Contextualizing politicians’ uses of accounting information: reassurance and ammunition

Abstract

This paper explores the use of accounting information by local government politicians. The authors examined three very typical council decisions in both their policy formulation and decision-making stages, which had different levels of political conflict. During policy formulation, accounting information was used mostly to provide answers—improving understanding. At the decision-making stage, the level of conflict influenced the quantity of information used, as well as the way it was used. Under low political conflict, accounting information primarily provided reassurance, whereas when there were conflicts between majority and opposition politicians, accounting information was used to (de)legitimize political positions and decisions. This paper is one of the first to contextualize politicians’ use of accounting information and has important implications for practice and future research.

Keywords:

• Accounting information
• level of conflict
• municipalities
• policy stages
• politicians

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the guest editors of this theme and to one of the reviewers for helpful comments on an early draft of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Davide Giacomini

Davide Giacomini is a Research Fellow in the Department of Economics and Management, University of Brescia, Italy.

Mariafrancesca Sicilia

Mariafrancesca Sicilia is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Economics and Quantitative Methods, University of Bergamo, Italy.

Ileana Steccolini

Ileana Steccolini was an Associate Professor at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy when this paper was written. She is now Professor of Accounting and Finance at Newcastle University, London campus, UK.