Special issue on Financial reform and accounting change in the public sector

Citation

(2006), "Special issue on Financial reform and accounting change in the public sector", Journal of Accounting & Organizational Change, Vol. 2 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jaoc.2006.31502baa.002

Special issue on Financial reform and accounting change in the public sector

Despite consuming a significant proportion of the world's GDP, the public sector has only relatively recently become the subject of intense research. Within this, accounting has been a topic of considerable interest, being part of the reform agenda that has achieved virtually world wide application. From a global perspective, while individual countries are moulding their own unique approaches, it is possible to identify general trends, such as the marketisation of service provision and the involvement of the private sector. Thus, with financial accounting, although there is a general trend towards the adoption of private sector techniques, mainly accrual accounting, a variety of local approaches can be discerned to both the measurement and presentation of results.

Accounting change has been, and continues to be, a component of the New Public Management agenda, and, indeed a sub-set has been identified that is referred to as New Public Financial Management. However, a number of issues remain unresolved from the ``big question'' of whether accruals accounting is an appropriate medium through which to report public sector results to the more detailed questions on particular reporting issues, such as how to account for heritage assets. As well as the direct accounting questions, there are also the interactions between accounting and the other aspects of New Public Management. The aim of this special edition of Journal of Accounting and Organisational Change is to promote informed debate on the role of financial accounting in the context of public sector reforms. We invite historical, theoretical, empirical, practical, and review papers, whether quantitative or qualitative, from scholars across disciplines on the following issues affecting financial accounting in the public sector:

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  The international standardisation movement;

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  Setting financial reporting standards in the public sector;

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  Accounting for public sector entities;

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  Whole of government accounts;

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  The role of financial accounting in the accountability agenda;

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  The drivers of accounting change;

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  The role of consultants;

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  Intellectual and social capital;

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  Gender, culture and ethnicity;

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  Education, training, and professionalisation; and

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  Consideration of how the public sector accounting debate might inform that in the private sector.

These themes are only indicative. Papers outside them with relevance to understanding financial accounting practices inthe public sector are welcomed. The deadline for submissions is 31 December 2006. Accepted papers will be published in 2007.

Please prepare your manuscript according to JAOC guidelines. For details, visit www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/jaoc/jaoc.jsp. Either editor can be contacted with enquiries.All papers should be submitted electronically to Howard Mellett.

Guest EditorsProfessor Christine Ryan, School of Accountancy, QUT, PO Box 2434, Brisbane 4000, Australia. E-mail: cm.ryan@qut.edu.auProfessor Howard Mellett, Cardiff Business School, Colum Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU, UK. E-mail: mellett@cardiff.ac.uk