ¼ 3.65).…”

“…It can be seen that accrual accounting (mean ¼ 4.47) is the most important technique, followed by budgeting and costing practices to enable measurement and control of operations. This further supports the suggestion that accrual accounting is necessary to support the costing change found in previous studies (Venieris and Cohen, 2004;Tudor and Blidisel, 2008).…”

“…This is supported as the majority of respondents (60.7 percent) noted that the costing system was dependent on the change from cash to accrual accounting, and that this change process had not yet been completed. This is similar to findings of Venieris and Cohen's (2004) who identified that the introduction of cost accounting was less than that of accrual based accounting in Greek universities as the cost accounting system could not run as a parallel system without accrual based accounts.…”

Thai public universities: modernisation of accounting practices

“…Other highly ranked factors were not having enough full-time staff (mean ¼ 3.77), lack of expertise in information systems (mean ¼ 3.74) and lack of internal staff to monitor the change process (mean ¼ 3.74). These finding support Mimba et al (2007) and are similar to the problems identified by Venieris and Cohen (2004). Other barriers identified include a difficulty in designing a new financial system (mean ¼ 3.79), lack of understanding and knowledge of data requirements (mean ¼ 3.71), current technology not being able to cope with the new reporting requirements (mean ¼ 3.68), the lack of an external consultant (mean ¼ 3.65) and accounting staff shortage (mean ¼ 3.65).…”

“…It can be seen that accrual accounting (mean ¼ 4.47) is the most important technique, followed by budgeting and costing practices to enable measurement and control of operations. This further supports the suggestion that accrual accounting is necessary to support the costing change found in previous studies (Venieris and Cohen, 2004;Tudor and Blidisel, 2008).…”

“…This is supported as the majority of respondents (60.7 percent) noted that the costing system was dependent on the change from cash to accrual accounting, and that this change process had not yet been completed. This is similar to findings of Venieris and Cohen's (2004) who identified that the introduction of cost accounting was less than that of accrual based accounting in Greek universities as the cost accounting system could not run as a parallel system without accrual based accounts.…”

The foreign direct investment decision‐making process

“…Unlike normative models of decision-making that present the process as linear and structured, Mintzberg et al's (1976) empirical work shows the iterative nature of the decision process. A similar iterative nature was observed in the FDI processes of the organisation explored in this current research (see the case study findings below), endorsing previous findings in the existing literature (Ghertman, 1978;Larimo, 1995;Venieris and Cohen, 2004), and having parallels to the adaptive view of strategy (Mintzberg, 1978). Given, however, that the majority of prior research on FDI and general capital investment decision-making adopts a linear type model, the next section will outline the case study organisation's practices within the typically conceived stages, before moving on to a more comprehensive discussion of the case study findings.…”

Constraints and stimuli in the implementation of public accounting reform: systematic literature review and future research agenda

“…In developed countries, the change of governments and the different priorities of government departments are not conducive to smoothly functioning reforms (Nakmahachalasint and Narktabtee, 2019; Reginato et al , 2010; van Helden et al , 2018). Previous studies demonstrated that there is a lack of governmental commitment and involvement (Christiaens, 2001; Fuentes and Borreguero, 2018; Gomes et al , 2015; Venieris and Cohen, 2004). For instance, van Helden et al (2018) investigate why central governments in European countries have moved to accruals budgeting while others keep using cash budgeting, and find that stakeholders in government show more reluctance when deciding on a budgeting concept than a financial reporting change, which is perceived as being less essential.…”

Thai public universities: modernisation of accounting practices

“…Other highly ranked factors were not having enough full-time staff (mean ¼ 3.77), lack of expertise in information systems (mean ¼ 3.74) and lack of internal staff to monitor the change process (mean ¼ 3.74). These finding support Mimba et al (2007) and are similar to the problems identified by Venieris and Cohen (2004). Other barriers identified include a difficulty in designing a new financial system (mean ¼ 3.79), lack of understanding and knowledge of data requirements (mean ¼ 3.71), current technology not being able to cope with the new reporting requirements (mean ¼ 3.68), the lack of an external consultant (mean ¼ 3.65) and accounting staff shortage (mean ¼ 3.65).…”

“…It can be seen that accrual accounting (mean ¼ 4.47) is the most important technique, followed by budgeting and costing practices to enable measurement and control of operations. This further supports the suggestion that accrual accounting is necessary to support the costing change found in previous studies (Venieris and Cohen, 2004;Tudor and Blidisel, 2008).…”

