The Role of Annual Reports in Ensuring Accountability

Regional development agencies (RDAs) are governance-based institutions that aim to help a specific region to socioeconomically develop by ensuring cooperation among the public sector, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations within that specific geographical region. In Turkey, which was not able to eliminate the regional differences via centralized policies, development agencies (DAs) were established as “the new-type organizations of public management” in the early 2000s. Taking part in regional development that is a vital area and not having a usual organization have increased the expectations from these agencies. Today, there is a great pressure on DAs concerning their accountability. The best way to understand the level of accountability of DAs that have an approximately 10-year history is to analyze the annual reports they have to announce to the public. This chapter carries out a content analysis on disclosure items in the annual reports of 25 DAs in Turkey and examines their level of accountability to their stakeholders.

Reflections on the Accounting Framework of Public Interest Cooperatives in Portugal

The purpose of this chapter is to determine whether the current accounting standards of public interest cooperatives in Portugal are adequate, taking into account the social object, particularly the pursuit of furthering public interest and the nature of the subjects that integrate it. Thus, through the methodology of content analysis, the authors analyze the various policies and accounting legislation as well as the literature available on this topic. Through the classification and analysis of the main characteristics of these cooperatives, the authors conclude that they should be subject to the Public Administration's accounting regime in order to respond to the needs of different users of information.

The Perception of Tax Complexity Within Local Authorities' VAT Framework

The relevance of the impact of tax complexity on tax noncompliance justifies the study of tax complexity in the scope of several taxpayers, including local authorities. This chapter analyses the case of the value added tax (VAT), a typical example where the misuse of exemptions and no subjections imply the no payment of taxes by citizens. Therefore, this chapter tries to assess, qualitatively and quantitatively, the levels of tax complexity perceived in local authorities' administrations through the amount of binding tax information those organizations request. The results suggest a high degree of perception of tax complexity and uncertainty as well as a lack of transparency associated with the tax framework of the activities of local authorities. It is pointed out that the perceived complexity is essentially legal. Moreover, the findings establish a relation between some more complex legal changes with great tax impact within these entities and the increase of the number of binding tax information requested on their subjects.

Portal for Employees in the Public Sector

The need to reduce public spending has led Portugal to make administrative reforms. To that end, it called on the so-called e-government, using ICT as a mechanism to increase the quality and transparency of public services while lowering costs and operationalizing new public policies. Although administrative decentralisation is enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, only recently has it been prioritised as one of the great objectives of the administrative reforms of the state. To this end, the transfer of the necessary financial and human resources are foreseen. This will imply the implementation of human resources management strategies and mechanisms that avoid surplus or shortage of human resources, both in Central and Local Administration. Therefore, in this chapter, the creation of the “Portal for Employees in the Public Sector” is proposed as a shared management tool.

Social Media Data Into Performance Measurement Systems

Social media data are spreading widely across the world with a number of public institutions now active on social media. Much attention is being paid to how public institutions can exploit social media, for example, to provide better public services or engage with the general public. Little is, however, known about the potential offered by the data generated through social media, in particular, the possibility of applying social media data formally within a performance measurement system (PMS). The aim of this chapter is to explore how social media data can be integrated into a PMS for a public institution, proposing in this respect a framework of analysis. This framework places the decision-maker at the centre of the cycle and it consists of three main phases: the collection of social media data, the computation of indicators, and the visualization of data.

Towards the Modernisation of EU Public Sector Accounting Standards

In the field of comparative international governmental accounting research, this chapter participates to the growing debate around the EPSAS-project that according to the EU Commission has a political priority. In this vein, it demonstrates that considering all the governmental subsectors of public administration (central government, state government, local government, social security funds) of the 28 EU Member States, proximity of national regulation to the IPSAS affects the magnitude of total adjustments. These are a proxy of fiscal fragility and are the difference between the non-harmonized data of governmental accounting and the harmonized ESA-2010 national accounting. Findings show that adjustments are significant in magnitude in countries whose regulation has low proximity to IPSAS; opposite, their magnitude is low in countries with high proximity to the IPSAS. Even if they have not provided the anticipated level of harmonisation, the process of modernising the EU public sector accounting standards cannot ignore that the future EPSAS should not diverge much from the IPSAS.

New Public Management Reforms and Modernization Changes in Australia

This chapter explores and explains recent modernisation changes in the Australian Public Sector and provides insights on implications of new public management style reform for public sector accounting, auditing and accountability systems and practices. By adopting a narrative analysis approach, this chapter reconnoitres the change by dissecting the public-sector governance, performance and accountability reform and identifies significant modernisation changes in public sector management which has switched focus from a “rules-based” to “principles-based” accountability framework. Moreover, this chapter highlights the changes, challenges and opportunities that arises with the implementation of the new framework which can be seen as an innovative determination of modernisation. The modernisation change in Australia has produced new ideas of good governance and requirements for meaningful accountability systems and practices by mobilising various accountability mechanisms such as accountable authority, corporate plan, program evaluation, performance measurement, and risk management.

The Impact of Accounting Information and Socioeconomic Factors in the Re-Election of Portuguese Mayors

The limited literature on the subject of this chapter only assesses whether accounting information has an impact on the electoral results, particularly in local governments. The authors are not aware of any study that evaluates the influence of accounting information and socioeconomic factors on the re-election of mayors, particularly in Portugal. Based on the assumptions of agency theory, the authors start with the research question, Do accounting information and socioeconomic factors influence the re-election of Portuguese mayors? The research methodology used is the quantitative type, through which a multivariate analysis of data was performed on 308 Portuguese municipalities in two elections cycles. Although the results did not show statistical significance for all the variables, the authors verified that certain variables of accounting nature and some socioeconomic factors appear to show potential for influencing re-election.

Impacts of Electronic Public Procurement in the Portuguese Construction Sector

The adoption of fully electronic public procurement (EPP) systems is a requirement laid out in a group of European Union directives. These standards seek to improve the rationalization of resources (i.e., on an economics level) in public administration through the replacement of paper-based procedures with electronic services (i.e., e-services), thereby contributing to the growth of electronic government (i.e., e-government) in all member states. This chapter evaluates the impacts of EPP based on information and communication technologies. Research was conducted in Portugal, in which data on five companies operating on an international scale were examined for any organizational difficulties in the adoption of e-procurement. The findings include the positive impacts of following the objectives of the European Union directives in question. User satisfaction regarding EPP-related electronic platforms was also investigated.

Cost Accounting in Brazil's Public Sector

The purpose of this chapter is to identify the importance, use, and level of implementation of cost accounting in Brazil's public sector and its relationship with the features of user's professional experience. The research is positivistic and quantitative, carried out through a survey to the employees of the accounting and internal control departments from the municipalities, states, and of the executive branch of the union. A total of 344 answers were obtained, and the analysis was performed only in 320 respondents from the executive branch of the Brazilian's public sector. The results show the users' belief in the importance of cost information for the public sector, but in spite of this belief, there is a low use of information that can be motivated by the lack of cost system implementation or by the primacy of the use of financial and budgetary information in decision making. The results show that the importance level of cost information is not significantly different independent of a low, high, or moderate experience in accounting or management experience.