Public-sector Financial Management and E-government: The Role Played by Accounting Systems

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the relationship between two central features of public-sector financial management reforms: accounting innovations and e-government. It focuses on the quality and ease of access to information provided by different accounting systems and e-government strategies. Based on a sample of 33 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the findings underscore the need to adopt a holistic perspective that considers not only technological issues but also the quality and integrity of information, its international comparability, and the socioeconomic context. The results suggest that both technical and social factors should be considered in adopting e-government.

KEYWORDS:

• E-government
• e-participation
• IPSAS
• accrual accounting
• public-sector accounting

Notes

1. “High-quality” means the information meets a series of requirements ensuring integrity, methodological soundness, accuracy and reliability, serviceability, and accessibility, along with prerequisites related to the legal and institutional environment, resources, and relevance of information (IMF, 2012).

2. South Korea and Latvia are OECD members, but they were excluded from the sample because of a lack of data on several control variables.