“…This is supported as the majority of respondents (60.7 percent) noted that the costing system was dependent on the change from cash to accrual accounting, and that this change process had not yet been completed. This is similar to findings of Venieris and Cohen's (2004) who identified that the introduction of cost accounting was less than that of accrual based accounting in Greek universities as the cost accounting system could not run as a parallel system without accrual based accounts.…”

The foreign direct investment decision‐making process

“…Unlike normative models of decision-making that present the process as linear and structured, Mintzberg et al's (1976) empirical work shows the iterative nature of the decision process. A similar iterative nature was observed in the FDI processes of the organisation explored in this current research (see the case study findings below), endorsing previous findings in the existing literature (Ghertman, 1978;Larimo, 1995;Venieris and Cohen, 2004), and having parallels to the adaptive view of strategy (Mintzberg, 1978). Given, however, that the majority of prior research on FDI and general capital investment decision-making adopts a linear type model, the next section will outline the case study organisation's practices within the typically conceived stages, before moving on to a more comprehensive discussion of the case study findings.…”

Constraints and stimuli in the implementation of public accounting reform: systematic literature review and future research agenda

“…In developed countries, the change of governments and the different priorities of government departments are not conducive to smoothly functioning reforms (Nakmahachalasint and Narktabtee, 2019; Reginato et al , 2010; van Helden et al , 2018). Previous studies demonstrated that there is a lack of governmental commitment and involvement (Christiaens, 2001; Fuentes and Borreguero, 2018; Gomes et al , 2015; Venieris and Cohen, 2004). For instance, van Helden et al (2018) investigate why central governments in European countries have moved to accruals budgeting while others keep using cash budgeting, and find that stakeholders in government show more reluctance when deciding on a budgeting concept than a financial reporting change, which is perceived as being less essential.…”

Thai public universities: modernisation of accounting practices

“…Other highly ranked factors were not having enough full-time staff (mean ¼ 3.77), lack of expertise in information systems (mean ¼ 3.74) and lack of internal staff to monitor the change process (mean ¼ 3.74). These finding support Mimba et al (2007) and are similar to the problems identified by Venieris and Cohen (2004). Other barriers identified include a difficulty in designing a new financial system (mean ¼ 3.79), lack of understanding and knowledge of data requirements (mean ¼ 3.71), current technology not being able to cope with the new reporting requirements (mean ¼ 3.68), the lack of an external consultant (mean ¼ 3.65) and accounting staff shortage (mean ¼ 3.65).…”

“…It can be seen that accrual accounting (mean ¼ 4.47) is the most important technique, followed by budgeting and costing practices to enable measurement and control of operations. This further supports the suggestion that accrual accounting is necessary to support the costing change found in previous studies (Venieris and Cohen, 2004;Tudor and Blidisel, 2008).…”

“…This is supported as the majority of respondents (60.7 percent) noted that the costing system was dependent on the change from cash to accrual accounting, and that this change process had not yet been completed. This is similar to findings of Venieris and Cohen's (2004) who identified that the introduction of cost accounting was less than that of accrual based accounting in Greek universities as the cost accounting system could not run as a parallel system without accrual based accounts.…”

The foreign direct investment decision‐making process

“…Unlike normative models of decision-making that present the process as linear and structured, Mintzberg et al's (1976) empirical work shows the iterative nature of the decision process. A similar iterative nature was observed in the FDI processes of the organisation explored in this current research (see the case study findings below), endorsing previous findings in the existing literature (Ghertman, 1978;Larimo, 1995;Venieris and Cohen, 2004), and having parallels to the adaptive view of strategy (Mintzberg, 1978). Given, however, that the majority of prior research on FDI and general capital investment decision-making adopts a linear type model, the next section will outline the case study organisation's practices within the typically conceived stages, before moving on to a more comprehensive discussion of the case study findings.…”

Constraints and stimuli in the implementation of public accounting reform: systematic literature review and future research agenda

“…In developed countries, the change of governments and the different priorities of government departments are not conducive to smoothly functioning reforms (Nakmahachalasint and Narktabtee, 2019; Reginato et al , 2010; van Helden et al , 2018). Previous studies demonstrated that there is a lack of governmental commitment and involvement (Christiaens, 2001; Fuentes and Borreguero, 2018; Gomes et al , 2015; Venieris and Cohen, 2004). For instance, van Helden et al (2018) investigate why central governments in European countries have moved to accruals budgeting while others keep using cash budgeting, and find that stakeholders in government show more reluctance when deciding on a budgeting concept than a financial reporting change, which is perceived as being less essential.…”