IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ers/journl/vxxvy2022i3p555-581.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Autonomy of Public Sector Units in the Process of Formulating Accounting Policy – Evidence from Poland

Author

Listed:
  • Grzegorz Bucior
  • Aleksandra Zurawik

Abstract

Purpose: To examine the autonomy of public sector entity in the development and application of accounting policy, understood as a mandatory element of the accounting system, and the perception of such independence on the part of the persons responsible for accounting in these units. Design/Methodology/Approach: The article adopts a qualitative research approach, in accordance with the case study and survey method. The analysis incorporated data collected during a case study carried out in two Polish budgetary units (basic form of public finance sector units in Poland), the survey was completed by 35 intentionally selected entities. Findings: The authors found that the entities surveyed show independence in the creation and development of accounting policy and practice, however, this independence is significantly limited by the interference of supervisors. At the same time, the survey shows that the persons responsible for accounting in these entities consider it desirable to increase their freedom in accounting policy development. Practical implications: In their opinion, this will provide an opportunity to make the accounting system a tool that is more useful in management. Originality value: Examination of public-entity accounting policy is rare in general, and virtually absent with respect to Polish entities. Thus, this work is a step to fill this research gap. The article contributes to the literature on the subject by exploring the issue.

Suggested Citation

  • Grzegorz Bucior & Aleksandra Zurawik, 2022. "The Autonomy of Public Sector Units in the Process of Formulating Accounting Policy – Evidence from Poland," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(3), pages 555-581.
  • Handle: RePEc:ers:journl:v:xxv:y:2022:i:3:p:555-581
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ersj.eu/journal/3050/download
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caroline Aggestam Pontoppidan & Isabel Brusca, 2016. "The first steps towards harmonizing public sector accounting for European Union member states: strategies and perspectives," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 181-188, April.
    2. Ezzamel, M. & Hyndman, N. & Johnsen, A. & Lapsley, I., 2014. "Reforming central government: An evaluation of an accounting innovation," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 409-422.
    3. Zmijewski, Mark E. & Hagerman, Robert L., 1981. "An income strategy approach to the positive theory of accounting standard setting/choice," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 129-149, August.
    4. Augusta Ferreira & João Carvalho & Fátima Pinho, 2013. "Earnings Management Around Zero: A motivation to local politician signalling competence," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(5), pages 657-686, June.
    5. Ingram, Rw, 1984. "Economic Incentives And The Choice Of State Government Accounting Practices," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 126-144.
    6. Noel Hyndman & Mariannunziata Liguori, 2016. "Justifying accounting change through global discourses and legitimation strategies. The case of the UK central government," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 390-421, June.
    7. Schrand, Catherine M. & Zechman, Sarah L.C., 2012. "Executive overconfidence and the slippery slope to financial misreporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 311-329.
    8. Maria Jose Arcas & Caridad Martí, 2016. "Financial Performance Adjustment in English Local Governments," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 26(2), pages 141-152, June.
    9. Irvine Lapsley & Riccardo Mussari & Gert Paulsson, 2009. "On the Adoption of Accrual Accounting in the Public Sector: A Self-Evident and Problematic Reform," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 719-723.
    10. Pawan Adhikari & Levi Gårseth-Nesbakk, 2016. "Implementing public sector accruals in OECD member states: Major issues and challenges," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 125-142, June.
    11. Francesca Manes Rossi & Sandra Cohen & Eugenio Caperchione & Isabel Brusca, 2016. "Harmonizing public sector accounting in Europe: thinking out of the box," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 189-196, April.
    12. Tobias Jagalla & Peter Skaerbaek & Sebastian D. Becker, 2014. "The translation of accrual accounting and budgeting and the reconfiguration of public sector accountants' identities," Post-Print hal-01025960, HAL.
    13. James L. Chan, 2003. "Government Accounting: An Assessment of Theory, Purposes and Standards," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 13-20, January.
    14. Fields, Thomas D. & Lys, Thomas Z. & Vincent, Linda, 2001. "Empirical research on accounting choice," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 255-307, September.
    15. Goddard, Andrew, 2010. "Contemporary public sector accounting research – An international comparison of journal papers," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 75-87.
    16. Becker, Sebastian D. & Jagalla, Tobias & Skærbæk, Peter, 2014. "The translation of accrual accounting and budgeting and the reconfiguration of public sector accountants’ identities," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 324-338.
