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Sustainability Accounting and Reporting in the Public Sector: Towards Public Value Co-Creation?

Author

Listed:
  • Aurelio Tommasetti

    (Department of Business Science—Management and Innovation Systems, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy)

  • Riccardo Mussari

    (Department of Business and Law, University of Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy)

  • Gennaro Maione

    (Department of Business Science—Management and Innovation Systems, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy)

  • Daniela Sorrentino

    (Department of Business and Law, University of Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy
    Italy Department of Economics and Management, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy)

Abstract

The economic, social, and environmental contingencies of the last two decades have called into question the need for public sector organizations to align accounting practices with sustainable concerns. Sustainability refers to the ability of organizations to co-create economic value in the long run, involving all stakeholders, safeguarding the environment, and generating well-being for the community. While this topic attracts increasing interests from several perspectives, there is a lack of a comprehensive assessment of how academia is debating it. Therefore, this paper reviews the field of sustainability, accounting, and reporting (SAR) in the public sector in order to develop insights into how the literature is developing the theme of public value (PV) co-creation, offer a critique of the state-of-the-art to date, and outline future research opportunities. The study is based on a structured literature review (SLR) methodology that enables studying the corpus of scholarly literature, developing insights, critical reflections, and future research paths. The results highlight that, although the involvement of stakeholders appears as crucial for developing SAR practices in the public sector, scholars have not yet adopted a PV co-creation perspective to this phenomenon, since, at best, previous studies only focused on the stakeholders’ involvement, without considering other aspects such as synergistic integration of resources and alignment of purposes. Therefore, academics should rethink their research setting and implications to provide a significant contribution by conducting studies capable of leading future development of SA in the public sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Aurelio Tommasetti & Riccardo Mussari & Gennaro Maione & Daniela Sorrentino, 2020. "Sustainability Accounting and Reporting in the Public Sector: Towards Public Value Co-Creation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-19, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:5:p:1909-:d:327730
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