Author
Listed:
- Susana Jorge
- Maria Antónia Jorge de Jesus
- Sónia P. Nogueira
Abstract
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to research the use of accounting information by politicians. Based on the Portuguese Parliament setting, it seeks to understand how useful politicians consider this information to be, what type of budgetary and financial information they use, and for what purposes. Finally, the research also seeks to find out whether politicians resort to expert intermediaries or advisors help them in the use of this information. Design/methodology/approach - Following a qualitative and interpretative methodology, the study draws upon interviews with Members of Parliament in Portugal (and their technical advisors (TAs)) from all political parties, in particular the members of the Budget, Finance and Administrative Modernization Committee (COFMA) of the Parliament. Findings - Research shows that, due to the general lack of knowledge and the complexity of the accounting information, politicians in the Parliament do not use it frequently, only occasionally. To be better or worse informed for the debates and other activities depends on each Member of Parliament’s personal willingness to prepare oneself, notwithstanding some aggregated and previously analyzed information made available by official technical support units. Parliamentarians may also resort to TAs, who prepare the information at their request. Both intermediaries and TAs are deemed important to support parliamentarians’ understanding of more technical budgetary and financial issues. Practical implications - This paper shows that politicians acknowledge there is room for improving the role of information intermediaries and advisors, who would support them to better understand and use accounting information. Parliamentary groups incharge of hiring advisors, as well as accounting professionals, in Portugal and in other countries, must be aware of the very useful role accountants play in this process. Social implications - While allowing to understand whether and how politicians use accounting information, this research contributes to the process of public sector accounting reforms in Portugal, and at an international level, inasmuch as public sector accounting and reporting standards should better address these users’ information needs. Assuming that these reforms would foster more accurate, transparent and useful information for accountability and decision making, it is essential that politicians acknowledge and become real users of accounting information, in order to accomplish those objectives. Originality/value - This study contributes to the general knowledge of how politicians use accounting information. Academic studies so far have not gathered enough evidence about the type of accounting information that is actually important for politicians. This paper highlights that use of such information by politicians depends on individual skills and their willingness to receive the appropriate advice.
Suggested Citation
Susana Jorge & Maria Antónia Jorge de Jesus & Sónia P. Nogueira, 2019.
"The use of budgetary and financial information by politicians in parliament: a case study,"
Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(4), pages 539-557, November.
Handle:
RePEc:eme:jpbafm:jpbafm-11-2018-0135
DOI: 10.1108/JPBAFM-11-2018-0135
Download full text from publisher
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the
CitEc Project, subscribe to its
RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
- Manel Benzerafa-Alilat & Nino Tandilashvili & Marion Friscia, 2023.
"Do parliamentarians use the audits they commission from the Court of Auditors? Exploratory research [Les parlementaires utilisent-ils les audits qu’ils commanditent à la Cour des comptes ? Recherch,"
Post-Print
hal-04390793, HAL.
- Susana Jorge & Sónia Nogueira & Maria Antónia Jesus, 2023.
"Financial Information Use In Parliamentary Debates In A Changing Context,"
Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1611-1638, December.
- Asifiwe Kyando & Abdiel Abayo & Gwahula Raphael, 2022.
"Determinants of the extent of usage of accounting information by Public Accounts Committee in Tanzania public corporations: Moderating role of effective communication,"
International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 11(9), pages 205-221, December.
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:jpbafm:jpbafm-11-2018-0135. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.