    17. Sheila Ellwood & Susan Newberry, 2016. "New development: The conceptual underpinnings of international public sector accounting," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 231-234, April.
    18. Jan van Helden, 2016. "Literature review and challenging research agenda on politicians’ use of accounting information," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(7), pages 531-538, November.
    19. Leone, Andrew J. & Van Horn, R. Lawrence, 2005. "How do nonprofit hospitals manage earnings?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 815-837, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francesco Badia & Tiziana Landi & Valentina Montin, 2019. "Innovation in Public Sector Accounting: a New Role for Local Governments?," Working Papers 2019048, University of Ferrara, Department of Economics.
    2. Pierre Donatella & Torbjörn Tagesson, 2021. "CFO characteristics and opportunistic accounting choice in public sector organizations," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 25(2), pages 509-534, June.
    3. Staci A. Kenno & Michelle C. Lau & Barbara J. Sainty, 2018. "In Search of a Theory of Budgeting: A Literature Review," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 507-553, December.
    4. Alessandro Lombrano, 2021. "Dall?armonizzazione alla standardizzazione contabile. Quale via per la riforma degli ordinamenti contabili europei," ECONOMIA PUBBLICA, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2021(3), pages 7-31.
    5. Elaine Stewart & Ciaran Connolly, 2021. "Recent UK Central Government Accounting Reforms: Claimed Benefits and Experienced Outcomes," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 57(3), pages 557-592, September.
    6. Amanda W. Beck, 2018. "Opportunistic financial reporting around municipal bond issues," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 785-826, September.
    7. Christian Nitzl & Dennis Hilgers & Bernhard Hirsch & David Lindermüller, 2020. "The Influence of the Organizational Structure, Environment, and Resource Provision on the Use of Accrual Accounting in Municipalities," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 72(2), pages 271-298, April.
    8. Yuping Jia & Laurence Van Lent & Yachang Zeng, 2014. "Masculinity, Testosterone, and Financial Misreporting," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(5), pages 1195-1246, December.
    9. Zubir Azhar & Ervina Alfan & Krishnen Kishan & Nurul Husna Assanah, 2022. "Accrual Accounting at Different Levels of the Public Sector: A Systematic Literature Review," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 32(1), pages 36-62, March.
    10. Sean Scannell & Vincent Tawiah, 2024. "A Thematic Literature Review on International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS)," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 1053-1075, September.
    11. Arwan Gunawan & Winwin Yadiati & Harry Suharman & K. Poppy Sofia, 2020. "Linkages to Budgetary Control and Budgetary Absorption Performance," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 10(5), pages 304-316.
    12. Vladan Pavlovic & Goranka Knezevic & Radica Bojicic, 2022. "The Impact of Gender and Age on Earnings Management Practices of Public Enterprises – A Case Study of Belgrade," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 130-148.
    13. Johnathon Cziffra & Steve Fortin & Zvi Singer, 2023. "Differences in government accounting conservatism across jurisdictions, their determinants, and consequences: the case of Canada and the United States," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 1035-1073, June.
    14. repec:bfv:journl:037 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Call, Andrew C. & Kedia, Simi & Rajgopal, Shivaram, 2016. "Rank and file employees and the discovery of misreporting: The role of stock options," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 277-300.
    16. Maria Jose Arcas & Caridad Martí, 2016. "Financial Performance Adjustment in English Local Governments," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 26(2), pages 141-152, June.
    17. Grzybek, Olga, 2023. "Are accounting choices for intangible assets informative or opportunistic? Evidence from Poland," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    18. Hanane Jafi & Said Youssef, 2021. "Public sector accounting education and training as supportive mechanisms of the ongoing accrual-based accounting reforms," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 25(1), pages 1-8, November.
    19. Siriluck Sutthachai & Terence E. Cooke, 2009. "An Analysis of Thai Financial Reporting Practices and the Impact of the 1997 Economic Crisis," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 45(4), pages 493-517, December.
    20. Abernethy, Margaret A. & Bouwens, Jan & Kroos, Peter, 2017. "Organization identity and earnings manipulation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-14.
    21. Changwony, Frederick Kibon & Paterson, Audrey S., 2019. "Accounting practice, fiscal decentralization and corruption," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(5).

    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:ers:journl:v:xxv:y:2022:i:3:p:555-581. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Marios Agiomavritis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ersj.eu/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.